Thoughts on the first Virgin River trilogy by Robyn Carr
I have to start this post by warning y’all that it’s not my usual style. It’s kind of rambly and stream-of-conscious, and is also spoilertastic. You have been warned.
One of the series I discovered last year, when I was in the middle of a blogging slump was the Virgin River series by Robyn Carr. I have read the first three books in the series, which are as follows:
The premise is this. Virgin River is a small, idyllic town in the mountains of Northern California, which seems to attract the lonely, the hurting, and the broken-hearted. We begin the series with Mel, who needs a new start in life after the death of her husband and comes to Virgin River to practice midwifery and gets involved with Jack, the owner of the town bar. The second book features Paige, a battered wife on the run from an abusive ex, who ends up with Jack’s partner at the bar, a big teddy bear of a guy named Preacher. (Preacher, incidentally, is my absolute favorite Virgin River man so far. He’s big and burly, but also extremely awkward and shy, and he was a virgin, which is enough of a rarity in romance fiction that I still find it awesome when it happens.) In the third book, Jack’s sister, Brie, ends up brutally attacked and ends up finding love with Mike, an ex-cop friend of Jack’s who’s also turned up in Virgin River.
What I like about these books is that, in addition to the rather strong romance storylines, there’s a real sense of the town. I get the feeling that there really are people with lives that don’t intersect often with the main cast of characters. I appreciate it when authors do this, as it lends verisimilitude to their settings, and Virgin River, in Ms. Carr’s hands, is a place I’d like to visit.
I do have to admit that I went into the books not really expecting straight-up romance. I enjoy the books all the more for that fact, though, because I genuinely like the setting and the characters. I also think that the romantic aspects of the books, while important, aren’t really Ms. Carr’s strong point, because, at least in the books I’ve read, they’re fairly repetitive. After all, how many Marines with deep personal pain can there be for every hapless damsel who’s just suffered personal tragedy to stumble upon? Honestly, I’d much rather read about the couples after their courtship. Mel and Jack’s wedded bliss, for example, is far from the treacle you’d get in most traditional romances, and I think the scene where Preacher informs a whole barful of Marines that he’s closing early on account of its being ovulation day cracks me up.
The books have tackled lots of relevant issues as well, everything from the ethics of dealing with local marijuana growers to the need for contraception to teenage drug use. Sometimes Ms. Carr handles these issues better than others–like, there’s one particular marijuana grower who is quite interesting and who I know from reading spoilers becomes more important in the series later. Then again, there was the bombshell in the thirdd book where one woman, after finally getting a mammogram, finds out she’s got breast cancer and is dead by a few dozen pages later. That whole subplot was just a bit too precious for words.
And then there’s the Rick/Liz subplot. See, Rick’s a randy 17-year-old boy who sometimes helps Jack at the bar. And he met a new girl, Liz, who was 15 and basically tarting it up. They ended up having sex, and Liz became pregnant. Afterwords, a whole mess of slut-shaming ensued. Liz basically becomes weepy and distraught, and presumably quits wearing skirts that hike up to her crotch. And Rick whines and emoes about how he’s totally ruined Liz’s life and he’ll never, never, never have sex with her again until she grows up. He worries about Liz but in kind of a self-absorbed way that, while I’m sure it’s authentic, grated on my nerves, especially since, as readers, we never saw Liz’s POV. We just know that Rick thinks she’s too young, her aunt thinks she was being a little tart but loves her anyway, and Mel just wants to do the best she can by her as her midwife. And then, after Liz loses the baby–a karmic death if ever there was one–Rick decides he needs to up and join the Marines. Because he decides for Liz that Liz is too young and needs to grow up. So, you know, instead of actually, truly making sure she’s OK, he’s like, “See you after basic.” And, as I understand it, he gets his own book in the series in which he has PTSD, which means former slut Liz will probably selflessly stand by and wipe his emo tears.
…Wow. I really didn’t think I had that much animosity toward that one particular subplot.
There is also a whole lot of “Ra ra ra, yay Marines!” talk in this series. You know a male character is supposed to be good and honorable if he is either planning to serve in the Marines or has served in the Marines or some other branch of the military. That aspect of the series isn’t one I can speak about, because the people in my family who are uber-military types aren’t generally people I talk to enough to ask, “Is it really like that? Do you feel extremely close to all your Marine brothers and would you do anything for any of them?”
