Title: Healing Hearts
Author: Violet McBride
Date: 2026
Quote: "The second wave hit harder than the first--hard enough to rip the roof off my cafe."
This is a woman's romance. What does Terry look like? She looks like someone who really listens to a child, and like someone who visits an injured employee in the hospital, and like someone who's never had much money and is dodging a bill collector after the storm damaged her cafe. Even in the chapters narrated by Daniel, the father of the child to whom Terry listens, we see Terry's good character more than her pretty face or perfect figure. I'm not sure I believe it, but I like it. Women would like the men we marry to see us that way.
Anyway: Terry and Daniel don't like each other on sight, but "enemies to lovers" is a cheap grab at a popular plot element. They're not enemies; they just meet under unpromising circumstances, when Terry sees Daniel as an impediment to getting her injured employee into the right part of the hospital. Terry feels some urgency about that because, after Natasha is taken care of, she has to find a place to stay other than her wrecked building. Helpful townsfolk deliver her straight to Daniel's house. He has a room, and could actually use a housemate, because his wife died in a motor accident a few years ago. He has plenty of money and hardly any time, because he is a doctor.
When we see Daniel's little boy chattering happily and Terry really listening, we know the father won't take much longer than the son does to fall in love with her. Because both Daniel and Terry are basically nice people, their emotional wounds clean and simple, the story moves quickly.
If you like a clean, wholesome romance where most of the kissing goes on offstage, you'll like Healing Hearts.
No comments:
Post a Comment