LynneC’s review of Dare She Date The Dreamy Doc? by Sarah Morgan
Contemporary Medical Romance published by Mills and Boon 2 Jul 10

Whoever invented that title needs to be shot. Twice. Don’t let it put you off reading the story, because once you get past that, it’s a really enjoyable read. And the cover shows a doctor in scrubs with a stethoscope around his neck. The hero of this story is a GP (General Practice) doctor, the kind that doesn’t wear scrubs. Maybe the cover artist didn’t read the book? (Heaven forfend!). The title leads the reader to expect a lighthearted teen romance. Which is far from the case, although there is a teenager in the story. It just doesn’t sell the story inside the covers.

Jenna is in her early thirties, her confidence  in her own judgment badly damaged by a relationship in which her husband had multiple affairs that she didn’t know about. She has a teenage daughter, Lexi, and they arrive on the island of Glenmore with Lexi in a sulk. Any parent of teenaged children will recognize the strop. Jenna has taken a job on the island so her daughter can’t go to stay with her father—because he doesn’t want her. I did think Jenna was a tad too self-sacrificing at this point. Lexi is old enough to know.

Jenna is an extra practice nurse and one of the two doctors, Ryan, meets her on the quay. There is an instant attraction. Ryan is gorgeous, rich, and a divorce, but he’s tired of matchmaking people. Jenna and Ryan dance around each other for the next few weeks, and then they kiss.

Morgan is really good at depicting sexual tension. The attraction between Ryan and Jenna sizzles, although this, being a Medical, doesn’t have the level of detail of, say, a Blaze. But it works, and I read through for that. The descriptions of Jenna’s daily life on the island were good, too, and helped to explain her feelings of finding herself again. Married at eighteen, a mother shortly after, Jenna defined herself by her husband. Not every heroine can be an independent woman from the start. I liked the way that Jenna started as a doormat, but is now determined to turn her life around. She did, however, consider her daughter a little too much. However, Lexi thinks that too. After the first chapter, Lexi transforms into a “good” teenager, which disappointed me a little, because the sulky teenager was far more interesting.

I would have liked more of Ryan, too, but I did like that although his first marriage was a disaster, he didn’t let that put him off once he found a woman who attracted him the way Jenna did. He went after her, and I loved the scene where they finally came together (in more ways than one!)

It’s unlikely that an island would be called “glen” anything, since “glen” means a valley, and while the book is absent the dinnakenna language that I despise, it could have done with a touch of the Scottish. It could have been an island anywhere. Except for Shetland, which is flat, treeless and freezing cold. And life on a Scottish island for outsiders in real life is pretty dire. Even for medics. Both Jenna and Ryan are from London, so every time they opened their mouths they would have labeled themselves as outsiders. Mainlanders. They would have been mainlanders until they died, never completely welcomed. I know that of which I speak. But a book with that kind of attitude would have made for a dreadfully depressing book, so I was willing to accept it, the way I accept companies that are flourishing despite the recession, models who are a decent weight and don’t live on cocaine, rice cakes and water, and gorgeous European princes and sheikhs. All part of the fantasy.

It was nice to read a Medical that had enough medical detail to convince, but not enough to drown the story. Morgan was a nurse before she turned to writing, so I felt safe in her hands. The read gave me a pleasant few hours, and at the end of the story I felt that Jenna and Ryan would make a great couple. Not something I can say for every Harlequin I read.

Grade: B

Summary:

Nurse Jenna Richards did not come all the way to Glenmore to fall head-over-heels for the first sexy doctor she saw. But what’s a single mum to do when devastatingly dreamy Dr Ryan McKinley has his eye on you, and the entire island community is mischievously matchmaking…? DR DROP-DEAD GORGEOUS Emily Forbes Plastic surgeon Ben McMahon has stepped out of Melbourne’s society pages…and straight into nurse Maggie Petersen’s life. He sweeps Maggie well and truly off her feet – then she discovers she’s pregnant! Now Maggie must tell Ben that he’s about to go from being the city’s most eligible bachelor…to Melbourne’s newest daddy!

Read an excerpt.