Two Bloggers One Series ~ Virgin River #17

Barb and I are getting so close to the end of the Virgin River series and it's a bit bittersweet as I really love this series, but  at the same time I excited to finish a series. I am getting my post up a bit late as I forgot to do so yesterday after a day out. So you might have already seen Barb's but if not go over to Booker T's Farm and check it out.

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...

So in this one we have a couple people that we have met before in previous books. Nora we met a while back as she is a young woman with two very young kids, it was winter time and she was in a run down shack of a house with no heat, etc and those in Virgin River do what they do and helped her out. Tom we just met in the previous book. I really like Nora but Tom I had to warm up to a bit as I thought he acted a bit like a jerk at times. 

Tom works at his grandmother's apple orchard, he does most of the work now along with some workers. Nora needs a job, she will do what ever and when she hears about a job at the orchard as a picker she doesn't hesitate to apply, but she is small and young and when Tom sees her he is like no, but his grandmother Maxie says yes. 

Nora is not without her baggage but she is a hard worker and is willing to prove that she can do the job. Maxie takes to her right away but Tom is a bit of a grump. Tom has his thoughts on what type of woman he wants and that woman doesn't come attacted with two kids. Though he learns that he also doesn't want some high maintance gal when he invites a woman friend to come visit and she is horrible! 

Nora is also dealing with the fact that she is getting to know her father for the first time since she was like 6 because of her mother and just some bad issues, so she is dealing with a lot. Even with all of that she is so high spirited and fun and just a very cool person. 

Tom on the other hand could be a bit of a jerk with his additude about Nora and her mistakes and the fact she has two kid whose father isn't in the picture. He is so dead set on wanting a woman with no excess baggage that he at first can't see what a great person Nora although he can't stop thinking about her.

I liked the story but sometimes I just wanted to smack Tom, but I loved Nora and her kids, Maxie was fun too! We also get some of the great regulars from Virgin River which I enjoy making this an easy fun story.

4 stars