Just One Night

Roarke Sullivan, mine owner and mayor of the small, rural town of Garden, Virginia, is determined to provide good, timely health care for the citizens of the town. He’s convinced the town council to join the Rural Doctor Program, in which the town pays for the education of a medical school student with the understanding that the doctor will work in the town for a year after receiving his or her M.D. The doctor in question is Dr. Honey Calabrese, native New Yorker and Emergency Room physician at Bellevue Hospital. Although she was the “back-up” choice, Dr. Calabrese is reluctantly filling her obligation to Garden, because her predecessor seemed to have been more interested in his golf handicap than the health of the people of Garden. Luckily, she seems to get along well with her patients – all except for Roarke Sullivan, who seems to be at odds with her at every turn.

This is a really fun and emotionally involving contemporary romance. The plot is simple. It is the characters, with their complex personalities and motivations, that make the story interesting. The hero and heroine are realistically drawn, and act like you or I would in the same situation. Their problems are not artificial, but problems that could occur to any of us. In addition, the secondary characters are fully fleshed out and come across to the reader as real people, and their interactions motivate the story as well. The story’s setting is also carefully presented, as the author lovingly describes the fictional town of Garden, accurately capturing the ambiance of rural Southwestern Virginia. The few love scenes between the hero and heroine are not quite sensual and not at all graphic, but are very emotionally engaging and loving. I enjoyed reading this novel very much, and recommend it wholeheartedly.

Reviewed by: Jean