Ruby Lang is one of the romance authors I follow on Twitter. One of my goals this year is to actually read the books they write. I’m mad at myself for not snapping up Acute Reactions last year. It’s so good.
The plot starts slowly as Lang introduces Petra and Ian, bringing them together as doctor and patient and then separating them into their lives. There are some significant roadblocks to their relationship:
- Petra is Ian’s physician, there are professional issues.
- Ian has a girlfriend
- Ian has two restaurants, and is very busy.
- Petra is just starting out and has a lot of professional and personal insecurities
Usually when you see the MCs in a contemporary romance are a physician and a successful restaurateur, they may have some quirks or perhaps some international assassins after them. Lang’s Petra and Ian do not have their shit together. She worries, overthinks, and doesn’t trust her own judgement. He wants a girlfriend, but keeps people at a distance with facile charm and rarely opens up.
If their first weeks together had been a refuge, a delirious oasis, then tonight, they fucked with the full awareness of all the failures that had gone before them.
Romance requires a degree of wish fulfillment, otherwise it’s just fiction. I read romance for the escape and for the HEA. That said, I love it when the characters feel real and the romance is relatable. The slow growth of their romance and the gradual lowering of walls made Acute Reactions a comforting joy for me to read.