She wants to find Mr. Perfect, but first she needs to fine tune her own Ms. Perfect…
Skilled cardiac surgeon Elizabeth Keller is determined to turn over a new leaf. Not easy when you live and work in the same small town where you grew up and your family’s rocked by scandals. Plus there’s the painful fact everyone remembers your brilliant, beautiful, blonde mean girl adolescence. But Elizabeth doesn’t give up easily. Ask anyone including the new hot surgeon gunning for her job.
When Dr. Charlie Beaudoin arrives in Cypress Bayou, he’s relieved to put the past and New Orleans behind him. His new partner is as gorgeous as she is captivating, and definitely suspicious of his professional intentions. At first Charlie works to establish respect, trust and friendship with Elizabeth because he needs the job. But when a hurricane threatens the town and hospital, he and Elizabeth pull together to create a safety plan and soon the lines between professional and personal blur.
But when the skies clear and secrets and threats surround them, will their budding romance and fragile trust survive?
PJ's Thoughts:
I love a good redemption character arc but after reading the first two books in Susan Sands' Louisiana contemporary romance series, redemption is not a word I would have associated with cardiac surgeon, Dr. Elizabeth Keller. Far from it. But, in book three, Elizabeth began showing subtle clues that perhaps there was more to her than readers had thus far seen. Perhaps this was a character who actually was worthy of redemption.
Bayou Redemption is Elizabeth's story and it's everything I could have wanted. There are no easy fixes for Elizabeth, especially in a small town where people have known her since birth and have long memories. For a true redemption to occur, I need to see accountability, remorse, growth, and a true desire to change. Sands gives all that and more in this character. By the end of the book, I was actively cheering for Elizabeth, a woman who I had once actively jeered. She won me over completely. Kudos to the author because earlier in the series that is something I would have told you could never happen.
Woven among the threads of Elizabeth's redemption are family ties, mended friendships, workplace complications, a hurricane, a touch of mystery, and a new cardiac surgeon who just might hold the key to healing Elizabeth's wounded heart completely. I love the relationship that grows between Charlie and Elizabeth, beginning as adversaries (at least in Elizabeth's mind), then gradually allies, friends, and finally, partners of the heart. They both deserved a happily ever after and theirs was one I bought into hook, line, and sinker.
If you enjoy chaste, small-town romance with a vibrant community, fully-developed characters, complicated relationships, Southern charm, and heart-tugging, feel-good romance, give this book a try. It can stand on its own but for a complete understanding of the scope of Elizabeth's growth, plus the journeys of the characters with whom she has a long - and complicated - history, I recommend reading the four series books in order. I loved them all. They are, in order: Home to Cypress Bayou, Secrets in Cypress Bayou, A Bayou Christmas, and Bayou Redemption.
