Contemporary
The Doctor's Deception
By Laurie
Jul 1, 2008 - 6:49:45 PM

Faith Daniels has bounced back from an ugly, insulting divorce, keeping busy as a much-loved nurse; even earning the distinction of Nurse of the Year at Deerborne General Hospital.  When she repeatedly draws the short straw amongst the nurses, forcing her to work with the impossibly difficult heart surgeon, Dr. Stone Lassiter, she thinks she’s simply unlucky.  Stone is known as being cold, angry and downright nasty and working alongside him is just plain torture, regardless of how gorgeously masculine he is.  Faith’s biggest dream is to someday be a doctor herself, but she’s been unable to pass the MCAT, freezing up every time she’s made the attempt.  Stone offers to help Faith overcome her anxiety issues in exchange for her attending a hospital charity ball as his date; she decides to take him up on his offer.  The last thing in the world that she would have expected is an undeniable, unstoppable attraction between her and Stone. When a misunderstanding makes it appear that Stone has deceived her, just as her ex-husband had, her pain is crushing.

Dr. Stone Lassiter doesn’t realize how much the nurses in his department dread working with him.  When a colleague tells him that the transplant center that’s been Stone’s dream since losing his fiancée to heart disease years before is in jeopardy because of repeated complaints about him, he knows he has to do some serious damage control.  He’s certain that being seen with Faith will go far in patching up his tattered reputation.  What Stone doesn’t expect is to fall completely for the sweetly wonderful Faith.  Just when he begins to put the pain and heartache of the past behind him and he’s happily thinking of a future with Faith, a misunderstanding with devastating consequences rips his plans to shreds.

I personally feel that Kathleen Grieve has a real winner with her first release.  This book has everything a romance reader could possibly want with realistic characters who aren’t syrupy sweet or too good to be true, and emotions that in one way or another have been experienced by each and every one of us at some point in our lives.  Faith is a strong heroine, despite past heartaches inflicted by her ex-husband.  She’s beautiful, motivated and bright, and driven to succeed.  Stone is well-respected for his abilities as a heart surgeon, but past promises have made him oblivious to everything but overwhelming guilt over the death of his fiancée years before. THE DOCTOR’S DECEPTION definitely does not read like a first book and I look forward to many future releases from Ms. Grieve.  If you enjoy great romance with a medical setting, steamy passion, and a tortured hero that you’ll find yourself rooting for, I highly recommend THE DOCTOR’S DECEPTION.