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By Nicole Danielle
This week we’re focusing on two romance novels featuring heroines with the ability to heal. In Meghan’s book, her female lead is a VA Nurse in the 1970s and in my book the main character is a woman with special healing powers in medieval times. Our stories border on both whimsical and absurd but, as always, we’ve got cocktails in hand and are ready to discuss!
Meghan’s Book: Beauty Contest Nurse by Diana Douglas
We start with Meghan’s book, “Beauty Contest Nurse” by Diana Douglas set in Acapulco. Nurse Maria McKenzie’s romantic escapades with dashing Dick Trevor and two charming doctors are the heart of the story. Maria leaves her routine job at a Veterans Hospital for an exciting role at a luxurious resort, where she becomes entangled in romantic interests with Dick Trevor, a newspaper man, and two doctors, Mitch Gilbert and Andrew Fisher.
The book has dramatic and sometimes questionable themes and the author seems to have a peculiar fixation on dental features and maybe should have done a little more research on rare diseases. As the medical romance drama unfolds, we love giggling over various odd phrases in the book, such as when the doctor “forces himself erect” and “spume.” We also found it humorous (and a little disturbing) at how quickly Maria and Dr. Gilbert were to hand out casual prescriptions of tranquilizers.
Meghan has big challenges with the author using the disease pellagra in the storyline as well as the white savior trope. She has LOTS to say about it in Season 1 Episode 1 of our podcast, Romance on the Rocks. The story has lots of unexpected turns and dramatic twists and Meghan also shares the bizarre dynamics between a boss and an employee, a sudden and surprising shift from formality to intimacy between Dr. Fisher and the protagonist, and the subsequent emotional rollercoaster when Dr. Fisher is presumed dead. If you want to hear how it ends, Meghan spoils it all in the podcast.
Nicole’s Book: The Viking’s Chosen by Quinn Loftis
My book for the episode is “The Viking’s Chosen” by Quinn Loftis, the first book in the Clan Hakon series. In the podcast, I talk about main characters, Torben, a Viking warrior, and Allete Auvray, an English princess, who find their destinies intertwined by an ancient prophecy. This romance novels alternates first-person perspectives between Allete and Torben and incorporates lots of traditional Viking elements as well as magical elements like disguise charms and prophetic visions. The book’s description reveals much of the plot, setting the stage for a collision of worlds filled with action, romance and humor.
When comparing our romantic reads of the episode, we notice continuity issues between text descriptions and cover art. We also give our Spicy Scoville Scale rankings — both are sitting at a poblano and we have a clear award for the episode Boobie Prize. (It’s an award we give for the book that contains the first mention of breasts and you better believe we share the quotes from both our books.) We also glean some Romantic Reminders from our respective novels and give teasers for our next episode, Episode 2: Playing House. Meghan’s choice is “Younger Sister” by Kathleen Norris and I’ve got “The Princess” by Jude Devereaux. You won’t want to miss out.
Cheers to our first official full episode of the podcast which you can listen to on your favorite streaming service as well as right here on our website.
