Healing Touch

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Synopsis

Divorced, single mother Tracy Campbell had enough of the small-town gossip mill when her marriage dissolved, and she has no interest in stirring things up again by dating another man. However, a lump on her neck has necessitated several visits to Jeremy Nelson, the hot, new, town doctor. Although she finds Jeremy attractive, Tracy can think of a dozen reasons why a relationship between them would never work. It's a good thing that Jeremy is a patient and persistent man who doesn't give up easily, whether it's convincing her to give him a chance or persuading her to seek proper treatment for her medical condition.

Review

Healing Touch is a short, stand-alone, contemporary romance novella set in a small town in Iowa. Our heroine, Tracy, is a divorced, single mom of a three-year-old who is dealing with a lump on her neck or perhaps more accurately not dealing with it. She's been called into the office of the young, new, town doctor, Jeremy, several times, but while he does try to persuade her to take action on her medical problem, he also tries to keep the visits more casual and friendly. He's clearly interested in her, but Tracy is kind of oblivious, and she also doesn't think she wants to date anyone. She comes up with many different reasons why a relationship between them wouldn't work, but through patient persistence, Jeremy finally gets through to her on both the romantic front and the medical one.

The story is told entirely from Tracy's first-person perspective. I could relate to her as a mom of a young child. She seems to be doing the best she can under the circumstances and her little boy, Cody, appears to be pretty well-adjusted for a kid whose dad essentially walked out on them. I could also sympathize with her having a cheating husband who left and the uncomfortable feeling of the small-town rumor mill run amok. However, I didn't think that her feelings about these things were brought out sufficiently for me to fully understand why she was so adamantly against getting involved with Jeremy. For his part, Jeremy is a total sweetheart who seems to do nothing but care for Tracy and immediately hits it off with Cody, so her stubbornness and even occasional outright rudeness toward him could grate at times. Even though she's attracted to him and deep down seems to appreciate his attentions, she has a dozen reasons for why things won't work between them, some of which weren't all that logical. One of the bigger ones is that he's seven years younger than her, but once again, Tracy's feelings about the age difference weren't sufficiently explained to make me fully understand her objections. Tracy's refusal to get medical treatment for the lump on her neck was frustrating, too. I understand being afraid of a scary diagnosis, but her excuse is that she fears what will happen to her son if she has to undergo cancer treatments. This didn't make much sense to me, because she seemed to have plenty of family and friends around who likely would have been happy to help. Not to mention, delaying treatment could have worsened her condition and what would have happened to her son if she'd died?

Overall, Tracy was just a little too obstinate, abrasive, and snarky for me to completely relate to her, which also made it a bit difficult to figure out what Jeremy saw in her since we don't get anything from his point of view. I have to give him credit, though, for exhibiting persistence coupled with extreme patience, which eventually won the day. He was certainly a gem of a hero, which is why I had a hard time understanding why Tracey was fighting it for so long. If I had a man paying me the kind of attention he was giving to her, I'd have melted long before she did. I don't want to make this novella sound bad, though, because it's not. My frustration with Tracy aside, Healing Touch was a gentle story with a sweet ending. My love for Jeremy is a large part of why I didn't rate it any lower, and Cody is as cute as a button and rendered very age appropriately. If Tracy's character had been toned down just a little and/or her feelings about all the things that were driving her to brush Jeremy off had been brought out in more stark relief, I could have seen this becoming a keeper. As is, it was an okay read with some things that I liked about it, just not enough to propel it up to a higher rating. Unfortunately it appears that this novella is no longer available for purchase at this time.

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Themes

Babies & Children
Beta Heroes
Doctors, Nurses, & Medical Professionals
G/PG-Rated Romance
Medical Drama