Synopsis:
Some lessons are harder to learn than others…
Doctor O-for-Awesome Owen Bennett is all about fixing broken things. Then the arrival of his orphaned nieces and nephew for twelve weeks causes his workaholic life to plummet into chaos. Hiring the beautiful but unpredictable Gracie Cooper as a live-in nanny might just get him out of a tight spot…or it could seduce him into a reckless affair.
After four years flitting around Europe, waitress/dog-walker/au-pair Gracie Cooper has returned home to New Zealand. Her plans to hang out with her big brother change when Owen offers a perfect solution to her crippling university debt. In spite of her sexy-stick-in-the-mud boss, she’ll spend fun days playing in Bounty Bay’s sand and surf with three cute kids. At summer’s end she’ll follow the sun overseas again.
Gracie and Owen’s opposites-attract connection is so unexpected and powerful that their foundations are rocked. But some things aren’t easy to fix. Some past hurts can’t be run from forever. And the lessons they teach each other risk breaking their hearts.
Review:
I am loving the characters of the Far North series just as much as the Due South ones!
Gracie Cooper, little sister of Glen from Know Your Heart , is at loose ends in her life. Unable to stomach staying with their overbearing and demanding father for even a weekend, she heads off to visit her big bro and his fiancee until her next job calls her…only she doesn’t actually make it there, not really. She’s waylaid along the way by two babysitter escapees, one who looks suspiciously like a human minion and the other who clearly needs a trip to the emergency room.
The emergency room where their uncle and temporary guardian, Dr. Owen “O is for Awesome” Bennett works. Coincidence? Of course not! How else can we throw these two obviously-opposites-but-still-clearly-meant-for-each-other people together? 😉
His babysitter has just quit, she needs a temporary job, the kids will go back to his mother’s in two months…what could go wrong?
LOL…like you have to ask!
I adored Gracie and Owen (and all the different “O is for…” names that she and her friends will come up with throughout the book), and Morgan, Will (or William, never Willie, for a reason I agree with but that still makes me LOL), and Charlie (NOT Charlotte!) were such a fun group of kids–not at all plot-moppety. Watching Owen learn to loosen up once again and Gracie finally find some roots was such a good time. And Owen’s ever-evolving “house rules” made me laugh out loud–and wince–because yeah, Legos hurt. I’m with you there, Dr. McDreamy.
Though the couples from the first two books do play roles here, this one would work fine as a standalone if you haven’t had a chance to read them yet. (But read them later! Trust me, you won’t be sorry.) And fortunately, there’s still a few suspiciously single characters floating around town who clearly need their own HEAs, so there’s good hope that we’ll see more of Gracie, Owen, Morgan, Will, and Charlie in the future too 🙂
Rating: 4 stars / A-