That being said, the Marines stuff balances out well with Mel’s character, who is generally a positive example of a strong feminist who isn’t a hard-ass. She’s dedicated to midwifery and women’s health issues, and I appreciate that she doesn’t poo-poo the idea of abortion outright, since there are characters for whom that comes up. (Thankfully, in Virgin River, if you don’t want a baby, you will lose it due to miscarriage or stillbirth, so actually having Mel hold someone’s hand during an abortion isn’t ever likely to come up.)
In conclusion, despite some of the snarky things I’ve said, I find these books comforting. It’s fun to slip back into a familliar world with familliar characters. I generally know where the plots are going, and the sequel-baiting is pretty unsubtle–in the same way that an anvil to the back of the head is pretty unsubtle–but I think that’s part of their charm. You know what you’re going to get, and when you get it, it makes you feel good. I wouldn’t call these keepers, but they are strong, b-grade comfort reads.
You know, when I first read the trilogy my reaction to the Rick/Liz plotline was the exact oppposite of yours. I tended to side with Rick (and everyone else) that Liz was too young and things happened for a reason and yada yada yada. Now, having read the rest of the series, I can look back and realize how flawed their story is – and not in a good way.
As for the Marines..I come from a long line of Marines – ones that are very close to me – and I can tell you that yes, that’s how these men really are. Especially ones who have been in combat together. I found that aspect of the series to be very believable. Though, like you, I did find myself becoming annoyed with the same old “there is a Marine for every damsel in distress”.
Overall I agree with your summation. I would highly suggest stopping with these three books, however. While many of the books that follow have good points and are reasonably enjoyable, the bad seem to far outweigh the good.
Yeah, I agree that Liz was way too young for what happened. And I didn’t disagree with Rick’s decisions exactly. I don’t think I’d have appreciated him as a character if he hadn’t been forced to grow up a little. But… There was still no Liz POV. I knew that she was too young and not able to cope well with the situation because I am an adult woman and know that fifteen just is too young to be wasting her life like that. But I would have liked to see inside Liz’s head, learn why she thought she had to go all the way with Rick, and what she went through during the pregnancy. Instead, we got a lot of BS about Rick being all, “Jack, you must be so disappointed in me. I have failed you entirely.” Which seems a little one-sided.
Oh, and speaking of the teenagers, Tom Booth irritated the snot out of me. I was calling him Wally Cleaver in my head, and I didn’t buy for a moment that he was a genuine seventeen-year-old boy, more like a 40-year-old woman pretending.
LOL the Marines stuff did read as very genuine. I’m glad that’s how it really is for them. Her books make me want to find a nice guy in uniform to cuddle up with, except then we’d start discussing politics and there would go the fantasy.
I’m torn about whether to go on. I like the saga of the small town, but I know the reviews I’ve read keep getting progressively worse as the series goes on. I guess I’ll see how I feel after reading the Christmas book.
I started reading Virgin River but did not finish it. I thought it would be a romance and was totally underwhelmed by it. Like you said, I appreciated the stuff around the romance but the romance itself didn’t do much for me-to put it mildly. Especially since I didn’t like Jack at all. In fact I despised him.
I know, he’s supposed to be nice and likable and he treated Mel like the earth revolved around her but I didn’t like the way he behaved toward that woman he visited like a prostitute (and treated her accordingly only that the poor thing didn’t even get paid for her efforts) I never saw a romance novel hero treating his mistress so very shabbily as that one did. Coming as he pleased, being away for weeks without giving notice, not caring about the woman and her life at all and then demanding fidelity from her on top of all-that was too much.
I wondered why the author put these nasty aspects in, it ruined the whole book for me. Since the book was otherwise so realistic I couldn’t help thinking if Jack wouldn’t start treating Mel also shabbily the moment he has her for sure. I found him so lacking in character. Maybe Ms. Carr thought his wartime heroism made up for his nastiness against the women in his life before Mel-but I couldn’t cut him slack for that. The book was a do not finish for me, even though the setting and town characters were really gripping.
Coming late to the party with not much to add. I just read the first book in this series, and really, really liked it! I found the marijuana side story a little unreal, but it may well be something that is really an issue in that area and I just wouldn’t know.
I have yet to read the second and third books so didn’t know what the outcome was for the Rick and Liz storyline was. I did think that the author wrote the scenes about them having sex quite realistically.
I didn’t see the relationship between Jack and the woman in the same way as Kerstin did. They were two consenting adults who had an arrangement that seemed to work for them both, until it didn’t work any more. Things may have changed between those two adults on both sides, but I didn’t see it as a prostitute without payment kind of deal.
Marg, sorry for any spoilers.
