3.5 stars
Ronnie Winters spends her days working shifts as a pediatric nurse, cheering up the many sick children the hospital treats. One day, her job brings her into the orbit of Amy Vascar, the mother of a new patient, and a friendship quickly develops. Ronnie is drawn to Amy by some invisible force, and she thinks Amy might feel it too. There's just one problem: Ronnie is engaged to a man. Will Ronnie give into the attraction she feels, or will she choose to stick to the path laid out for her?
cw: infidelity, bigotry (from side characters), mentions of child deaths and injuries
This was an entertaining story! It wasn't necessarily put together in the optimal way, and I wouldn't call it realistic, but I enjoyed the read.
The Characters: The story is told from Ronnie's third person limited POV, so we get to know her the best. She's well-fleshed out and I liked reading about the issues that she struggled with and then eventually overcame. Both MCs are likable people with distinct personalities. We can see Ronnie as the outgoing jokester who is great with kids, and Amy is a bit more reserved, although she lights up around Ronnie.
The Romance: I really liked their friendship dynamic. It was really cute. The little bits of "she makes my heart beat faster but I'm not into women" that we get from Ronnie are a bit eye-roll-inducing, but the attraction between the two women is believable. There's also some nice angst thrown in at the end. No explicit sex happens, just a fade to black.
The Plot: The book actually focused a lot on Ronnie's daytime job, which was interesting. Like there would be chapters where we mostly followed Ronnie around to visit her patients, and Amy was barely mentioned. This meant we got less exposure to their romance, but I didn't mind that much. There were also large time jumps that happened throughout. The place where the book lost some points for me was in the decisions made by the characters. There were a lot of places where I was like, this is out-of-character or does not make sense, but it's happening to push the plot where the author wants it to go.
The Writing: I really enjoyed the dialogue, and this is one of the few books where I think the text messaging actually worked well. There were some typos that distracted a bit from the story, and the wording wasn't always the best. The writing did not have the best flow, but the engaging quality of the story and the characters kept me interested.
All in all, this was fun to read, even though it wasn't necessarily polished. I would recommend this if you're in between books and looking for something to read.