Reviewed by Emma Crowley
All’s fair in love and…medicine?
Dr Katie O’Neil has only been in Heartcross a few hours when she finds herself already ruffling feathers – not least with medical school nemesis and new colleague Ben Sanders.
Katie’s the woman Ben loves to hate and until now he’d hoped he’d never set eyes on her again but now she’s back – and living next door!
When a charity boat race down the River Heart puts the two in direct competition, sparks fly. The winner takes it all, but who will it be? And will their prize be far more than they were expecting…
Many thanks to Harper Collins UK via NetGalley for my copy of The New Doctor at Peony Practice to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
The New Doctor at Peony Practice is the eighth book in the Love Heart Lane series and long-time followers of the blog will know that I have adored this series by Christie Barlow right from book one. I’ve definitely not stuck with a series in this genre for this long so it’s a sign of just how brilliant it is. I really can’t get enough of it and am delighted that Christie keeps writing these books so quickly as I am always gutted when my visit to Heartcross ends. Thankfully we aren’t kept waiting too long for the next instalment and at this stage we are even getting two books a year which is great. Once again, the cover for this new story is stunning. Whoever is designing these covers is doing a fantastic job. They instantly make you want to dive in and meet the new characters and of course the old familiar faces which have captured a place in my heart from the previous books.
Of course, The New Doctor at Peony Practice can be read as a stand alone and if you do so it will only make you want to go back and start at the very beginning. There is a reason why people get so excited when they see a new upcoming addition to this series and that’s because they are highly readable books with a fantastic setting that you wish was real and the characters feel like friends. Not to mention the unbelievable community spirit and sense of friendship that echoes down through every book. I can picture so vividly in my head all the various settings such as Primrose Park, Heartcross Castle, Rory’s surgery, Clover Cottage, The Grouse and Haggis pub and so many more.
This time around we are introduced to Ben Sanders who has been living in the village of Heartcross in the Scottish Highlands for the last six months. He has embraced all the challenges that his job as a doctor at Peony Practice has to offer and he relishes and enjoys each and every day. He loves the slower pace of life in the village and he has been made to feel so welcome. All the characters who featured before are once again present and they dip in and out when needed but this book focuses on Ben and his story. I love how old characters are not forgotten and we get glimpses of how they are doing after their story had ended. And how refreshing was it to have a women’s fiction book told from the male perspective. It was such a change and one I very much enjoyed. We really got inside Ben’s head and yes we got the female viewpoint as well but Ben is the one whose journey we follow closely.
Although Ben is enjoying his new life, the stream of patients to the practice is endless and he is in danger of being overworked and the practice itself is under pressure. An unexpected arrival sets the cat among the pigeons when Ben’s old nemesis from university Katie O’Neill is hired as the new doctor. Right from their first meeting after so many years you could sense the tension and unease between the pair but I wondered was it more on Ben’s part than Katie’s? Katie is so full of confidence and is a definite overachiever and perfectionist. She had the perfectly family life growing up and knew who she was. She is the complete opposite to Ben who felt like he never fitted into his family life because he had been adopted.
Ben and Katie have a shared history apart from the rivalry they found themselves in university and this competition doesn’t seem to have faded. Soon Katie has changed things at the practice without consulting Ben and he is horrified to discover that she is living in the flat next to him above the practice. I got the feeling Ben’s idyllic time in Heartcross was going to come to an abrupt end as Katie ‘ had started to scratch an itch that Ben hadn’t even known needed scratching and he couldn’t get her out of his mind’. That is meant in both a professional and romantic manner.
To be honest I didn’t like Katie at the start. I found her to be so pushy and forthright and that she didn’t understand the way Ben or indeed Heartcross operated. It was like she wanted all these changes implemented and it was her way or no way. But then over time you realise you should never judge someone on first appearances and I think I judged her based on Ben’s history with her and what he thought of her. Deep down, she too struggles with things but it takes time to express this and she has had a rocky past. She does have a good heart beneath it all which is highlight when she decides to organise the first Heartcross boat race to organise funds for a dementia charity. This has been a storyline ongoing throughout the series and it has been handled so well. It’s been realistic, thoughtful and written in a sensitive and tactful way. Also, when something arises near the conclusion of the book again I was glad to see these issues and themes being explored and it really helped me understand Ben an awful lot more.
Ben is a complex character who knows deep down that he is a struggling with a number of issues in his life particularly his family unit and how he feels he never had a place in it. He brushes things under the carpet instead of confronting them and I think he had preconceptions of Katie. Maybe sharing things and getting things off both their chests would help them. After all they did now have to work alongside each other and were team captains in the boat race. As the story progresses you can see that this pair definitely have feelings for each other but they are both stubborn and can’t express how they feel. There are a number of funny mishaps, most notably at the medical school reunion, that occur alongside the more serious issues being explored and they all blend together so well. Christie Barlow has that knack of mixing humour, romance, friendship and community spirit alongside real life issues that affect us all.
I expected there to be more about the run up to the boat race and coming towards the end I was worried there wouldn’t be much mention of it all but nearing the end the race did feature and helped the story as a whole come full circle. One thing I would mention is that the book was previously titled Peony Practice and I think it fits in better with the titles in the series overall. The new title is a bit of a mouthful and doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily. The title won’t affect your reading of the book but I just think the old title worked better.
I really did enjoy The New Doctor at Peony Practice. The fact that I started it more or less as soon as it landed on my Kindle weeks in advance of publication day is testament to how good this series really is. As much as I enjoyed it and I don’t think Christie Barlow could ever write a bad book, I don’t think this has been my favourite in the series so far. But I definitely wouldn’t have missed out on reading it. New Beginnings at the Old Bakehouse is the next in the series coming in just a few short months and it’s one I have been waiting for ever since the characters first appeared back in book six Primrose Park. Long may Christie continue writing about these wonderful characters and the very special village of Heartcross because they make you feel warm inside and uplifted.
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