Prah, Constantine and Baryeh Reviews: Deliver Me (The Holmes Brothers Book 1) Farrah Rochon

It's already another month, and you're in for another 3-for-1 review treat. We went traditional and selected Deliver Me by Farrah Rochon. As  you may guessed from the title (although not so obvious), there is some medical angle to the story.

Here's the blurb:
After being dumped by her boyfriend and passed over for yet another promotion, Monica Gardner moves to New Orleans, determined to make a name for herself as the new attending ER physician at Methodist Memorial Hospital. As for men--she's through with them. But when given the chance to chair the hospital's annual charity banquet, Monica must elicit the help of gorgeous Ob-gyn Elijah Holmes.

Eli will do anything to thwart his matchmaking Mama's plan to reunite him with his high school girlfriend. So, when the sexy new ER doc asks for his help in planning this year's charity banquet, Eli devises the perfect scheme: He'll help put on the best banquet the hospital has ever seen, if Monica poses as his new girlfriend. But when Eli finds himself falling in love, he realizes convincing Monica of his true feelings may be his greatest delivery yet.

My review

Deliver Me introduces us to Dr Monica Gardner,a new ER doctor at the Methodist Memorial Hospital, and Dr Elijah Holmes, the star doctor of the same establishment. So the romance premise is the classic pretend-boyfriend/girlfriend theme, which can be tricky because it's so popular. In the interest of not giving away spoilers, I'll just say Ms Rochon handled this aspect of the story well.

I liked Monica; she's a strong woman who knows what she wants and takes steps to get it. I think Ms Rochon satisfactorily deals with Monica's backstory to explain her goals and motivation. I liked the fact that she wasn't one of those heroines who spend half the book denying their attraction to the hero.

Elijah is a man-whore and he makes no apology for that. He would have been unlikable if the author hadn't given us a glimpse into his family life and a bit of background. The scene where they meet for the first time doesn't exactly put him is a flattering light.

However, as the story progresses, I came to like Elijah. I liked how fast he fell for Monica and the fact that he didn't go about denying it. There were several scenes that made me go "aaaawwww". And in the end, he comes through for Monica big time. So in this regard the book is definitely more than just a pretty cover.

I enjoyed the book enough to check out the blurbs for the rest of the stories in the series, but I had three major issues with this book.

Let's start with the least.

1) I would have liked to see some more interaction between Monica and her brother and/or some amount of reconciliation with her family. But of course, life isn't perfect so I wasn't too bothered with this.

2) Elijah's crazy ex whose scenes gave so much promise for major drama, just didn't deliver. The author takes pains to set up a scene that ends with Elijah rattled and frankly a little worried about his safety, and then nothing. The latter scene in which the ex confronts Monica is not huge enough as precursor to the black moment. I found that a bit disappointing.

3) This is the big one. There was too much focus on two secondary characters - a married couple whose only link is that one is Elijah's patient. IMO they didn't have any bearing on Monica and Elijah's romance at all - I mean AT ALL. I felt removed from the story whenever I got to a scene in these two characters' POV. Ms Rochon addresses an important issue with this couple, but the story had no place in "Deliver Me". The author could have added that bit as a supplementary story at the end of the book or a free Holmes Brothers spin-off novella.


Disclaimer: I got my copy of the book from Amazon

Don't forget to hop over to see Prah and Constatine's reviews.