Shane Abbott hopes to convert part of the house she inherited from her grandmother into an antiques shop and Civil War museum. Much work needs to be done to the house, and, luckily, her new neighbor is an unemployed carpenter. However, Vance Banning is downright rude when Shane approaches him. Shane is nothing if not persistent and slowly wins Vance's heart only to find he is not the person she thought he was.

Shane and Vance are as different as night and day, so, of course, they fall passionately in love with each other. This is a reprint of a very early Nora Roberts romance. It is a cute and sexy story, but the reader will be aware of how much Roberts has grown as a writer. Recommend.

1st impressions:
139-41 my grandmother – technically she was my great grandmother canned these. Putting by, she always called it. She dig and hoe and plant and weed then spend hours in a hot steaming kitchen canning. Putting by, when she was 16, she lived in a mansion in southern Maryland. her family was very wealthy. They still are. The Bristol the Leon town Bristol. You might’ve heard of them. In any case, she was a young, beautiful, pampered girl, who could’ve had anything. She had been educated in in Europe, and there were plans for her to be finished in the Harris before a London debut. If she had followed her parents plans, she would have married well had her own mansion and her own staff of servants. The closest she would’ve come to planting would’ve been watching her gardener prune a rosebush. She didn’t follow the plan no. She fell in love with William Abbott and apprentice Mason. We’ve been hired to do some stonework on the estate. Of course, her family would’ve not would have none of it. They were already planning the groundwork for marriage between grand and the air to some steel company . The moment they got wind of what had happened, they fired him. To keep it brief, Gran made her choice and married him. They disowned her. Very dramatic and Victorian. I have no daughter sort of thing you read about in a standard Gothic . They moved here, back with his family. They had to share this house with his parents, because there wasn’t enough money for one of their own. When his father died, they cared for his mother. Grand never regretted giving up all the nice cities. She had such tiny hands. You wouldn’t of thought they could be so strong.
141- she raised her granddaughter, and grand loved her. Maybe part of her love was grief I don’t know. My mother was a beautiful child. There were pictures of her upstairs, but she was never content. The stories I heard came mostly from people in town, there once, or twice, grand talk to me, and hated living here, hated not having enough. She wanted to be an actress. When she was 17 she got pregnant. She didn’t know, or wouldn’t admit who the father was. As soon as I was born, she took off and left me with Grant. From time to time she came back, spend a few days and talked Grant out of more money. At last count, she’s been married three times. I’ve seen her in furs. They don’t seem to make her happy. She still beautiful, still selfish, and still discontented. My grandmother only grabbed for one thing in life, and that was love. She spoke French beautifully read Shakespeare until a garden. And she was happy. The only thing my mother ever taught me was that things meant nothing. Once you have a thing, you’re too busy looking for the next one to be happy with it you’re too worried that someone might have a better one to be able to enjoy it. All the games my mother played never brought anything but pain to the people she loved. I don’t have time or the skill for those games.
143 I’m not angry because you’re cynical and I’ve never been able to understand cynicism I’m not an idealist I simply don’t automatically assume that someone’s waiting to take advantage of me. I think you miss a lot more by not trusting people than you risk by trusting them.
What happens when the trust is violated?
When you pick up and go on, you’re only a victim if you choose to be.
144 were you hurt badly? She asked him, Vance: I was disillusioned. Shane: that’s the worst kind of heard I think when someone you love or care for turns out to be dishonest or an ideal turns to glass it’s hard to accept. I always set my ideals high if they crumble I just assume take the fall.
145-7 descriptions about the battles of Antietam. In Sharpsburg Oh
147 Vance: war, really fascinates you doesn’t it? Shane: is the only true obscenity. The only time killing, glorified rather than condemned. Men becomes statistics. I wonder if there’s anything more dehumanizing. Have you ever found it? Odd that to kill one on one is considered man’s ultimate crime, but the more a man kills during war the more he’s honored? so many of these boys were farm boys children who had never shot anything more than a weasel in the henhouse. They put on a uniform blue or gray and marched in the battle. I doubt if a fraction of them had any idea what it was going to be like. I’ll tell you what fascinates me , who were they really? The 16 year old Pennsylvania Farm boy rushed across the field to kill his 16-year-old a 16-year-old boy from a Georgia plantation. Did they start out looking for adventure? Were they on a quest? How many pictured themselves sitting around a campfire like men and raising some hell away from their mothers? Even the ones who got back home would never be boys again advance: then why History Shane when it’s riddled with wars, Shane: for the people for the boy, I can imagine who came across that field in September more than 120 years ago he was 17. He had his first whiskey, but not his first woman. He came running across that field full of , terror and glory. The bugles were blaring, the shells exploding, so the noise was so huge, he never heard his own fear. He killed an enemy that was so obscene to him. It had no face. And when the battle was over, when the war was over, he went back home, a man, tired, and aching for his own land. He married his childhood, sweetheart, raised 10 kids, and told his grandchildren about his charge to bloody Layne in 1862 Vance: you must’ve been a hell of a teacher call Shane laughed: I was a hell of a storyteller.

What a sweet story. I just loved Shane. She is just the sweetest thing. I love her ambition and I love her willingness to fall so much in love with someone she didn't know. As usual, Nora makes it so easy to put myself in the main character's place and just imagine myself living in this book.

n  n

I found First Impressions by Nora Roberts a few months ago while browsing in a little tiny thrift shop. Nora Roberts is one of my all time favorite authors and the beautiful Christmas cover also attracted me. This was a perfect book for this time of year. Vance Banning is the president of the nation’s largest construction business. But, he needs a break from the city and from his past. So he buys the old Farley place in the country to restore it and try to find himself again. Somehow, though, the small community thinks he is an out of work carpenter. Right next door lives Shane Abbott. She spent four years in the big city as a teacher. But, after the death of her beloved Grandmother that raised her, she has gone home to restore her Grandmother’s home and convert it to a museum and antique store. Shane is one of those wonderful people that wears her emotions on her sleeve. When she laughs, you can’t help but laugh right along with her. But being so emotionally open also subjects her to be easily hurt.