I did agree that the teenage sex part was handled well. But the consequences felt too soap operaish for me.
I also get what Kirsten is saying re: Jack/the other woman. I wasn’t as bothered about it as she was, but something about that relationship did irk me. I think it was that Jack was so furtive about it. And then every time the woman came up again he was like, “He felt guilty about her, but he loved Mel.” I felt kind of bad for her, all things considered.
I wasn’t bothered by Jack having a casual affair, I was bothered by him holding all the power in it and abusing that power. It was him who determined all the rules in this arrangement-to his advantage, the mistress had absolutely no say in this matter and her needs were of no importance to Jack. His will, and his will alone was all that mattered. He was so secretive about it all, he didn’t even telephoned his mistress up before he came visiting her. She had to leave her job and come with him the moment Jack bothered to pay a visit to her.
The mistress seemed very desperate and weak to put up with all that extremely bad behavior and I attributed it to the fact that there were no eligible bachelors for her available so in order to have at least some sex and physical contact in her life she had to put up with Jack’s shabby treatment. The mistress certainly was very needy and probably sexually dependent on Jack but it rubs me off the wrong way if one “consenting adult” is so very weak and the other holds all the trump cards in the relationship and does know it and use that power against the weaker one. It’s a sign of great selfishness and it seems like a very bad character to me when people abuse power-in whatever form that may happen. I really hated Jack because of his treatment of that woman. And that he demanded fidelity of her when he only bothered to show up every now and then whenever he felt like it and had the itch, sometimes being away for weeks, that was way too much. How could he be possessive about a woman he actually cared so very little about, ruining her chances to find someone better suited to her needs? That seemed like a supreme act of selfishness to me.
What totally annoys me is that the whole mistress plot was so superfluous, why alienating potential readers with such a plot-line that had little, if any effect on the rest of the story? Jack was supposed to be a nice guy, why did the author had to ruin the image she actually wanted to create? I really don’t get it.
It’s really telling that none of us can remember the woman’s name, isn’t it?
And yeah… If I recall the mistress was older… possibly a widow? Or divorced?
But in the Virgin River-verse, all of the men seem to really have the sexual power. It’s still very telling to me that it was Rick who put the kibbosh on his thing with Liz because he decided he was ruining her life. I guess he learned something from Jack there. *sigh*
Kersten,
I hadn’t thought about until you brought it up, but I do remember being slightly annoyed over the situation at the time. I believe Carr was trying to give us another example of Jack being a good guy..he broke off his “sometimes” fling before engaging in any type of relationship with the heroine. It didn’t quite come off right, though.
I do have to disagree in respect to your annoyance over him demanding fidelity. Yes, that seems rather ridiculous, but only if you don’t take into account that he was also faithful. He didn’t tell her she had to be faithful and then cat around, thus producing a double standard. Which I suppose is the main reason I wasn’t extremely offended.
Well, yeah, but Jack wasn’t even available for the mistress-if she felt the itch that was her problem. She didn’t have an idea when Jack would show up again. It could be days, it could be weeks. Besides he kept her hidden, stuck away like a skeleton in the closet. What sort of “relationship” is that? No relationship at all in fact and then to demand fidelity-wow, that’s cheek. That was when I decided that Jack can’t be a nice guy if he’s that self-centered. It would be a totally different situation if they had a fair arrangement like they met every Sunday and Thursday at 9 p.m at her place and she could phone him up and switch dates because of her schedule. That all really, totally bothered me-but obviously not the author who seemed to think that this is an OK arrangement for a guy. Maybe that was what bothered me most, that a woman would think it OK if a man treats his lover like that. The author’s mindset really didn’t work for me. And that’s why I am hesitant to try out her other books.
I am on the next to last book of Virgin River series. I’m also new on the many workings on the computer even though I’ve had the computer a couple of years. ( maybe being 70 yrs & self taught explains it).
I have enjoyed each book except for the sexual description in them. I think each man is an exact dupblicate of each other. I’m not going into detail except to say Preacher must have taken lessons from Jack (even though he was a virgin & I don’t think his marine brothers knew that.
Then Jack taught Mike (he taught Rick how to be careful which Rick wasn’t) Then Matt was taught the same thing, etc, etc. I feel some things didn’t have to be explained in detail. We all have imaginations. But I have enjoyed every book.
I don’t knoe if I’ll go Grace Valley (the next series of books). I have Karen Kingsbury’s newest book coming out 3/23. Then I may go back to Debbie Macomber who I startest while waiting for Kingsbury’s newest.