First Time, Forever

I been looking forward to reading this book and this series of Virgin Brides. And I enjoy the story the characters are telling me too.

A really good story, despite the slight weirdness of the back cover copy, and in spite of Kathleen's (annoying) hangup about being "the world's oldest virgin." Get past that if you can, because the real strength of this story is after the weddng, when Evan and Kathleen learn about living together day by day. The ending is fantastic too.

On impulse, thirty-four-year-old Kathleen Miles relocates with her 12 year old nephew from Vancouver to speck-on-the-map Hopkins Gulch, Saskatchewan to find peace, safety and a new start after her long-term fiance announces he's marrying a much younger woman. The last thing she's looking for is romance, and certainly not in the form of heart-breakingly handsome Evan Atkins, a 26-year-old single father of a three-year-old boy. But the qualities Evan sees in Kathleen aren't defined or limited by age, and this once-wild-boy wonders if he's man enough to be Kathleen's white knight, and if the four of them can somehow fit all their pieces together well enough to be a real family.Since my introduction to Cara Colter last year with A BRIDE WORTH WAITING FOR, she has been one of my favorite authors. Her writing style is fluid and sophisticated, enabling her to paint vivid pictures with few words, and her dialogue sparkles. Her characters are warm, real, and funny, and although her stories are generally fairly light in tone, there's nothing "fluffy" about them. She obviously truly believes in her subject matter -- that there's nothing more wonderful than a trusting, loving relationship between a man and a woman -- a conviction which allows rich emotional depth to these "little" stories. In none of the stories of hers I've read is that more true than in FIRST TIME, FOREVER. The relationship between Kathleen and Evan not only sizzles with believeable sexual tension, but is bolstered by a sincerety and sweetness that just made me smile the whole time I was reading the book. Although the ending may seem a bit oversentimentalized for some tastes, it didn't detract from my overall enjoyment of the story and the characters.

The story line is nothing new: a big, handsome cowboy meets a virgin who is ripe for a man's touch, he takes her to his ranch and marries her, and they live happily ever after. What this category romance has going for it that a lot of reads featuring similar "cowboys and virgins" plots don't, is that Cara Coulter has managed to rehash the old story line in a very entertaining way.Thirty-four-year-old Kathleen Miles has been raising her twelve-year-old orphaned nephew Mac alone since her sister died five years ago. When Kathleen's ex-fiance announces his engagement to a young woman in her early twenties, she decides to begin anew by leaving Vancouver to move to Hopkins Gulch, a small ranching community in Saskatchewan, Canada. Kathleen has never dated much and her only relationship had been with her ex-fiance, but when she sets eyes on Evan Atkins, the rancher who is eight years her junior does things to her heart that she hadn't thought an aging spinster could still feel...Twenty-six-year-old Evan Atkins is raising his three-year-old son Jesse alone. After the horrific marriage he endured with Jesse's now deceased mother, the last thing on Evan's mind is falling in love again. But when he sees Kathleen Miles for the first time, he can't think of ever having seen a prettier face. And when he gets to know her as a friend through an act of the fates, he realizes he's definitely never met anyone with a bigger heart...-full review originally published in The Romance Reader