#NEW #REVIEW "What We Find, Sullivan's Crossing #1, a novel" by Robyn Carr @RCarrWriter

Description:

Join Robyn Carr, #1 New York Times bestselling author of theVirgin River and Thunder Point series, as she explores the healing powers of rural Colorado in a brand-new story of fresh starts, budding relationships and one woman’s journey to finding the happiness she’s long been missing

Between the urban bustle of Denver and the high-stress environment of a career in neurosurgery, Maggie Sullivan has hit a wall. When an emergency, high-risk procedure results in the death of a teenager, Maggie finds herself in the middle of a malpractice lawsuit—and experiencing levels of anxiety she’s never faced before. It’s in this desperate moment that Maggie’s boyfriend decides he can’t handle her emotional baggage, and she’s left alone, exhausted and unsure of what her future holds. One thing is certain, though: she needs to slow down before she burns out completely, and the best place she can think to do that is Sullivan’s Crossing.

Named for Maggie’s great-grandfather, the land and charming general store at the crossroads of the Colorado and the Continental Divide trails have been passed down through the generations and now belong to Maggie’s estranged father, Sully. Though raised by her mother and stepfather after her parents divorced, Maggie has always adored Sully—despite his hands-off approach to fatherhood. When she shows up unannounced in Sullivan’s Crossing, he welcomes her with opens arms, and she relishes the opportunity to rebuild their relationship.

But when Sully has a sudden heart attack, Maggie’s world is rocked once again. Consumed with his care, she’s relieved to find that Cal Jones, a quiet and serious-looking camper, has been taking over many of Sully’s responsibilities as he recuperates. Still, Maggie is suspicious of this mysterious man’s eagerness to help—until she finds out the true reason for his deliberate isolation.

Though Cal and Maggie each struggle with loss and loneliness, the time they spend together gives Maggie hope for something brighter just on the horizon…if only they can learn to find peace and healing—and perhaps love—with each other.

MY TAKE:
4 STARS!!

Let’s face it, this book has a GORGEOUS dust cover jacket! Inside the cover, instead of plain white paper that holds the printed pages together, this book has an extremely bright yellow paper, so it was like reading with sunshine peeking through! This story does take place during the late spring and all through summer, so it is a nice time of year to read this right now because it’s currently summer (as I write read this and am writing this!) so we can relate to it right now. I had a really good laugh when the author wrote into the story that the state of Michigan ‘invented’ winter! LOL! That IS where I am from! I guess I need to find out from her why she feels that way! I would think that Colorado, where this book takes place along the huge hiking trail would be ‘the’ place that invented winter being they had avalanches in the mountains near the crossing, etc.! Perhaps the author knows this area, and she does know it well! The character, Cal, during a period in his life is working in Detroit and living in Grosse Pointe, truly a very affluent area to live, giving people a very easy and close commute to work in Detroit, but a completely different city. The same thing would apply for his wife when she was alive, giving her easy access to her profession.

Maggie, the main character in this series, comes back home to a place called Sullivan’s Crossing, a place her grandfather’s and father made for hikers, campers, anyone who wanted to stay, to recharge, shower, shop, stay in a cabin for a day, or a week! Many people use this place to get on and start to hike on the Colorado Trail, or to continue their hike. This place can be used for so many things, it’s an ideal place for some rest and relaxation, and this is why Maggie came back home here, to be with her father, Sully, for a while. Maggie needs a change of pace and time to reflect on her life at the moment, and perhaps even escape it a little bit. She is being sued at work for no reason as the surgery she performed was textbook, however, the patient did not make it, so the family filed a lawsuit against her as she is a Neurosurgeon. She has lost her surgical practice, and a human life - her own pregnancy through miscarriage, and this, perhaps, is most likely why she needs some time to herself. This was devastating to her, at age 37 she feels this accident was meant to be because she keeps getting older and the chance for her current relationship is only a dead-end in her opinion because who wants to be with a complete Mommy’s boy? I have to agree with her there. Maggie needs time to reflect on her own life and not others but she doesn’t quite get that chance. As it turns out, it happened to be the perfect time to come home because her father, whom she calls by his first name of Sully like everyone else does, suffers a heart attack. Thankfully, Maggie is right there with Sully throughout his recovery and is a huge help for him. She most likely has extended his life as well by changing everything about him, such as his complete diet! He’s not so cheery about that but he is listening and proving he will stick to this healthier diet! This is a major positive step for Sully, for once. While there, she also meets a new man she finds herself very attracted to, and he is just as attracted to her. He goes by the name of Cal and is expecting to hike out onto the trail once the weather conditions turn warmer so he doesn’t end up dying in an avalanche of snow, so while waiting he starts to help Sully with work that needs to be done around the camp. Maggie and Cal have a fun, flirty relationship at first, and they do end up getting closer. It’s all those late night campfires! All things come to an end, and Cal does go on his planned hike. Maggie doesn’t think she’ll ever see him again. The matter of the lawsuit/trial rears it’s ugly head, she gets deposed and more. I didn’t like that part, but who does unless you love the law?

