Jason Steel moved to small town Tindley just five months ago, after coming to his senses and breaking up with his live in girlfriend and fellow doctor Adele. Adele had calously shrugged off the death of a young kid who she could have saved had she spent the time to properly diagnose - Jason sees his own preoccupation with money in her attitude, and decides to leave the big city practice to become a family doctor and slow down a bit. Now he feels life would be perfect if only he had a wife! So he decides to go after the only girl in town that he's felt at all attracted to, Emma Churchill, who's aunt has *just* died (her aunt raised her), and conveniently enough when she broke up with her fiancé for cheating on her and getting another girl pregnant she swore she would marry the next decent man who asked.
Only it's not all that simple as Emma is still in love with the louse she broke up with, Dean Ratchitt, and futher she insists that if Jason had really loved Adele as he said he did, he wouldn't be over her by now either. So she says give her a month and then ask again, only they go out on a date the next night and he proposes again and she accepts! They get married within 2 weeks, so the real question is, can they love each other and move on from their pasts?
I am not at all a fan of this book, although I am a fan of Miranda Lee so it's too bad. Basically this book is a tale of jealousy and rediculous moralizing. Right away (before they marry) Jason has to go to Syndey cuz his brother has been hospitalized, only it's Adele who phones to let him know, and he thinks Emma would jump to the wrong conclusion so he lies to her. Yup, and then just before the wedding Dean shows up and makes out with Emma and she doesn't want to spoil the wedding so she doesn't tell Jason until the last day of their honeymoon when he catches her crying. Lovely. Jason is soooo not my type - when proposing to Emma he reasons "You don't want to wake up one day and find that you're a dried-up old spinster" - he desires her "so differently from the way he desired Adele" and to Adele he shouts "you make my skin crawl" and otherwise utterly berates her (although granted the author did have Adele propose that they have sex like on top of his brother in the hospital as his brother was unconscious). On the bright side Emma wasn't saving herself for marriage, just to try to trap Dean into it (wait, is that a good thing?) and didn't want to sleep with Jason until marriage as if she was going to make the man she loved wait, she has to make the man she doesn't love wait as well. I do appreciate that Emma was sexually attracted to Dean and not just Jason (so often whoever turns the heroine on MUST be the hero), although she was completely annoying not realizing that sexual desire is not the way you tell you are in love (she realized this when Jason is able to turn her on). And as for Jason, he sort of redeems himself at the end when he offers to give Emma an uncontested divorce if being with Dean is what would make her happy. But too little, too late to save this book for me. Please read something else by Miranda Lee instead - she's got much better books.
