Helena Mathews may have spent her first weeks of life in a neonatal intensive care unit, but she grew up to be a tough-willed, competent, and smart combat emergency nurse. Throughout her young life, she was hovered over by her worried parents, twin brother, Owen, and even his best friend, Carter Simpson. But when the twins and Carter headed off to college together, Helena made her first break for freedom; she changed from her ‘safe’ major – art history – to nursing and, in the eyes of her parents, harm’s way.
The one person who immediately understood her need to be her own person and follow her dreams was Carter Simpson. He had grown up worshipping his surgeon father, doing everything he could to make his father proud of him. All his life, he’d dreamed of following in his dad’s footsteps, becoming a doctor, and publishing his research in the medical journals his father read day in and day out. His family supported him 100% until, suddenly, they didn’t.
Soon after Helena made her big announcement to her family, Carter Simpson inexplicably disappeared from the twins’ lives. His parents were divorcing, and his father only told them he didn’t know where Carter was and didn’t want to know; no further explanation was offered. At the start of the new semester, they found he’d moved out of the dorm room he shared with Owen and withdrawn from school. In the ensuing months and years, phone calls, emails, and text messages all went unanswered.
Years later, after a long and difficult recuperation from injuries sustained while working in combat-torn Iraq, Helena is ready to get back to work. She takes an assignment in Antarctica as a nurse practitioner for the 9-month-long winter-over session at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station ministering to the medical needs of the 50-plus year-round research scientists, technicians, and support staff. Her plane had just landed when who should show up as physician-on-staff at the very ends of the Earth but Helena’s own missing Dr. Carter Simpson.
REAWAKENED AT THE SOUTH POLE Juliette Hyland was a quick shot of joy and happiness. With engaging lead characters, both with great backstories, facing unique-to-the-setting medical situations, I wanted to read the whole book in one sitting. Helena and Carter have a history together, but both present separate romantic pasts that ended cruelly. I absolutely rooted for this couple to get together from the first chapter. The story is told in alternating points of view, so the reader is privy to their thoughts and feelings as the action unfolds. I liked that the author got the characters to see their old heartaches under a different microscope, so to speak, as coworkers experiencing similar heartbreaks come to them for care. The setting in the confined world of winter at the South Pole Station was unique and quite interesting with the effects that such an environment can have on the human psyche.
Hyland has several previously published medical romances that I will certainly be hunting down; this one was so good. I recommend REAWAKENED AT THE SOUTH POLE to contemporary romance readers who enjoy medically-themed storylines or unusual settings.
An antarctic adventure and a reunion of a lifetime… ER nurse Helena Mathews wants just one thing: to show her parents that she’s no longer the fragile, premature baby they cradled in the NICU. So her new South Pole–based job is the perfect way to break free! But Dr. Carter Simpson’s arrival proves that you can’t just erase the past. Her one-time best friend may have left without a trace after a life-altering discovery, but he never left Helena’s heart…
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