The Doctor's Proposal

Marion Lennox has long been one of my favorite Harlequin authors (in both Medical and sweet romance) but after reading a dozen or more of her books I was kind of burned out and stopped for a while. This novel (in US it was released in the Harlequin Romance line but it has two doctors as the lead characters) was nominated in 2007, so it's one of her earlier efforts. It's set in a small fishing village in Australia and has an interesting combination of angst, tragic backstories, and humor. Lennox is very skilled at mixing these characteristics and she does well here, although it's almost too much emotional, psychological, and physical baggage, especially when the suspense/jeopardy element kicks in. I'm still kind of on the fence about show more this book; I like it quite a bit, but I can't decide if it really works.

Kirsty McMahon and her sister Susie are identical twins who have come to Australia from the US to find Susie's late husband's uncle Angus, who is a Scottish Earl settled in Australia and living in a modern, OTT castle. Susie's husband Rory was killed in a car crash soon after their marriage; she is now eight months pregnant and suffering from massive depression. Kirsty hopes that meeting Angus will give Susie more of a reason to go on and to take pleasure in her baby's impending arrival. Meanwhile, Angus is suffering from lung and heart ailments and has lost his will to leave, and he is scheduled to go into a nursing home from which he doesn't expect to emerge. Kirsty and Angus's doctor (the only local doctor), Jake, meet and sparks of all kinds fly, but both have backstory/family reasons not to want to get involved.

Susie and Angus immediately take to each other and Kirsty and Susie move into Angus's weird castle. Both invalids' health situations improve markedly and they bond over gardening and the care and feeding of a giant pumpkin. Meanwhile, Kirsty gives Jake a hand with village doctoring and they fight their feelings for each other because neither is willing to make emotional commitments. Into this idyll comes the villain, who while thoroughly a villain is also mentally ill.

As I said, there is a lot of emotional trauma, past and present, in this story. Susie was injured in the car crash that killed Rory, Angus has chronic illnesses that are debilitating (although manageable), and Susie is an anesthesiologist turned palliative care and pain-control specialist, so we spend time in the story with one of her new terminally-ill patients. And at least two people in the story suffer from debilitating psychological problems. I don't feel as if any of these issues are treated cavalierly or inserted merely for plot purposes, but it is a lot to take in a category-length novel. To me the portrayal of depression was well done, but everyone has different experiences and different triggers and I can imagine that some readers might not feel the same way. I wasn't convinced when the suspense/jeopardy plot took over but it does make sense for the storyline. There were some serious OTT consequences and only my general trust in Lennox's expertise kept me from rolling my eyes.

So this is a hard book to grade and recommend. It is so angsty in its storyline but all that angst is incorporated and presented in a matter of fact way (until the climax of the suspense subplot). It has portrayals of physical and emotional disabilities all over the place. I think if it weren't a Lennox book I would have had more problems with it, but I find her writing and the way she handles difficult topics to be convincing, so it worked for me. show less