*hides face from embarrassment*
I know, I've been out of blogging for a while. It's been hectic here with lots of editing coming my way. Seems like I go through writing phases where I write and write and do little editing, and then I enter an editing phase where all my books are going through edits at the same time.
Today, I want to spotlight fellow DP writer's book, Calling Home, and give a brief review of the novel. Thank you so much to Zee Monodee for giving me a copy to review. I love reading your books.
Blurb
Clinical and rational, forensic pathologist
Margo Nolan is wholly unprepared for sudden parenthood when she is named
guardian to a tween that she once loved as a daughter. Struggling to balance
her professional life against sudden parenthood, Margo is at a loss of how to
reach out to her ‘daughter’ Emma. Complicating matters is the sexy
doctor-next-door Jamie Gillespie.
Jamie Gillespie volunteered to step in as village doctor for his uncle—in part
as a favor to the older man and in part to stick it to his father’s ambitions.
The last thing he expected was to meet the tough and seemingly cold Margo, but
he can’t ignore his attraction for the woman or his need to help her out.
The question is—can Jamie overcome Margo’s reticence and build a proper life
together or will she let old fears and prejudices keep the sexy village doctor
at arm’s length?
Warning: Contains a thoroughly British sensibility and humor, as
well as a charming doctor and tween angst…
Genre: Contemporary, sweet romance, May-December romance, medical romance
Buy Now from
Excerpt
Bathed in the soft radiance of the porch lamp that spilled in through
the back windshield, his features provided an arresting play of light and
shadows. Suddenly seeing him so up close that she could make out the errant
eyelash that had fallen on his cheekbone, she froze. Her outer shell remained
immobile, while inside, a storm of uncalled-for heat and yearning warred for
possession of her brain and senses.
This is a living,
breathing man. A handsome, sexy creature in his own right. The red-hot memo
wanted to sizzle its way all through her, but she couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow it.
Jamie Gillespie was a hunk, all right, and at first glance, younger than
her.
Latching onto him would be like cradle robbing. Way over the big
three-o, she didn’t do younger men. She didn’t do men, full stop. She dreaded
the upcoming prospect of forty more than turning thirty, because with forty
came peri-menopause; with it, hot flashes, followed by menopause, when many
women went mental. Because she faced a dwindling biological clock with every
year that passed, the minute she saw a man as desirable, she immediately viewed
him as a baby-making machine, even though that had been less and less important
over the last few years.
To see Jamie as sexy meant she could clearly picture herself making
babies with him. A hot flash crept up her cheeks and stung her skin. She
couldn’t—shouldn’t—picture him as
anything but the local doctor. Younger men had a raging libido—Stop it!
Further gone than she’d thought, she gave herself a mental slap. Sex
didn’t even exist as a possibility right then, especially not with Emma in her
life. She had her child; the biological clock could go to Hell in a hand
basket. Let another pregnancy-craving young woman sink her teeth into the
handsome Jamie.
But if she could sink her
teeth into the flesh of his butt cheeks, run her tongue over the ridges of what
surely would be rock-hard pecs and abs—
Margo pinched herself hard and stifled the yelp of pain that tore her
from her X-rated fantasies. A younger man would so not be right for her....
My review:
Being able to write a romance heroine that's an ice queen and to pull it off without putting the readers off poses a huge challenge. I don't think I could do it. Whew, Margo is a tough cookie. She's as difficult to crack as one of the cases she would work on as a forensic pathologist. But the hero, Jamie, is the perfect man who has the skill to break through all her layers and she has plenty. He melts her heart. Who wouldn't want a man like him? He's not perfect in a stuffy, uncomfortable way but in a wholesome, family-man way. And he's sexy to boot.
I enjoyed the journey that the heroine went on - how she not only fell in love but also discovered she was capable of loving her daughter. I liked that she wasn't a perfect mother who did everything right but stumbled and fumbled along the way. Don't we all need a good man to help us be better mothers? There's always a lovely homely, family feel about Zee's books that makes you feel like you're a part of the characters' lives, and I enjoy that each of her characters are unique and have their own flaws and strengths - they're not all a slight variation on the same theme. This was a tender romance with plenty of emotion and highs and lows. A lovely read set in Britain, filled with typical sayings and manners.
