Paradise Valley

Rick is injured on the battlefield & loses his leg. Pushing away Jack & his girlfriend Liz, he comes back to Virgin River despondent. Abby, pregnant with Cam's twins after the one-night stand, finally agrees to move in with him, but the fact that he's the father is guessed by quite a few folks. Muriel, the movie star, and Walt, the retired general's romance is almost on the skids when she goes on location for a movie and Walt doesn't rearrange his life to see her at all. Recurring minor character, Dan Brady, now a former grower, settles in town and starts working for Paul at his construction company. Dan is also a vet that lost his leg, although that comes out late in the novel when he's the one that knocks some sense into Rick. And Dan is also renting and renovating former town drunk Cheryl's childhood home, and slowly starting a friendship with her.

Feeling very annoyed that this book ended. Feel there are still too many loose ends. We ARE going to see more VR book in the future, aren't we?

The beauty of these books is that everything isn't good or beautiful, sometimes, like in real life, bad things happens and change everything and you need to learn how to do things the right way...This is one of these books, when things get ugly and bad, when there is no hope or light, you just need to let it go and grab the good things you have in life. Like Rick did or Dan and Cheryl did.Virgin River is definitely a place to learn and enjoy life and its blessings. Five stars for Robyn Carr

Abby and Cameron find each other and twins, Dan comes back and meets Cheryl, and the General and Muriel romance

This was another beautiful installment to the Virgin River series. A bit darker and heavier than previous books. I cried a couple of times over poor Rick. So lost and angry he was. Liz, also made me cry. Abby, I felt bad for her but she was harder to like for me. I love Cameron. Dan was surprisingly more lovable in this book. His mystery finally, slowly unraveling. Cheryl, can't help but cheer for her and her recovery. Everyone else was wonderful, if not necessarily having a good time they handled it pretty well. This was a hard story to read. Yet it was amazing. So amazing.

Rick's part of the story wasn't that great at all, he was a jerk almost 98% of the time and it just wasn't that good, Liz's part in it though was amazing. Never thought that girl had so much of a backbone like she showed us. Loved, loved Cameron and Abby and all the subplots in the book, like Dan and Cheryl. Very, very good.

Great to read an American author who isn't all about drama but let's characters have full rounded normal lives. Robyn Carr should run writers workshops for all those authors in her country who need to learn how to write real characters, a good novel isn't one that depends heavily on drama. I'm working my through the whole series audibly and its a treat.

