Call her books romances, but Carr’s focus is relationships

It's no surprise to fans of the genre, but readers -- we're looking at you, guys -- whose idea of a "romance" novel brings to mind those formulaic, Fabio-ized cheapies your sister used to buy really need to check out Robyn Carr's Virgin River novels.

In Carr's best-selling series, readers will find not only realistic characters who are packing some realistic emotional baggage for some hits-right-home reasons, but compelling stories that would hook anybody who enjoys spending a few hours with some good people.

And if the stories end up concluding with an optimistic twist: Well, what's so wrong with that? Fact is, the Virgin River series is a great place to discover, or rediscover, the merits of the contemporary romance novel, with best-selling author Carr as your guide.

Carr's latest Virgin River story, "Hidden Summit" (Mira, $7.99), has just been released, and three more novels in the popular series are scheduled for release this year.

In person, Carr, 60, who lives in Henderson, turns out to be just as engaging as her prose. And while her books display her skill at creating three-dimensional characters and a deft touch in dealing with tough issues -- domestic abuse and the physical and emotional wounds of war, among them -- Carr is just fine with calling them "romances."

Even if there's not a single over-muscled guy with flowing hair and an open shirt cradling a busty babe with back-straining decolletage to be found.

Carr describes her books as "a juxtaposition of romance and women's fiction. Women's fiction is women's issues basically, and women's issues are any issues that challenge a woman's happiness because she's a woman, and that would include parenting, divorces, marriage, romance, health issues."

"Romance," she adds, can cover everything from "the real light and fluffy ones to the really erotic ones to the paranormal. So it's a very big landscape."

The anchor for the Virgin River series is a midwife who arrives in a small, rugged California town and "falls in love with a 20-year Marine who owns the bar and grill in town," Carr says. "It's the only watering hole in town, so that's the anchor of the series: Everyone ends up at Jack's Bar or the clinic."

Her characters often are saddled with achingly familiar baggage, be it from a broken relationship, an inability to have a child, the death of a loved one, a devastating injury, or post-traumatic stress disorder or the loss of a limb from war. For Carr, it's the characters' journey, their growth, and their ability to carve out a new future that's so compelling.

"What readers really look for from me, specifically, is a hopeful, intelligent solution to these problems," Carr says. "They don't write to me that they love my sexy hero. They write, 'Oh, my God, my baby died and I know what that feels like.' So at the end of the book, you get a way out because people deal with those feelings.

"I think it's the emotion that draws you," Carr says. "I'm very drawn to the emotional side of successful relationships, and that can be between a man and a woman and a woman and her friends or a woman and her minister.

"It can be a wide variety of possibilities, but I am a relationship person. I like thinking about them, and when I meet people, when we have a social gathering or something and I'm meeting someone for the first time, I always ask questions like, 'How did you meet your wife? Where did you propose? What's your biggest marital problems?' I always want to know that kind of stuff."

Carr's own romance story with her husband, Jim, began when they started dating in high school. They married in 1971 and, three months before college graduation, Jim pulled No. 53 in the draft lottery.

"So, we either got married or we went our separate ways, because he was leaving," Carr recalls. "He went into the military -- he went into the Air Force and flew -- and I went with him. For 10 years we were in the Air Force, and that's when I had my children."

When a pregnancy limited Carr's mobility, a friend stopped by bearing paperback romances. Carr enjoyed them and decided to take a crack at writing one herself.

She finished her first book in 1975. It wasn't published.

"Oh my God, the rejection. You just can't imagine the rejection," Carr says, laughing. "I got so many."

But it'd be fun to read now, right?

"Oh, I think not," Carr says, smiling.

Even if only to chart your growth?

"I'm charting it just fine," Carr answers with mock finality.

Anyway, about three years later, Carr sold her third finished novel, which, she notes, "is pretty good."

She asked her agent which publisher bought it.

"He said, 'Little, Brown.' I said, 'Little, who?' I had no idea who they were. And my book went to bed with 'The Executioner's Song.' Little, Brown was a pretty prestigious publisher, but know what? They didn't have a historical romance writer, and historical romance was hot."

Carr's first 10 books were historical romances. She then wrote a successful thriller before moving to contemporary women's fiction and, then, to romances.

Carr has published more than 40 books and is working on her 20th Virgin River story. The genesis of that series was a trip she took to Mendocino County about 15 years ago for a reading by Alice Walker.

"As we were standing outside with one of the locals, a Blackhawk (helicopter) flew over. I said, 'I didn't know you had Army out here.' He said: 'That's not Army. That's DEA. This is the biggest pot-growing area in America.' My bells and whistles went right off."

The result was a series of three books, the Grace Valley series. After the third book, "I was done," Carr says, "but many readers were not. They wanted more. They asked me to expand that story series, and the way I expanded it was, I created Virgin River in nearby Humboldt County."

The Virgin River series is set in a tough, rural town in Northern California's redwood forests.

"It's not quaint," Carr says. "It's a real rugged life in the backwoods. It's not an easy place."

There, in a town that is as much a character in the series as the people who live there, newcomers from more recent books might meet and interact with recurring characters from previous books (that initial anchor couple now are married and parents themselves).

