REVIEW: THE DOCTOR CALLING BY MEREDITH APPLEYARD

Due to time restraints while I work on my own novel, reviews on this site will now comprise a book blurb and a short response.

The Doctor Calling is the first book I’ve read by Meredith Appleyard (The Country Practice) and after reading a particularly confronting novel, the tone of this book was refreshing. Here’s the blurb:

What Laura was about to do wasn’t easy. To become embroiled in a family’s turmoil, their grief, their anger, their secrets, wasn’t safe, or clever.

Rebuilding her life again after unexpected tragedy, GP Laura O’Connor flees Adelaide, and her medical career, for a quiet life in rural Potters Junction. She’s looking to escape her own family dramas. The last thing she expects is to become caught up in another’s.

Jake Finlay is a man with a troubled past and a passion for risk-taking. After years away from his small home town, he’s hell-bent on keeping his distance. But his father is dying and this could be the last chance they have to make amends.

As Laura and Jake come together over the care for the frail man, they experience an irresistible attraction. Will facing death help them both to grab hold of life? And might love be just what the doctor ordered?

An engaging and heart-warming rural-medical romance is in store for readers of The Doctor Calling. Laura and Jake, the two romantic leads, are both running away from family drama and deep-seated hurt and pain, but the circumstances under which they meet forces them to re-think their lives in more ways than one. There’s plenty of chemistry between the leads, as well as ongoing interest from secondary characters who are fighting battles that involve Jake and Laura whether they want it that way or not.

What I liked particularly was the reminder about life in rural areas, with issues such as the lack of medical facilities, isolation, and the everyday challenges of working on land that’s at mercy of whatever the season brings. It’s these issues that take romantic fiction to a deeper level and offer, not only insight to city dwellers like me, but comfort that someone gets it for those who live that life every day.

My only complaint would be the cover – the young woman looks a lot younger than her mid-thirties. Why? It’s frustrating.

Available from good bookstores (RRP $32.99 AUD). My copy was courtesy of Penguin Random House.