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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
There were a lot of characters to get to know! Great story, can't wait to read what happens next...
I, honestly, thought this book was extremely boring, and the love story was completely unnecessary and didn’t flow with the rest of the book. I think this book would work better as an audiobook, and if I finish the trilogy, I’m hoping to listen to the other books instead.
This was a nice start to a trilogy from Robyn Carr, but I consider it more women's fiction than a romance. There was only the tiniest bit of romance in the book, but I don't think it suffered from the lack.
The story is centered around Dr. June Hudson, the main doctor in Grace Valley, a rural part of California. She needs to hire a new doctor, and decides to give the slick-looking John Stone a shot. The book is mostly from June's point of view, but it's really about the whole town and its cast of characters, complete with eccentric aunt and philandering preacher.
There's a lot of fear-mongering here around the marijuana farms deeper in the mountains, but I think that was mostly the sign of the times when the book was written (2000, before any sort of legalization). It's still funny to read now, though.
I went on to finish the entire trilogy, so I guess that is an obvious sign of approval.
The story is centered around Dr. June Hudson, the main doctor in Grace Valley, a rural part of California. She needs to hire a new doctor, and decides to give the slick-looking John Stone a shot. The book is mostly from June's point of view, but it's really about the whole town and its cast of characters, complete with eccentric aunt and philandering preacher.
There's a lot of fear-mongering here around the marijuana farms deeper in the mountains, but I think that was mostly the sign of the times when the book was written (2000, before any sort of legalization). It's still funny to read now, though.
I went on to finish the entire trilogy, so I guess that is an obvious sign of approval.
Deep in the Valley is really light on romance. In fact, shelving it as romance is probably a mistake. It's more like a mashup of small town and medical novels, if those were genres at all. The undercover DEA agent who is going to be the hero? Doesn't appear until midway through the novel. And he interacts with the heroine a grand total of three times. He has no more than ten sentences on the whole book! It's not a relationship in which one can become invested, definitely. If I hadn't read [b:Virgin River|184850|Virgin River (Virgin River, #1)|Robyn Carr|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388191717s/184850.jpg|2043796] first, I couldn't care less about the budding romance between June Hudson and Jim Post.
The rest of the novel is all over the place and unfocused. The first half drags and it's a bit boring. There are too many characters with similar names and similar voices, and it's difficult to keep track of everyone. Then things finally start happening: an adulterous pastor, a secret pregnancy, two cases of abuse, a DEA raid, a rough birth, the heroine possibly saved by an angel... It was enough to keep me entertained, but it's ultimately a forgettable novel.
Where Carr really shines is in the short romance scenes. She's really good at conveying true emotion - it's easy to believe the characters are really falling for each other. However, as she gives the hero no room for characterization, he comes across as quite stalkerish. I mean, if someone I've just met twice before entered in my house while I'm gone and left flowers on my pillow, I would lock myself inside the house and install alarms asap. And he is 'an impatient lover', which is something June finds very attractive, but that together with his stalkerish stroke and his lack of sentences, makes him look a bit like a psycho.
That sentence has the honor of being the first in my newly created collection of awkward romance quotes.
The rest of the novel is all over the place and unfocused. The first half drags and it's a bit boring. There are too many characters with similar names and similar voices, and it's difficult to keep track of everyone. Then things finally start happening: an adulterous pastor, a secret pregnancy, two cases of abuse, a DEA raid, a rough birth, the heroine possibly saved by an angel... It was enough to keep me entertained, but it's ultimately a forgettable novel.
Where Carr really shines is in the short romance scenes. She's really good at conveying true emotion - it's easy to believe the characters are really falling for each other. However, as she gives the hero no room for characterization, he comes across as quite stalkerish. I mean, if someone I've just met twice before entered in my house while I'm gone and left flowers on my pillow, I would lock myself inside the house and install alarms asap. And he is 'an impatient lover', which is something June finds very attractive, but that together with his stalkerish stroke and his lack of sentences, makes him look a bit like a psycho.
There was nothing quite so sensual as impatience, nothing so titillating as a man with a weak grasp on self-control, as a lover just dying to posses.
That sentence has the honor of being the first in my newly created collection of awkward romance quotes.