Carol Moncado

YAY!  I’m finally getting to post a review on Wednesday :).  I’ve been planning to do this for like a month and a half now, but things like Christopher’s ‘let’s play the stop breathing game’ and hospital visit stuff then school got in the way.  I have about fifteen books sitting on the table next to me that need reviewed and returned to the library.  The plan is to do that then they’re all ready to go each Wednesday ;).

So for today’s book… Candace Calvert’s Critical Care!  I just discovered Candace’s books last week thanks to a blog post and then a rabbit trail from that blog to another one, then another, then scrolling through then… Well, it was like a pachinko machine, to be honest and I don’t remember the exact path, but that’s okay =D.

Christopher and I did our early morning school/babysitter thing, grocery shopping, stopped by the school to drop off Emily’s snacks for her Star student snack day [her teacher said she loves being Star student – shocking!  Em loving the center of attention?!  Couldn’t be!  Of course, her shorts are on backwards but that’s because Dad was home this morning ;)], talked to Miss Julie [Abbie and Emily’s preschool teacher who was outside with this year’s preschoolers], stopped at the library [love the drive up window!], the bank then home to put up the groceries, feed the 3yo and watch too much Mickey Mouse Clubhouse [the new Road Race episode in which Mickey’s voice sounds funky – did they get a new voice actor?] and I settled in to start Critical Care.  We got home about 11 am.  I finished before 2pm.  That’s a good thing.

Initial thoughts:
It’s a bit shorter than most of the books I’ve read recently but I’m good with that.  It actually gives me hope because it’s about the same length as Unbreak Her Heart.  Mine is about 72K words and I’d be interested to know what Critical Care came in at.

From the cover:

After her brother dies in a trauma room, nurse Claire Avery can no longer face the ER. She’s determined to make a fresh start–new hospital, new career in nursing education–move forward, no turning back. But her plans fall apart when she’s called to offer stress counseling for medical staff after a heart-breaking day care center explosion. Worse, she’s forced back to the ER, where she clashes with Logan Caldwell, a doctor who believes touchy-feely counseling is a waste of time. He demands his staff be as tough as he is. Yet he finds himself drawn to this nurse educator … who just might teach him the true meaning of healing.

What I Loved:

• Jeremiah 29:11 – Yep, my favorite verse makes several appearances :).  It’s written on my bathroom mirror right now and displayed prominently in Claire’s home.  Is it God telling me something?  Or random coincidence?  I know what Jan would say… 😉

What I liked:

• I’ve spent too much time in the last couple of decades [eep!] watching medical dramas of one kind or another.  Reading about one is a bit different!  Critical Care is inspirational ER without the ‘drama’ [in the off-screen sense; ER went on a few seasons too long…]  I could see the emergency room in my mind’s eye both from those shows and from our all too recent visit ourselves [see: Overwhelming Gratitude]
• I love Claire.  I feel for her after the tragic loss.
• I love Logan.  I didn’t like his picture on the cover :p.  I kept thinking ‘but he doesn’t have long curly hair in his picture!’  I know – author’s don’t have much choice in that ;).
• I love the rest of the supporting characters!  They’re so real!  Erin struggling with relationships.  Sarah dealing with her past.  How those things are resolved.  Or at least starting to resolve.
• Logan finally opening up – not just with Claire but with everyone.  The resolution in his life with so many things in his past.
• The ending left me with a smile on my face.
• I’m glad that Disaster Status was on Amazon for like 1.50 or so yesterday – the Kindle edition – so I already have it on the iPhone waiting to read because the library’s two copies aren’t due for at least a week – but I still wish I had an actual hard copy to read :/.

What I Didn’t Like:

• The ending :p.  Yes, I see what I wrote up there.  But I also know that Disaster Status picks up at another hospital with one of those supporting characters who moves at the end of the book.  Okay, I can deal with that.  But my inner literary voyeur wants more Claire and Logan ;).
• Um… that’s about it ;).  Except that I wish the one character, minor though he may be, would have gotten his comeupence [how do you spell that?!] because it so annoys me that he didn’t.  But that particular kind of situation is a bit near and dear to my heart.

Overall:

It’s going on my Amazon wish list.  I liked the characters.  I loved the romance.  And I liked the medical aspect of it – maybe it’s too many hours wasted watching ER, House, or true stories on Discovery Health, but I liked it!  I also found an interview on Title Trakk that said that she has other books out for the general market – comic mysteries with a wacky cruise nurse or something to that effect.  Think I’m going to have to try to find those :).

9 of 10 stars

Now to finish those query letters and get my main webpage up and running instead of having the ‘coming soon’ thing on there forever.  It needs a bio and the first chapter posted – though I did post the first page here on the blog :).