Friday, February 25, 2022

Their Reunion to Remember - Tina Beckett (HMED #1220 - Jan 2022)

Series: Nashville ER (Book 2)

Then: an almost happily-ever-after
Now: a second chance?
 
Surgeon Lia Costa has spent a lifetime trying to blend into the background. So when Dr. Micah Corday picks her out of a busy concert crowd on Valentine's Day, she can't believe it! Micah was her first love…and the man she thought she would never see again. Is Lia ready to remember the powerful love that she had tried so hard to forget?

 
Good second chance love story. Lia and Micah fell in love during medical school. But when graduation came, and Micah wanted them to join Doctors Without Borders, Lia panicked and broke things off with Micah, breaking both of their hearts. Lia has prosopagnosia (Face blindness, or prosopagnosia, is a brain disorder characterized by the inability to recognize or differentiate faces. People with face blindness may struggle to notice differences in the faces of strangers. Others may even have a hard time recognizing familiar faces.) She has learned to cope where everything is familiar, but going somewhere so far out of her comfort zone terrified her. But rather than tell Micah the truth, she pushed him away.
 
Several years later, Micah returns to Nashville and takes a job at the same hospital where Lia works. He's surprised when he spots her at a hospital fundraiser concert and the memories that flooded him of their time together, including that final rejection. He was hurt and angry when she didn't recognize him. Lia faced one of her greatest fears when she saw Micah and didn't recognize him until he spoke and scrambled to minimize the damage. Unfortunately, she only made things worse when she discovered they would be working together.
 
Though they plan to avoid each other whenever possible, they are thrown together when Lia treats a case that calls for Micah's expertise as an epidemiologist.  Working together to spread the word about the outbreak and the need for updated vaccinations, their old feelings don't take long to resurface. I loved watching those feelings deepen and grow and seeing their attraction follow suit. But Lia's fears are never far from her mind, and Micah's dreams soon run up against those fears. I ached for Micah as he saw history repeat itself, breaking his heart again. I loved how Lia found the courage to tell him everything and Micah's love and support as he finally understood her. The epilogue was sweet.
 
I love the Harlequin Medical line because they always have interesting situations. In this book, Lia and Micah face an outbreak of pertussis or whooping cough. Because of widespread vaccinations, it is something that is rarely heard of these days but can be deadly. I liked seeing the steps that Micah and Lia took, from public education to contact tracing (with a nod to lessons learned from Covid). I also liked getting the follow-up to the medical issue with Avery's friend, Bonnie, from the first book in the series (New Year Kiss with His Cinderella). 

                                                                      

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