Circling Back

Sometimes life comes full circle.  Once in awhile, you reconnect with childhood friends, or visit a place and get a sense of deju vu before you remember you had been there before.  Sometimes you pick up a book, get half way through it and realize you've read it before.  Or is that having a senior moment? Anyway, I recently had this strange experience of life coming full circle.

I love Robyn Carr's Virgin River Series.  For those of you unfamiliar with her work, you are in for a treat.  The series takes place in the mythical town of Virgin River (pop. 600), which is set against the picturesque backdrop of the towering redwoods and the Sierra Nevada Mountains in northern California.  Carr paints the town with a colorful ensemble of heroes and heroines, their extended family, as well as the eccentric and loveable towns people populating Virgin River.

While Carr's characters are delightful, many too good to be true, her stories are well written, humorous, and engaging.  She also addresses a wide range of topics such as domestic violence, post-traumatic stress (most of the heroes of her books are war veterans), Down Syndrome, infertility and even rape.  Through the support of the town community, her characters find their peace as well as a road to their own HEAs.  Diving into the next book in the series is like revisiting cherished friends as Carr weaves the characters we've met throughout her books.

In regard to rediscovering old friends and circling back, last fall I heard Robyn Carr speak at the New Jersey Romance Writers conference.  She was as entertaining as her books.  However, she mentioned that she had begun her career writing historical romances, and suddenly a strange sense of deja vu swept over me.  Once upon a time (okay, around two decades ago), my favorite romances were historicals written by a Robyn Carr.  I still own a beloved beat up copy, it being a timeless favorite.  The book was Chelynne.

As first, I didn't believe the Robyn Carr speaking was the same author I loved all those years ago. I couldn't be obsessed with this author's work twice in my lifetime.  Could I?  Yes, I could.

Decades later, Robyn Carr still writes beautiful, engaging stories, and I'm lucky to have found her -- again.  She has a career to envy and I do.