That Certain Spark » (Original)

Cathy Marie Hake is a licensed nurse who worked for many years in an oncology unit before shifting her focus to perinatal care. The author of over twenty novels, she lives with her husband in Anaheim, California.

Gooding, Texas, is about to gain a double blessing--a veterinarian and a doctor. But when siblings Enoch and Taylor Bestman arrive, the discovery that Taylor is a lady doctor has the town up in arms. Especially Karl Van der Vort, the town blacksmith, who becomes the first patient...against his will.

Though hesitant to believe in Taylor's doctoring skills, Karl finds himself oddly protective of this surprising woman who dares to drive about town on her own, wearing the color red, for heaven's sake! Taylor, on the other hand, wants only to prove that doctoring is her life's calling, despite the town's opposition. The result? Pride meets attraction head-on, and sparks begin to fly.

Publishers Weekly

Christian fiction writer Hake, who is also a nurse, offers her fans a mixed blend of fun, witticism and romance and a theme of medicine, with scenarios involving the care and keeping of man and beast. Against a backdrop of male chauvinist prejudice and smalltown small-mindedness, twins Enoch and his sister Taylor Bestman, veterinarian and medical doctor respectively, arrive in Gooding, Tex., with the best of intentions. What they find is a great deal of anti-female sentiment when it's discovered that Taylor, the new medical doctor, is a woman. Determined to prove herself, Taylor takes on whatever the little town can throw at her and slowly wins over most of the people's affections, including that of a stubborn blacksmith who views medicine as an inappropriate profession for a woman. Hake's text is sweet, to be sure; still, the plot resolves all too neatly and swiftly, almost like an unlikely miracle cure. (Aug.)

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