At first I had a very difficult time getting started reading this book. I felt like I could not get into it, and I was not looking forward to reading it, either. It was work. However, at around page 45, 47, 50, that I noticed the pace started to pick up quicker. I started to get much more invested into the story, and I really was looking forward to picking the book back up again after having to put it down! After that, I was hooked into the story! I do believe this author can have a good series here. This book focused mostly on Maggie, Cal and her father Sully, in addition to the lay of the land and how Sullivan’s Crossing works, the hiking trails, etc. The interesting thing is the secondary characters got as much attention as did Maggie, the main character, but I believe that may just be the set-up for this new series, and I do believe this author has several volumes planned, or else I don’t think she would have spent so much time setting the stage as she did. We would need all of the information she gave us to set this up. This book was a little refreshing to read about a good relationship such as was Maggie and Cal’s, but Maggie at times was often worried that Cal was going to leave despite his attempts at trying to convince her enough he was not going anywhere, but they did have some things to iron out in the end. I hope the next book brings more for this couple! I enjoyed their relationship very much, and I enjoyed what Cal felt for Maggie. He seems like such a wonderful man, an honest man with nothing to hide, and the things probably most people would want to hide about themselves, he was more than willing to open up and tell her about. That, is GOLD! I couldn’t help but to feel as if something was missing from Maggie. Her fire? Or maybe because of everything she is going through at this time is just so much she is having a very difficult time getting through it all. She was pretty quiet for the most part, she just didn’t feel like a good, solid character . . . yet when she is supposed to be one of the main ones. I wanted more strength from her, and at times we sure did get it! It just took time and the right circumstances to make her strength come out, and when it does, watch out! It did take almost the entire book for some situations to come up where we could see just how much strength this woman has, and again, once she shows us her true colors and her strength, we know there is no stopping her and she also surprises herself that she can be as strong as she is. When she doubted herself, the funny thing was her own father told her she definitely had strength, she just needed to go to work and leave the campground to see it come out. Cal even told her in the end she needed to find her fire, to choose something that she ‘had’ to do. I hope in the next book her fire works out. We’ll see! One of the neatest things the author did with this book was at the beginning of each chapter she had a quote. You could read the quote and somewhat guess what that chapter was going to address, or not, but it would be about the feelings, a topic, an event, something that that quote would apply to in that chapter. I have never come across anything like that in the past, and I loved that a lot! When I first realized that was what this author was doing, I did have to go back a few times and reread the quotes because when I first read them I did not catch what she was doing at first, and I wanted to figure out how that quote applied to the chapter, and they ALL apply to each chapter! I enjoyed a little laugh with that! Thanks to the author for providing that extra thought! Now I want to read Book 2 in this series NOW! I am VERY MUCH looking forward to it.

A special thank you, MIRA publishers, for sending me this beautiful hardcover edition of this book that showed up in my mailbox! I was SO happy! I now had a beautiful book from this author I have been wanting to read for quite a while now!

ebook: $12.99
print:   $16.19