Every return visit I've made to Virgin River so far has been a pleasant and enjoyable one, and Paradise Valley was no exception. I only had a few small complaints (hence the half star deduction). The first is that the back cover blurb made it sound like this book was going to be Rick and Liz's story, and after all this young couple has been through, I was really looking forward to them having a book that was virtually all their own. However, this wasn't quite the case. I suppose there was a bit more focus given to their romance, but really this book contained an ensemble of couples. In addition to Rick and Liz weathering through another trial, there is also major relationship progression for Cameron and Abby and Walt and Muriel, as well as a brand new romance for two secondary characters who have been a part of Virgin River since the first book of the series. I can't complain too much though, because I really liked all four couples. Another little issue I had is that there was very little romance for the first half of the book, so it takes a while for things to really get going. The three established couples spend most of this time in conflict, but about halfway through the reader is finally treated to some really deep emotion and more of the tender, heart-stopping romance I've come to expect from the Virgin River series. Lastly, I was a tad disappointed that Rick and Liz didn't get a reunion love scene after they finally worked everything out, especially since they were ostensibly the “main” couple. Overall though, all of my little criticisms were far outweighed by the sheer joy of revisiting these characters, so it was still a great story.Rick has definitely grown up, but it hasn't been an easy road for him in the least. He's now a wounded warrior both in body and spirit and spends a little time indulging in some self-pity. He's been through so much in his short life that now he thinks he's bad luck for everyone and that they're better off without him. He ends up pushing away nearly everyone he's ever cared about, including Liz and Jack, even though all they want to do is love and support him. The back and forth struggle that Rick goes through, one minute longing to have any small connection he can to Liz, like listening to her phone messages over and over, and the next, ruthlessly tamping down his feelings for her, was very realistic and well-done. He never stopped loving her but believed he wasn't good for her and she could do better. Rick ends up treating Jack like dirt too, but eventually he comes to his senses in a dramatic, heart-wrenching moment. For her part, Liz has been completely committed and faithful to Rick through his Marine training and tour of Iraq. She didn't hesitate to go to Germany the minute she got word of him being wounded and didn't even flinch at the sight of his severe injury. She's a strong young woman who has weathered through all the bad times with Rick and is determined to not give up on him even when he won't answer his phone or speak to her. She never stops trying until he breaks her heart face-to-face, but even then, deep down, she couldn't stop loving him. That kind of loyalty is very rare in one so young, which in my book makes her a great heroine. It was also why it was difficult to handle the way Rick treated her, but in spite of that, I still understood his pain too.Cameron and Abby are a pair of sweethearts, who I instantly liked when they hooked up in the last book. Their story picks up exactly where it left off, with Abby still running scared. She's afraid of what her cheating, no-good ex might do if he finds out she's pregnant and violated their prenup just a week before their divorce was final. She's also having a little trouble trusting a man whom she barely knows. These issues, combined with pregnancy hormones, make Abby a little prickly in the beginning, but Cameron is nothing if not patient and persistent. At first, there seems to be a lot of distance between this couple, as Cameron works to try to find a way to just be parenting partners. He doesn't want to completely scare Abby off, but he is insistent, and rightfully so, on being a father to his children. Many men wouldn't do nearly that much, especially if the mother was fighting him on it the way Abby sometimes did. I love the way he was so focused on taking care of Abby throughout the remainder of her pregnancy. He's a very selfless man who always tries to put her needs first and was willing to go anywhere or do anything to stay close to her and the babies, and eventually his gentleness and patience paid off, giving him everything he's ever dreamed of.Walt and Muriel are proof that love and romance isn't just for the young, but also the young at heart. They enjoy as healthy of a sex life as some of their younger counterparts, and surprisingly, they got the first love scene of the book and were the only one of the four couples to get a full love scene that didn't involve dreams, rough, angry sex, or convolutions to get around a pregnancy. Muriel is still off filming her movie that she hopes will finally win her the Oscar, while Walt pines away in loneliness back in Virgin River. He doesn't think that he can fit into her world full of glitz and glamor, but eventually, he decides to take a chance on this headstrong, independent woman who turns out to have a surprisingly vulnerable side. Whenever this couple gets together around Muriel's' work schedule, they act like a couple of teenagers falling in love for the first time.Last but not least, we have Dan (aka Shady Brady) who has been there since the beginning. At first, I thought maybe he was an undercover cop or something, but apparently not. He returns to Virgin River after a short stint in prison for illegally growing pot. Understandably, Jack and the others are a little wary of him at first, but they haven't forgotten how he saved Paige's life and helped them in other ways too. Paul was a stand-up guy to take a chance on hiring Dan, and Jack comes around pretty fast as well. I thought Robyn Carr did a great job of redeeming this character into an appealing hero. It seems that deep down he's always had a conscience and good reasons for what he did. Now he's trying to turn over a new leaf. He has a lot in common with the other men of Virgin River and feels especially connected to Rick. Dan also connects with another long-time resident of Virgin River who has felt like just as much of an outcast, the former town drunk, Cheryl. Cheryl is doing really well, post-rehab, but is pretty wary of getting involved with any guy. These two are a couple of emotionally wounded souls on the road to recovery. They develop a deep friendship, taking things really slow while simply enjoying each other's company and getting to know one another.Paradise Valley wouldn't be a Virgin River book without appearances by all the favorite characters readers have come to love. Jack and Mel, Preacher and Paige, Mike and Brie, Paul and Vanni are all here, supporting their friends and families. We get a lot of the story from Jack's POV as he struggles with figuring out how to help Rick and Liz. Luke and Shelby put in an appearance, announcing plans for a wedding and starting a family. Dotty, old Hope McCray buys the abandoned church to resell on eBay, which I'm sure is a set up for the next full-length novel in the series, Forbidden Falls, in which a new minister comes to town as the hero. As always, these characters have become like a second family in my mind, and I can't wait for my next visit with them when I continue the series.

Another solid installment in the Virgin River series. Paradise Valley is more about the town and community of Virgin River than any one romance, although it does center around four couples -- Liz and Rick, Abby and Cameron, Dan and Cheryl, and Muriel and Walt. The theme of the Paradise Valley was one about rebuilding from a damaged background – Dan and Cheryl are coming back from some painful experiences and Rick is back in California recovering from a war injury. A credit to Robyn Carr, the characters do not easily bounce back. Instead there is struggle and while the book ends with hope, it is clear the characters are due for more work in their individual futures. There are a few births of babies, some sweet Mel and Jack scenes and not quite as much good eating as in the other books. Paradise Valley definitely needs to be read in order and not as a standalone. It may not be the best book in the series but it is very enjoyable, satisfying and has all the wonderful and typical ingredients of a Virgin River novel.

Love, Loved this book. Loved Ricky from earlier books wanted to find out how he and Liz have grown and how they would get through this. I was so mad at him by the end, until he realized that he was treating her so bad and HE needed HER. I surprised that it took Dan to make him realize how he was treating all his loved ones. I was personally not that interested in Walt/Muriel's relationship, but was glad to see Abby and Cameron progress a little. Great book!

