Book Review: The Doctor's Devotion (Eagle Point Emergency, #1) by Cheryl Wyatt

The Doctor's Devotion by Cheryl Wyatt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Cover Blurb:  When he fled Eagle Point years ago, former air force trauma surgeon Mitch Wellington left only broken dreams behind. Now he's back with a new dream—opening a trauma center in the rural area and saving lives. He hopes to hire the quick-thinking nurse who impressed him during an emergency. But Lauren Bates lost her faith and doesn't believe she deserves to help anyone. Mitch knows firsthand what loss feels like. And it'll take all his devotion to show Lauren that sometimes the best medicine is a combination of faith, community—and love.

After losing a patient and becoming disenchanted with her former profession as a nurse, Lauren Bates decides to open a sewing shop with a friend in Texas. But when her aging grandfather needs her, she rushes home to Illinois for the summer.

Enter former Air Force trauma surgeon Mitch Wellington, who has returned to rural Eagle Point with the dream of opening a trauma center and saving lives. Mitch has heard a lot about Lauren from her grandfather but she’s not comfortable with how close the two men have gotten in her absence.

When Lauren accompanies her grandfather and Mitch to the ribbon cutting for the trauma center, she learns just how important this center is to the area when a major emergency occurs. Short staffed, she must put aside her fears and step up to help those in need. Despite her low self-esteem due to the past tragedy, Lauren’s skills as a nurse totally blow Mitch away and he starts pursuing her as a nurse for his trauma center.

Of course, things don’t stay strictly professional and attraction develops between the two as the summer progresses. But things aren’t all wine and roses for the couple. Lauren’s commitment to her friend in Texas and Mitch’s dedication to his new trauma center mean they could torn apart before they truly get a chance to explore this relationship.

Ms. Wyatt’s has an uncanny ability to convey the growth of these characters, both spiritually and emotionally, makes this book very hard to put down. Her characters endure realistic struggles of loss, broken promises, money issues, etc. and make them all the more relatable to the reader. She puts them through situations that test their faith and make them set up to the plate just like we have to do every day of our lives. The plot is well thought out with multi-dimensional characters that will keep you engaged and intrigued.

P.S. There is a specific part of the story where I could almost hear Kenny Chesney singing in the background about his tractor. It’s a very amusing scene and just more evidence of how Ms. Wyatt can draw her readers into the story. Well done!

For more on Cheryl Wyatt and her books, check out her site at http://www.cherylwyatt.com

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Book Review: Police Business by Julie Miller (Book #2 in the Precinct Series)

Police Business by Julie Miller
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

From Ms. Miller's website: "Police Business Book #2 in the Precinct

Cop in Shining Armor

While investigating a reported crime, Detective A.J. Rodriguez discovered there wasn't a trace of any murder having been committed! But hearing-impaired heiress Claire Winthrop insisted she'd stumbled upon a slain employee in her father's high-rise building and claimed she could ID the hit man. Although the lack of evidence pointed to an open-and-shut case of a pampered socialite clamoring for attention, A.J. sniffed a deadly cover-up. Powerfully drawn together, the street-tough lawman soothed the shell-shocked princess with a tantalizing kiss that bewitched both their hearts. However, when A.J. pulled Claire into his dark, dangerous world, he knew he'd better stick to police business---or the killer could permanently silence his beloved witness . . ."

Ms. Miller penned a great mystery here that had you guessing until the end. Her ability to take the little things we (as hearing individuals) take for granted and spin it into a comprehensive, complex story was just amazing. And the players involved – the father, the uncle, the security chief, the secretary, the temp – they all had me second guessing myself at every turn about what happened and whodunit.

If you’ve been reading the Taylor Clan/Precinct series from the beginning, you’ll recognize A.J. as youngest Taylor brother Josh’s partner from The Rookie. I had pegged A.J. as sort of the serious workaholic compared to Josh’s more laid back temperament but I didn’t realize until this story just how far it went. You get to see who Josh and A.J. work together in the Prologue for this story if you didn’t get to read the other.

His father had been trying to tell A.J. something was going on at the company where his father worked as a janitor but it didn’t weigh high enough on rebellious teen A.J.’s list of priorities at the time for him to be concerned. Then his father is murdered and his whole life is flipped on its axis.

A.J. straightens out his life and becomes a cop but he hasn’t been able to bring his father’s killer to justice. When the Fourth Precinct receives a call from the very company his father used to work for, he figures this might be his chance.

When he gets there, he finds the owner’s daughter, Claire, claiming she witnessed a murder. Only there’s no body. No blood. No evidence at all that a crime has been committed. Even when the woman Claire thought was murdered calls from vacation to say she’s fine, the seemingly pampered socialite doesn’t change her story. Only there seems to be too many people in her social circle trying to pressure her to do just that.

Did she or didn’t she see someone murdered? Is this murder related to what happened to his father? What would the killer do to Claire when he realized he’d left a witness?

If I told you the answers, you wouldn’t read the book. And if you like ultimate suspense and mystery with a healthy dose of tender romance and awe-inspiring love, this is definitely one you’d want to tag for your TBR pile. Pick it up now at Amazon and check out Ms. Miller’s site for more information on these books and more.


