Enjoying Ellie's gramma's sayings. "If Jesus walked the earth today, he wouldn't be hanging out with Billy Graham. He'd be found with drug addicts and prostitutes and the like."

"She said it was her opinion religion got in the way of faith and she thought most religions did more harm than good."

Noah uses the inheritance from his mother to help buy the church in Virgin Falls. It needs lots of work and when he advertises for a pastor's assistant, Alicia, with her tight shirt and mini skirt is not what he had in mind. However, she needs a respectable job to get custody of her children. I found the ending a little pat, but enjoyed Alicia's grandmother's sayings and the portrayal of religion.

Good enough to keep me reading the series.

The books in this series have been a mixed bag. What makes this one a winner is Ellie. She has a great, irreverent sense of humor and a fighting spirit that makes her compelling. And how could you help but love little Hannah!

This is really one of the better books in the series. Previous characters appear but they don’t take over the story like in other books. We get a bit of a side story with Paul and Vanessa, but it did actually relate back to the main couple for this book, Noah and Ellie; Noah counsels them, and Ellie helps Vanessa with childcare and housekeeping, etc. It was quite refreshing to just occasionally see Mel and Jack’s names mentioned but not have to actually deal with the two heaping busybodies. And Ellie and Noah were enjoyable characters to get to know.

I'd like to give this 3.5 instead of 3, it was a great book and I liked the characters a lot.

I went on a Virgin River marathon the past week just because sometimes you want to stick with a series because everything after a while feels old and familiar. This is one of my favorites from the series though there are a couple of quibbles here and there, it honestly is just a really good story.

Noah Kincaid comes to Virgin River to re-open a closed church that be buys due to some inheritance. He feels part of the community and wants to do whatever he can to build up the town around him. Realizing that he is going to need an assistant he ends up interviewing residents of Virgin River and that is how he meets Ellie Baldwin. Ellie comes with a lot of baggage, but Noah cannot help feeling more and more drawn to the single mother of two who it seems has been dealing with hardships almost from birth.

I really loved Ellie. I have to say next to probably Paige and Brie from earlier books, she is one of my favorite female characters. I always grieved a bit in later books when you would just hear about her, but the character never speaks again really which is a shame. Ellie is feisty, not afraid to do hard work, and refuses to let those around her dictate what she can wear and how she should carry herself. Fresh off of a divorce from a controlling man who now has primary custody of her two kids would be enough to have anyone feel beaten, but Ellie is determined to get a job so she can prove to a judge that she is capable of taking care of her children. There is so much backstory to Ellie, and though I usually loathe information dumps via conversations with people, it works okay in this book since Noah is a pastor and is used to counseling people.

Noah we find out had a hard father who was also a minister, but one of those tv evangelical types who was focused more on money than souls. He still misses his wife that passed away and is not looking to start a relationship with Ellie or anyone. However, something about Ellie and her plight tugs at him while he can’t help feeling physically drawn to her.

Noah and Ellie as a couple makes sense, and Carr doesn’t draw things out too long before they are together. But it’s a relationship with a sale by date since Ellie decides as soon as she gets custody of her children she is going to move away.

We have familiar characters from previous books showing up in this one, Jack and Mel Sheridan, Mike and Brie Valenzuela, Paul and Vanessa Haggerty. Per usual, there is a secondary plot that involves Paul and Vanessa but at least once again it ties into the main characters. I don’t know how I felt about this little twist for the Haggerty family since it felt a bit too soap operaish, but Carr pulls it off in the end. I had read the previous book that was Paul and Vanessa’s (Second Chance Pass, Virgin River #5) so I was familiar with the background to it.

The writing is typical Carr with her handling what feels like a huge cast of characters, but able to keep the story-line moving. The love scenes between Noah and Ellie were great and I definitely got why they were attracted to each other.

The flow actually works much better in this once, because once again, the main characters are tied to the secondary plot so you don’t notice any abrupt changes.

I loved the ending and I liked how the story-line included characters we had met/heard about before in previous books.

Noah is a new Presbyterian minister in Virgin River and needs an assistant. In walks Ellie Baldwin who is young, energetic, beautiful, wise behind her years but full of family drama. This is a sweet story of Noah and Ellie coming together and working as a team to resolve all the family issues. The side story pulls Paul and Vanessa back in to the main story as well which was a nice addition. It is another good additional to the virgin river series with more characters to love. Part of what I like about reading these books is the predictability and their formulaic nature. This was no different but that doesn't detract from it's enjoyability. 3.5*

I've been reading the whole Virgin Falls stories out of order as O can get my hands on them from my local library but I've been waiting to find out the full story of Noah and Ellie's courtship and personal stories and I was not disappointed! From romance, to laughter to cursing the bad guy, this story is my second favourite (Preacher and Paige being first favourite)! I can't wait to read more of these stories, I've still got a bunch!