Swept Away Again

Nestled on the Oregon coast is a small town of rocky beaches and rugged charm. Locals love the land's unspoiled beauty. Developers see it as a potential gold mine. When newcomer Hank Cooper learns he's been left an old friend's entire beachfront property, he finds himself with a community's destiny in his hands.
Cooper has never been a man to settle in one place, and Thunder Point was supposed to be just another quick stop. But Cooper finds himself getting involved with the town. And with Sarah Dupre, a woman as complicated as she is beautiful.
With the whole town watching for his next move, Cooper has to choose between his old life and a place full of new possibilities. A place that just might be home.

This won't be a positive review and that's not because this was a bad book. The Wanderer is a great first book in a new series. It's a very sweet story between Cooper (the wanderer), Sarah and the little town of
Thunder Point.
However, and you had to know this was coming, I feel a little let down and cheated with this new series. First there's been no mention of what's happening with the Virgin River series. Does anyone know? Is it over? Will it be continued? Is it being pushed back? As the new Thunder Point series seems to be taking place on the release dates of the Virgin River series! If you didn't know the Virgin River series holds a really special place in my heart. I reviewed nearly all of them here on this little old blog and they helped me heal after suddenly losing my Dad. I buried my head in the Virgin River books and for them to just have stopped saddens me to no end.
Secondly and this also relates to the Virgin River series, I feel like the Thunder Point series is basically the Virgin River series in a new town because Robyn Carr was possibly running out of new characters for Virgin River and therefore had to create a new town for her new characters because Virgin River was getting a little full up.
That's not to say this new series isn't good or written just as well as her previous novels, it's just that even though it's a brand new town, new shiny people it's really the same idea as Virgin River and well that bums me out. When I heard Robyn Carr was writing a new series I thought 'Oh no! What's going to happen to Virgin River?' but then I was happy for new shiny project because I do enjoy Robyn Carr's writing but it's not new and original it just feels a little like her previous series repackaged and that's not what I was looking forward too.
So I was a little disappointed while reading The Wanderer. It's has a slow start and it takes quite a while for Cooper and Sarah to actually meet each other which frustrated me. I felt that the other characters and the new town and 'situations' within the storyline took up too much page time and the actual main characters Cooper and Sarah didn't get enough time to really get to know each other and that I didn't get to know these characters as well in the first book as I have other characters in other first books (not meaning the Virgin River series here!).
Overall, I have really mixed feeling about this series. I have told myself that I will at least read the next two books out in this series in the next few months and if I don't love them then I won't be continuing with this series, which I think is fair.
As a side note, how many times did I say Virgin River? Shall we count them... or maybe not!

Let me know if you've read The Wanderer and what you think of it. Is it the first Robyn Carr book you've read? Did you enjoy it? Do you think it's better than her Virgin River series? Leave me a comment and let me know!