Showing posts with label female doctor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label female doctor. Show all posts

Thursday, January 25, 2018

Blood Oath/ Melissa Lenhardt/ 368 pgs

This is the second book in what I think is going to be a trilogy. It's a western set after the Civil War and takes place in Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. The first book follows a female doctor, now using the name Laura, who runs away from a murder charge in New York. She finds herself at an Army fort in Texas after a violent journey. There she meets an Army captain, William Kindle, whose life she once saved during the war while disguised as a man. Confused yet? There is a lot of plot to these books and the story picks up in this second book, steamrolling on. Laura and William are on the run together now because Pinkerton detectives are still on her trail for the murder charge. William has deserted the Army so he's wanted too. At the end of book one they were attacked by Native Americans and Laura was brutally raped. In this book the couple are continually faced with violence and a kill-or-be-killed frontier while still trying to deal with the aftermath of that attack. As with the first book, there is a ton of violence, but it's also offset by interesting character interactions. I'm still frustrated by all the coincidences but I'm also eager to read the third book. I'm hoping Laura and William are able to find a peaceful life at last.

Thursday, June 1, 2017

Sawbones/ Melissa Lenhardt / 432 pgs

This was a 180-degree turn from the short, light-hearted romance I just read. Sawbones is gritty, violent, and not the for the faint-of-heart. And I really liked it.

Catherine Bennett is a female doctor in 1870s New York City. She's a rarity and not always well received. The book jumps right in with Catherine being accused of murdering a patient's husband. In desperation, she decides to run off to the American frontier and disappear. Things do not go as planned. The Texas frontier is a harsh place, which Catherine (now using the name Laura), soon discovers. There's action, humor, female friendship (yay!), and romance here. My one nitpick is that for such a large country, Catherine sure does "coincidentally" run into a fair number of people in Texas that she originally knew from the East Coast. I rolled my eyes and moved on. I enjoyed it all, though I'll repeat my warning that this book has some very dark, violent chapters. Be warned. It's also part of a series, a trilogy I think. I can't wait to read the next one.