Many of the stories also feature a "military backbone," Carr says, adding that she's gotten "some of the most wonderful letters" from military readers. In one book, Carr featured a soldier who lost a leg in war and came home an amputee. "I got so many letters from men who are amputees," she says. "I always wrote them back, saying, 'Where did you get the book?' They always say, 'My sister got it for me,' or 'My wife gave it to me.'

"I got one wonderful letter from a guy who said, 'I was such a dick when I came home with one leg.' He said, 'I'm surprised my wife even stayed with me. I read your book and I realized I needed counseling.' "

By now, some of Carr's readers know the town and its cast of characters as well as she.

"I introduced a character (in book six, 'Temptation Ridge'), a retired Blackhawk pilot, and I gave him four military brothers. They're not in that first book, except maybe an appearance here and there.

"Then I had written books about four of the five brothers, and I started to get letters from people saying, 'When are you going to write about Patrick?' I'm thinking, 'Patrick who? There's a Patrick?' "

She laughs. "I'm writing about him now, and I'm falling in love with him, too."

In a similar vein, readers don't hesitate to let Carr know when something is amiss. Once, she put a Navy officer in dress whites at an Army-Navy game.

"And, it's one sentence. One sentence," she says. "I got at least 25 letters.

"Who knew? I mean, my husband was reading the book, and from the family room he yelled, 'You're gonna get mail.' "

Consider it a testament to Carr's ability to make her characters seem so real.

"I hope these people are vivid and realistic and step off the page a little bit," Carr says. "I work hard to do that."

Even better, she's having great fun doing it.

"I'm not one of those tortured writers, and there are plenty of them," Carr says with a laugh. "There's a lot of anguish out there, and I keep saying: 'Go into real estate. Don't do this to yourself if it hurts that bad.' "

Here are some other recently published books written by Southern Nevada authors or which deal with Southern Nevada themes.

■  "Admiral Darling" (PublishAmerica, $24.95) by Walter John Trowbridge is a romantic novel about a U.S. Naval officer and a Dutch girl during the early months of World War II.

■  "Conversations for Paco" (Sleeping Giant Publishing, $18.95 paperback and $34.95 hardcover), a fact-based novel by Las Vegas physician Dr. James Lenhart examines and critiques the American health care system through the story of a couple dealing with a perplexing disease.

■  "Extreme Pancakes: 23 Pancake Masterpieces Worth Waking Up For" (Sterling, $12.95) by "pancake artist" and juggler Michael Goudeau -- he performed in Lance Burton's show for 20 years -- features such creations as a 3-D pig, an inchworm and a "taco platter" made of pancakes (includes a pancake batter squeeze bottle and an alphabet template).

■  "Fade Sag Crumble: Ten Las Vegas Writers Confront Decay" (CityLife Books, $14.95), sponsored by the 2011 Vegas Valley Book Festival, features pieces by 10 local writers who explore the themes of decay and decline.

■  "Find Your Inner 'Popeye': Work Advice for Square Pegs in the Round Holes of Life" (CreateSpace, $8.95) by Pat Getter offers advice about leveraging your individualism for workplace success.

■  "Helen J. Stewart: First Lady of Las Vegas" (Stephens Press, $22.95) by Sally Zanjani and Carrie Townley Porter is a comprehensive biography of the pioneering Nevada rancher, businesswoman and philanthropist.

■  "Life is Great! Revealing the 7 Secrets to a More Joyful You!" (Xlibris, $19.99 paperback and $29.99 hardcover) by Rabbi Yitzchak Wyne of Young Israel-Aish HaTorah congregation in Las Vegas offers readers advice for fostering meaning, value, passion and joy in life.

■  "A Man of His Word: The Life and Times of Nevada's Senator William J. Raggio" (Hellgate Press, $34.95) is Michael Archer's biography of the veteran Silver State legislator.

■  "Neon Nevada" (Globe Pequot Press, $16.95) by Sheila Swan and Peter Laufer is a photographic compendium of Las Vegas' most famous visual art form.

■  "No Work and All Play: Audacious Chronicles of a Casino Boss" (Outskirts Press, $21.95) by former casino boss Roger Wagner contains stories of old Las Vegas and old Las Vegas characters.

■ "Rocking In My Big Chair: Stories of an Unusual Life" (Xlibris, $15.99 paperback and $24.99 hardcover) by Lynne Granger recounts some of the Las Vegas resident's experiences dancing, as she puts it, to her own tune.

■  "So Damn Lucky" (Forge Books, $24.99, set for release Feb. 28) is Las Vegas author Deborah Coonts' third mystery/romance chronicling the continuing adventures of Lucky O'Toole, head of customer relations at a Las Vegas megaresort.

■  "Sunday in Hell: Pearl Harbor Minute by Minute" (e-reads.com, $39.95 paperback) by Bill McWilliams uses historical records and wartime documents to create a minute-by-minute account of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

■  "Vegas Rag Doll: A True Story of Terror and Survival as a Mob Hitman's Wife" (Stephens Press, $14.95 paperback and $24.95 hardcover) by Joe Schoenmann and Wendy Mazaros tells the story of the former Wendy Hanley, former wife of local mob hit man Tom Hanley, set during the latter years of organized crime in Las Vegas.

Contact reporter John Przybys at
jprzybys@review journal.com or 702-383-0280.