The most boring in the series so farRick is wounded in Iraq and pushes Liz, Jack and all the others who care about him away. Walt and Muriel yet again bore me to tears. Abby and Cameron proceed with their relationship, but after their exciting beginning in a previous book, leave me disappointed. There are irrelevant tangents that should have been edited out.This book really drags in a lot of places. With each new addition to the series, Robyn Carr seems to devote more and more time to talking about home renovations. And I’m sorry, but that’s just too boring to fill half a novel. She goes into so much detail about every aspect of every house, and what is going to be done to change it, I did a lot of skim reading. Those are pages that would be better off filled with plot of some sort.I’m not entirely sure why Carr’s editor lets her get away with her poor plotting and structure time and time again. The first couple of chapters of this book belonged in the book preceding it. They featured characters who starred in Temptation Ridge – characters who had nothing to do with the main story in Paradise Valley. The fact this is a series does not excuse the way the author so blatantly runs one book into the next. Series or no series, each book should be able to hold up on its own, and this one does not. And, yet again, she finished the story featuring the wrong characters.I’ve never been much of a fan of Rick and Liz. Rick is a Gary Stu to Mel’s Mary Sue, and I’ve never been all that interested in reading a book featuring him. Though it is officially Rick and Liz’s book, they aren’t in it very much, and when they are the scenes are repetitious and uninteresting.One thing that left me very perplexed was Mel’s reaction to Rick’s injuries. When she found out, she really didn’t seem to care. Her reaction was so cold, unemotional; I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Mel has always been a bit of a Mary Sue. Everybody loves her and all the men think she’s beautiful and perfect. But in the end she’s an extremely forceful, self-righteous character. I really want to like her more, but nobody ever calls her out on her behaviour.And then Dan went and turned into Doctor Phil, and it occurred to me just how impossible this author finds it to write realistic characters. Everyone is perfect. They’re all kind and helpful and the men are so effeminate it is obvious they are written the way a weak woman might fantasise men would act. They speak with a woman’s voice – no real men are like Virgin River men.The Walt/Muriel storyline still bores me, and all the real-life celebrity name-dropping that comes with the fact Muriel is a movie star is still stupid. This couple is just so…blah…by the end I was skimming their parts, and found I didn’t miss out on much.This book was just boring for me. I tried really hard to get into it, but there wasn’t anything to hold my interest, and I skimmed over much of it. Carr’s strength is definitely NOT plotting – her books never have much of interest going on. What she’s good at is characterisation, but even that fell flat in this edition.There are babies everywhere again. If there’s anything you want to know about pregnancy, you’re better off reading this series than something from the bookstore’s health section! It’s very telling that the author thanks her midwife consultant first in the acknowledgement section of every book. Shows her priorities are far more on the baby part rather than the love part. To me, paragraphs about medicine and pregnancy complications just aren’t fun. And, the author’s prejudices are front and centre yet again. Even though this time a character goes to hospital to deliver, she’s too late for an epidural. In Robyn Carr’s world, all women want natural homebirths. All breastfeed. All want seven thousand people present when they give birth. Everything is always the same. And this couple’s story ended the moment they had babies. In the Virgin River world everyone’s stories always end the moment they produce offspring. As if having a baby is their only worth.What really annoyed me about the baby obsession in this book was when a traumatised Rick returned to Virgin River. Nobody who loved him could get through to him, but then Paige plonked her baby in his arms, and – voila! – Rick was back. Robyn Carr always writes about babies being miracles, but that was utterly stupid.I also did not appreciate the constant references to how ‘huge’ Abby was with her pregnancy. I was insulted on behalf of a fictional character!Once again the author makes the mistake of repeating the same information over and over. And over. When something happens we see every conversation between characters where they find out the news. For example, the way Abby and Cameron met is relayed to us about four times in this book – each time with a different character finding out the news. WE – the readers – do not need to experience these conversations. We already know this stuff; the other characters should find out off the page.I did not appreciate all the ‘women of a certain age’ scenes. Apart from being incredibly boring, it seems anyone over fifty is desperate to have thousands of grandchildren, and they are quite happy to force their plans onto their children. On top of that, they are obsessed with weddings, and don’t believe a relationship with children can work without marriage. This series is in many ways so terribly old fashioned I simply cannot believe the author is in my parents’ generation. Her writing often reads like something from my great grandmother’s generation!There quite simply was nothing worth reading in this book in the Virgin River series. The ‘story’ was nothing more than mundane details about characters’ mundane lives. I could have put this book down and gone and experienced exactly the same thing on my own. When I pick up a book I want something memorable to actually happen.Of everything I found wrong with book seven in this series, the biggest problem was that I was just plain bored.

I loved Liz and Rick's story but I felt that the book should have focused on them more. I don't understand why the description on the back of the book has Dan Brady as a lead because he was really in the background and I hope we get to read about him in the future. Then there was Cam and Abby that I did not like. Abby was annoying. I wished they would have scrapped them and gave them their own book because they took up to much space.