THE DOC’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE

Book Cover

Dr. Mark Moore makes the Sam Heard Clinic his first stop as soon as he arrives in the town of Crescent Hill. After being forced to leave his previous position due to a patient dying after undergoing his new dementia treatment, Mark is eager to take any position that will allow him to continue his research. Even though Mark’s machine shows great promise in treating dementia, and the clinic needs the money an accompanying research grant could bring in, Dr. Susan Pace isn’t eager to have Mark join the operation. As a psychiatrist, she prefers a holistic approach using talk therapy, not a supposedly miraculous machine that messes with patients’ brains (“I’ve never believed in machines to do what human contact can do”). But after being warned that the clinic will close if they don’t get the grant, Susan has to accept Mark’s presence and learn to work with him. When they test the machine on Susan’s star patient, Gertie, she regains a memory about her husband’s unexplained death in a fire several years earlier. Mark and Susan find themselves embroiled in a town mystery as they strive to save their livelihoods and navigate their growing feelings for each other—they could really use a Christmas miracle. In this romantic mystery novel, Stolin gives readers a fast-tracked love story—with so much going on in the brief narrative, much of the action feels rushed. Susan and Mark are fully fleshed-out characters, and their patients also show dimension. Unfortunately, the villain (and their motivations) leaves much to be desired, and the mystery element feels underdeveloped due to a lack of exposition and space to build. The premise has promise, and the romance is sweet, but overall, the story is a tad underwhelming.

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