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Book Review: Partner-Protector by Julie Miller (5 Stars)

Copyright © 2005 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited

A Cop's Crusade . . .
Detective T. Merle Banning vowed to conduct the Holiday Hookers homicide investigation based on cold, hard evidence, not psychobabble from the department's "crackpot" consultant. So, despite their smoldering attraction, he scoffed at Kelsey Ryan's unsettling visions of one of the murders. But even he couldn't discount the truth when Kelsey provided a break in the case that had stymied the Fourth Precinct for years. As their pursuit of the twisted killer led them down the seedy back alleyways of Kansas City, the flamboyant beauty bewitched T's battle-scarred heart . . . and propelled him to breach her isolated world. Could these partners in passion unravel the killer's web of darkness before it ensnared them both?

(Description Quoted from Ms. Miller's Website)

Thanks to a very generous Christmas gift from my brother (and Kindle), I was able to finally read the original Precinct Series. I’ve read Vice-Squad, SWAT, Brotherhood of the Badge, and currently on Task Force but somehow I missed the series that connected the Taylors to the many Precinct series that followed.

First off, if you read the Taylor Clan series, you’ll recognize Merle as Ginny Rafferty (now Taylor)’s partner from the 2^nd book in that series, Sudden Engagement. Mitch Taylor from the 1^st book in that series, One Good Man, also plays supporting role in this book. If you didn’t get to read those books, don’t worry because this book can stand on its own, but if you want to check them out, they are well worth the read and you can pick them up on KINDLE by clicking on the links above.

For those who did read Sudden Engagement, Ms. Miller does a fabulous job of continuity from that book on several fronts. First, Merle is still nursing his ‘crush’ on his partner Ginny which becomes an obstacle for his relationship with Kelsey. Second, he was injured at the end of Sudden Engagement, and the after effects of being shot are continued through this book with various mentions of the stiffness, etc. And lastly, Ginny and her husband Brett Taylor are now expecting a child which has put Ginny on bed rest leaving him open to be paired with Kelsey on the Holiday Hookers case in the first place. None of these things are intrusive on the current book, but as a reader, I find it nice to be able to catch up with some ‘old friends’.

Now that I’ve spent half the review talking about a previous book, let’s get into this one…

Merle is a cop. Kelsey is a psychic. If you’ve seen any TV police dramas, you know these are not a good combination and the cops I know would laugh in your face if you told them a psychic had information on a cold case murder they were working on. Either that or they’d place the psychic at the top of their suspect list. And that’s exactly what happens between Merle and Kelsey.

At first, all Kelsey can tell him was something happened somewhere and she felt it had to do with the Holiday Hooker murders. But with little more than that, Merle sends her packing with a pat on the head and a smile (not really but from the way he brushed aside her concerns, I’m sure it felt that way to Kelsey…lol). Of course, her bright red hair and eclectic clothes gave me an image of a female Ronald McDonald, which couldn’t have helped.

Undeterred, and knowing the ‘spirits’ won’t leave her alone until she solves what happened to them, Kelsey begins searching on her own. After letting a little bit of what Kelsey said sink in and realizing her clues where better than nothing, Merle follows. Unfortunately, he can’t do anything to stop her car from being stolen, although it does lead to a moment when I couldn’t help but think ‘if she’s really psychic, why didn’t she see her car being stolen?’ LOL. Ms. Miller doesn’t bring that up since she’d already expressed Kelsey’s ‘powers’ are not that kind but more of a feeling/impression she gets from touching things. Still someone had to say it. J

Maybe if they’d found the car, she could have touched it and ‘seen’ the person stole it. Hehe. Though I must admit it was more fun having Kelsey reliant on Merle to get home and Merle having to ‘deal’ with her as instead of bemoaning the loss of her car, she goes to work volunteering at the homeless shelter across the street.

If this had been a Christian fiction story, I would have thought that the inclusion of the homeless shelter was a plot device to add some kind of Christian message to the story. But knowing Ms. Miller’s writing, I knew she’d be sharing some pretty important things connecting the shelter to the Holiday Hooker killings. Ms. Miller did not disappoint.

In addition to each of the murder victims having spent time at the shelter, Ms. Miller gives us not one but two potential suspects: the shelter director, who seems devoted to the homeless and the shelter but leaves the impression he’s hiding something, and the drunk doctor at the shelter who is more than a little peculiar. A third suspect turns out to be a cop whose beat includes the area around the shelter but seems a little too friendly with the low-lifes in the area. Or could the killer be the local pimp, Zero, upset that the murdered hookers were honing in on his girls’ territory?

Ms. Miller does an excellent job at leaving red herrings and keeps you guessing until the end. The suspense stays high throughout with Kelsey ending up in danger from practically every direction. The relationship between Kelsey and Merle develops so well from an adversarial friction to a passionate partnership that is just so beautiful, especially for two people seemingly so different from each other.

Partner-Protector is definitely another keeper from Ms. Miller and I can’t wait to be able to read the rest of this series. If you want to pick up a copy for yourself, check out AMAZON or visit Ms. Miller’s website at www.juliemiller.org for more information on newer releases what she’s working on, contests, and more.