In my last review in the Virgin River series, I said I would take a break from the predictable small town. I did - I started reading a couple of other books, but they didn't quite grab me in the same way as Virgin River did. They were tougher reads and I was struggling with them a bit, and I wanted to remind myself of my love of reading and thought I would smash through another Virgin River book to break out of the funk I'd accidentally got myself into.
If you want to catch up on my reviews of the earlier books, you can see them here: Book 1, Book 2, Book 3.
This book is a bit different - the first book introduced us to a small town full of characters and the subsequent books have seen those characters meet and fall in love with their own romance stories. However, this story introduced brand new characters not seen in the series before. It is also, as the title suggests, set around Christmas and is therefore a short timeline.
Marcie is the main character, and it's about her journey to find her late husband's best friend. Her husband, Bobby, was a marine who was injured in action - his best friend saved his life but he was left completely paralysed. For over 3 years he was in that state before he passed away.
His best friend, Ian, returned from Iraq not long after Bobby had been injured and Ian went from a shining star in the marines to leaving the brotherhood, his fiancé, and his father and disappearing seemingly from existence.
Bobby had written so much about Ian that Marcie felt like she knew him too. One thing that she had really latched on to was that they often talked about their baseball card collections and what cards they might swap when they returned home. When her husband passed, she felt that she needed to deliver his baseball cards to Ian - and find out if he was OK, since he hadn't been heard from for years.
It's a year since her husband died and Marcie has realised that this is unfinished business that she needs to reconcile that in order to move on. Unsurprisingly, her journey to locate Ian takes her to Virgin River, and that's where most of this story takes place.
Marcie finds Ian in the mountains outside the small town of Virgin River, and he's not in the sort of state she thought she'd find him in. Is he a broken man, or is he now where he's supposed to be? Can she get the closure she was looking for?
The whole story takes place over just 10 days - it is a shorter timeline than the previous books. It also introduces new characters (as I said earlier) but still drops in on our favourite characters from earlier in the series.
After feeling like the books were falling into a romance novel trope, this feels fresh and different.
I find I can often identify with people and characters who suffer with PTSD - I've had that as a diagnosis for my trauma from my accident, and I can really identify with Ian. His trauma was slightly (!) different to mine, but his reaction felt very familiar. It perhaps contributed to my enjoyment of the book.
Ian's journey and realisation (warning, spoilers ahead) that he has two choices when reacting to the events in his life. He can either stick his head in the sand - run away and hide out, and almost test his friends and family to see if they pursue him to check on him. Or he can make a choice to engage with people, to live in community - to give and take, and support each other when needed.
(Spoilers continue here) He had realised he had made the easy choice, and maybe for a little while at least, it was the right choice - he needed to remove himself and lick his wounds. But perhaps he'd wound up hiding out for too long. Marcie came along and almost freed him from himself and the prison he had made for himself.
(Still spoilers...) The reflection I can see of myself, is that after my accident, I didn't exactly run completely at first, but I did stick my head in the sand before running away from the city that I had grown to love. I isolated myself and I have struggled somewhat to make connections with people again since... until I moved to Guildford and started working at AQA. Sometimes you need that space alone to recover, but ultimately, we are made to thrive in community.
(Not really spoilers anymore, but definitely related to spoilers...) When I think about thriving in community, it makes me think of the first chapters of Genesis. God created Adam, but said that "It's not good for the Man to be alone; I'll make him a helper, a companion" (Gen 2:18, MSG) and that's when he created Eve. God himself is not alone! He is the Holy Trinity - 3 in 1 (which is a bizarre concept to try and get your head round really).
(Back to spoilers) So when Ian realises that he is ready to return to life with others (and obviously with Marcie, because this is a romance novel after all) it doesn't really come as a surprise, but it's a lovely journey to go on with him.
(Spoiler free zone!) The other thing to mention is that this is clearly a Christmas themed novel, and I felt a bit hesitant to read this in March/April. However, I would argue this isn't a Christmas theme book, but merely a book set at Christmas... which is the argument many people make about Die Hard not being a Christmas film, but a film set at Christmas, which I argue passionately against, so making this comparison feels like I'm treading on some very thin ice.
I concluded before that the formula being used was getting repetitive. I think I said that "the men all fall in love with the women instantly, and the women need cajoling into it, as a result of their *insert trauma here*." - well this book turned that on it's head. Yes, Marcie had suffered a trauma, but she had taken the positives out of it. Ian had suffered the same trauma and had experienced the negatives of it.
I felt like it was a well drawn comparison of how to deal with grief and loss - with two characters taking the polar opposite position after dealing with the loss of the same person.
I felt that Robyn Carr has really hit her stride in this book, and stretched herself a bit with her characters and story, and has developed her best story in the series so far. I also don't think you need to have read the other books to read this one, as the two main charaters are completely new. It does make reference to Jack and Mel, Preacher and Paige, and Mike and Brie, but it's only ever passing references.
Despite my trepidation to continue reading the Virgin River series, I'm so pleased I decided to carry on. This was a real pleasure to read and I recommend it!