Yoxburgh is somewhere in Britain, and Eleanor Radcliffe, also known as Ellie, arrives in her car with just her faithful dog and veterinary degree to show for her life so far. Oh, and she owns a small house that she’s used as a rental property. She’s about to meet someone new in A VET TO HEAL HIS HEART.

Hugo Alexander, owner of a small vet practice, is short a staff member through maternity leave, and he doesn’t at first want to open the door when the bell is rung after hours. But animals and emergencies are a bad combination, so duty wins. He sees Ellie, distraught, with her injured black Labrador. Ellie let Lola out in the garden for the first time and the Lab promptly cut her leg on something nasty. Both the vets are required to save the poor dog.

Hugo needs a vet and Ellie is looking for work, with experience behind her and a good reference. Ellie plans to clean and repair her house fit to live in, as the tenants left it in a bad state. That costs money and she’s paying the mortgage, so a job would be helpful. What I don’t understand is why Ellie keeps on deferring a decision or asks to just do locum or temporary work when Hugo seems like a nice guy, the practice is welcoming and modern, and she needs the money. She wants to work there but yet she doesn’t. Hugo will have to fill the place and it does not seem the least realistic that both of them keep agreeing to work for now and decide later.

The scenery includes a cliff over the coast. Ellie came from a practice in the Cotswolds, a range of hills outside London. This would likely be a mixed animal practice, whereas she’s now in small animal work. Dogs feature largely in the story, and we see some dilemmas, such as grieving the loss of an elderly pet, and wondering if the owner’s heart can cope with adopting a new pet. Indeed, both Ellie and Hugo have some work to do on their relationship readiness as well.

With technical terms as required, but a simple vocabulary otherwise, this is an easily readable contemporary romance. Caroline Anderson has previously written a medical romance series centred around Yoxburgh Park Hospital, and now the vets of the town get their turn in A VET TO HEAL HIS HEART. I love that our heroine is a vet, and many pet owners will take some lessons from this tale.