Format Read:egalley from NetGalley
Number of Pages:384
Release Date:April 24, 2012
Publisher:Mira
Series:Virgin River #19
Formats Available: Mass Market Paperback, Nook, Kindle
Purchasing Info: Goodreads, Author’s Website, Amazon , Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Book Blurb:

Tom Cavanaugh may think he wants a traditional woman, but in Virgin River, the greatest tradition is falling in love unexpectedly….

Former Marine Tom Cavanaugh’s come home to Virgin River, ready to take over his family’s apple orchard and settle down. He knows just what the perfect woman will be like: sweet, decent, maybe a little naive. The marrying kind.

Nothing like Nora Crane. So why can’t he keep his eyes off the striking single mother?

Nora may not have a formal education, but she graduated with honors from the school of hard knocks. She’s been through tough times and she’ll do whatever it takes to support her family, including helping with harvest time at the Cavanaugh’s orchard. She’s always kept a single-minded focus on staying afloat…but suddenly her thoughts keep drifting back to rugged, opinionated Tom Cavanaugh.

Both Nora and Tom have their own ideas of what family means. But they’re about to prove each other completely wrong…

My Thoughts:

Virgin River, California is in the farming country within a couple of hours north of Davis, California. I was therefore pre-disposed to like it. Davis is one of those places I fell in love with on a trip and tried really, really hard to get a job just so I could live there. Enough said.

About the book…the thing about small-town romance series is that everybody knows everyone, and every story in the series has to either pick up characters who were touched on in previous books, or find a way to bring in people who had some reason for not being around before.

And small-town romance series also provide an opportunity for series regulars to find out how their “friends” are doing.
The main characters of Sunrise Point are a newcomer and somebody who has just come home. This is lucky for readers like me who are stopping by Virgin River for the first time. It’s intimidating to jump into a series at book 19!

Nora Crane is our heroine. She was abandoned in Virgin River by the sperm donor of her two little (very little) girls. I can’t call him their father, he never has been. And when I say abandoned, I really mean abandoned. Nora was introduced in an earlier book, but that book wasn’t her story. Sunrise Point is.

The town has been helping Nora out, providing her with just enough to scrape by. She works, sister does she ever work. But she’s a teacher’s assistant at the school, and now it’s summer. The best paying jobs in town are jobs harvesting apples at Cavanaugh’s orchards.

And that’s where the hero comes in. Tom Cavanaugh has been away for awhile. A long while. When he was growing up, he wanted to get as far away from the small town of Virgin River as he could, so he enlisted in the Marines. Afghanistan was far, far away. But after 10 years as an officer, it was time to come back to his roots and settle down. He’d seen the world, and it turned out that he wanted to be right back where he started. Running the orchard after all.

Nora needs to make it on her own, that’s why she applies for the job at the orchard. She knows it will be hard work. Very hard work. But she needs the money. Supporting herself and her girls is all the matters to her.

Tom doesn’t want to hire her. He’s sure the work is too hard for her. And he’s attracted to her, and knows that she is exactly what he isn’t looking for. She has way too much baggage. He wants to start a family, eventually. Not start something with a woman who comes with a ready-made family.

But Tom’s grandmother (who may be the most interesting character in the whole book) convinces him that he should hire Nora. So he does. Then he proceeds to try and take care of Nora, in spite of the fact that she doesn’t want him to. And he knows he shouldn’t be interested. And he tries to get involved with somebody else.

In other words, they both act like idiots. But in a way that makes complete sense for where they are coming from. I hesitate to use the word “heartwarming” because it is such a cliché, but the story is heartwarming. And sweet, and frequently funny.

This can be read as a stand-alone, but there were a few places where the action cut away to a completely different group who are either “old friends” from earlier books in the series, or the introduction to the next book in the series. It’s a bit distracting, but not enough to keep me from liking this book.

I liked it a lot. Enough to give Sunrise Point 4 stars.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

About Marlene

Marlene is a librarian, ebook advocate, science fiction fan, and RPG fan who lives in the Atlanta suburbs. She and her husband are owned by four cats, just ask them. She's a geek and a nerd and proud of it. She's also an avid reader of everything, including the back of the cereal box, and has been blogging since April 2011 at Reading Reality and is a reviewer at Library Journal as well as active on Goodreads. She is also the publisher of Ebook Review Central.

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