The first time she laid eyes on Vance, she felt something. She knew she needed to find out just what that feeling was but Vance was having none of it. He made it clear he did not want company. But, Shane decides she needs his help with her house and thinks that Vance needs the work so she hires him as a carpenter. As they get to know each other, she breaks through Vance’s brittle exterior and slowly helps him to heal. But what will happen when she learns the truth about Vance’s past? Will she be able to forgive him for not being honest? And there is someone in Shane’s past they will have to deal with as well.

This wonderful Christmas story is told in true Nora Robert’s fashion, with beautiful scenery and characters with complicated lives. She has a way in her words of making me almost feel the snow down my back and the cold on my cheeks. It was a perfect book to set the mood for the holidays.

First book I've ever read by Roberts and was pleasantly surprised. Fun contemporary read. I really liked Shane and Vance. Vance was just yum and way too fun. Loved the tension set up between them especially after their 'first meeting'. I liked the 'total opposites' dynamic between the two. Vance with his dark cynical broody attitude verses Shane's sweet caring unassuming nature. I really was expecting it to be over the top or cheesy but it wasn't, it was nicely written and believable. I liked how Shane quickly put Vance on edge and he didn't know what to make of her. Was very realistic and not forced and just a sweet love story. I enjoyed it!

Nora phoned this one in.

I’m a huge Nora Roberts fan and from now on I’m going to stick with my favorites and re-read them. That is if this is what she’s going to be coming up with now. The dialogue good but the plot is just milquetoast. Where are the fully fleshed out well developed characters? You’ve got very shallow one dimensional characters, especially the mother. I read it all the way through, but I’m not gonna read it again.

De eerste indruk is altijd belangrijk en dat geldt voor Shane en Vance in deze charmante romance, maar ook voor de lezer. Nora Roberts slaagt er heel vaak in om die eerste indruk een goede indruk te maken. De vierde ster is omdat ik het zulke leuke mensen vond.

This year I have been rereading many Nora Roberts' novels which has been awesome. I wanted to read some Christmas/Winter romances, and I decided to reread this one. I read this years ago, but remember nothing about it, so it was like reading it for the first time. First Impressions by Nora Roberts is a bit dated, but I absolutely enjoyed it.

The heroine of First Impressions is Shane Abbott. She was raised in this small town in Maryland, but has been away for a little bit teaching. She moves back into her grandmother's house after her grandmother passes away and she plans to turn the house into an antique place. Vance Banning, (that is such a romance novel hero name, isn't it?) is the president of a huge construction company in D.C. but he's burnt out, so he decides to take a leave of absence and spend some time alone renovating this old house in the same town. For some reason everyone things Vance is a down-on-his-luck construction worker. So Shane decides to hire him to help get the house ready for her new store. And then ROMANCE!

I really liked this book. Shane is adorable. She's a go-getter and I loved her determination to start a business even though it was risky endeavor. I also loved that she loved her small town, and she was so happy to be back. Shane also does not let Vance, who can be a bit grumpy, walk all over her. Go Shane!

Vance is that typical romance hero for the time. He's grumpy, stand-offish, happens to be filthy rich (but no one in town knows it) and has been hurt in love before. He just wants to be alone, but Shane, his neighbor, keeps talking to him. And then, when she asks him to work on her house, he can't say no. There is a bit of back and forth, mainly because Vance is scared due to his past relationship. But then they get together and I loved it!

Of course there is some conflict, especially because Shane believes Vance is an out-of-work construction worker, not the president of a huge company. But I did love their romance. Once Vance decided he wanted to be with Shane (which took him a little bit) he was committed, and that kind of hero always wins me over. I just really enjoyed First Impressions, even if it's a tiny bit dated.This review was originally posted on Quinn's Book Nook

I will be giving this book at 2.5. Although Nora Roberts writes really well, her story lacked any depth for one. I may feel this way as I have now learned that romance is not my genre of choice. This book was far too predictable and I kept waiting for it to end.

The biggest reason that I gave this book such a poor rating is because of the "love story" between the two primary characters. I hope that if I ever have a daughter, she does not grow up to believe this kind of treatment is alright, let alone have it glorified in a book. We see Vance, treating Shane horribly during most of the book, yelling at her more times than I can count and Shane acting like it was no big deal. Right down to the last couple pages we see him yelling at her and shoving her...is this what love is supposed to look like? I don't think that Shane ever should have excepted his treatment, let alone believing it was love.

Nora Roberts has made me happy...again. I grabbed this little gem today in the used book store, needing a distraction from my bad mood. I read the whole thing this afternoon, with a grin on my face the whole time. This was yet again a prime example of why Nora Roberts is THE Nora Roberts. She always delivers and she inspires me to try and do the same as an author. Thank you, Nora, for brightening my day.

This book was hilarious! I kept picturing Shane as Debby Reynolds in her early years. Cheerful and fun!
The scene with him trying to push her car out of the mud, and then getting covered with it when she stepped on the gas too hard? That actually happened to me in my teens. My date did not think it was funny when he was covered in mud, either.

Kinda forgettable. But an easy listen while doing chores etc.