Hidden Heartache by Suzanna Ross

Reviewed by Maria

Competent and professional, Dr. Emma Bradshaw is well respected in the rural community of Tullibaird where she serves as a doctor and where she was born and brought up. The locals all know about the trauma she faced as a teen - dealing with the fall out of a teenage romance gone wrong and her father's premature death of cancer.  Yet they've nothing but admiration for the way she clawed herself back from the brink of despair by sheer hard work, becoming a doctor and serving her local community with skill and dedication. She lives a quiet life in Tullibaird now, with ne'er a breath of scandal attached to her name.  But the arrival of the leather clad biker, Dr. Nick Rudd, to join the clinic where Emma works,  threatens to crumble her confident facade.  Dr. Rudd is none other than Nick Malone, the town's erstwhile bad boy who left Emma to face a traumatic situation all alone at the time when she needed him most.  Nick is adamant that he's come back for Emma as he always said he would.  She on the other hand, having built a life for herself after her world fell apart, doesn't want to revisit the past and her hidden heartache.

So can this couple ever heal the wounds of the past and move on into the future of which they'd once dreamed  enthusiastically?  Or is it really all over?

This is a small town romance with the feel of community involvement and mostly endearing if flawed characters.  Just normal human beings, with all their faults and failings.  It's also a medical romance, which, I believe, was originally intended for Harlequin.  Well, it's very much their loss.  This book tackles the issue of how teenage affairs can take a a tragic turn, leaving scars on the psyche.

An emotional read which will leave you with both a tear in your eye and a smile on your face and maybe even a couple of sighs along the way.  Suzanna Ross presents Emma's agony in a beautiful and sensitive manner.  Although it tackles a sad subject, it also shows, as all good romance fiction does, how the healing power of love can work its magic.