Review of The Wanderer (Thunder Point #1) by Robyn Carr

The Wanderer is the first book in the series Thunder Point.

Hank Cooper, a helicopter pilot who has been drifting from place to place since his discharge from the Army, has inherited property from a friend. Both the passing and the inheritance were a surprise, and Cooper heads to Thunder Point, Oregon, to check it out.

The small all-in-one bait shop is a disaster, but the stretch of land it sits on is prime. Cooper still has hopes of flying helicopters, so he plans to fix up the shop and sell. But as he gets to know the town and its people, it grows on him.

Sarah Dupre has raised her younger brother since he was six years old. Recently divorced, Sarah moved to Thunder Point for a fresh start while she flies helicopters for the Coast Guard.

Cooper makes friends with Landon after seeing the kid bullied, and through him meets Sarah. The two are drawn together, but she doesn't want to trust again, and Cooper plans to leave. Then new things come to light about surprising people in town, and Cooper is determined to see things through.

A little over two months ago, lamenting I had no Robyn Carr book to read because I have to wait so long between Virgin River books at the library, I checked to see what books of hers I could get right away. Her Thunder Point books were all available immediately, so I checked the first one out. Cooper, one of the main characters, appeared briefly in Temptation Ridge as Luke Riordan's friend from his Army days passing through.

This was a shockingly slow book for Robyn Carr. It was my ninth of hers, and it took me about two months to get through because it was incredibly slow.

My main issue was that the two main characters didn't meet face to face until almost halfway through the book. Cooper had seen Sarah on many occasions, but never up close. He got to know her teenage brother before her. We also didn't get more than a handful of scenes from her perspective until she and Cooper met face to face. Both those things are major faults in a romance novel.

Robyn Carr to time and care to build up the town of Thunder Point and its residents, including a secondary romance that I actually found more satisfying than Cooper and Sarah's. Two other minor romance plots filled out the story, too. The characters and setting were colorful, but taking so much time away from the main characters slows the forward momentum of the novel and creates a feeling of the story crawling. Normally, I read Robyn Carr books in a handful of days, but I renewed it twice at the library. It took me about two months to read.

The characters of Cooper and Sarah were solid, Cooper much more than Sarah. If Robyn Carr had spent more time in Sarah's perspective, we could have gotten to know her better and she would have been more fleshed out. As it was, Cooper was far more layered and detailed. Even some of the side characters were more fleshed out than Sarah.

This was probably my least favorite book of Robyn Carr's. If it was my first book of hers, I wouldn't read any others. Hopefully, the other books in the series get better.

Photo Credit: Austin Neill

Stars Image Credit: lovethenerddesigns