"A Borrowed Dream" by Amanda Cabot

Austin Goddard and his daughter fled Philadelphia and didn't stop running until they landed in Cimarron Creek, where he is working as a rancher and hiding his profession as a doctor. Schoolteacher Catherine Whitfield has despised doctors since the local leech bled her mother to death, but she finds joy in helping her students--especially the new, melancholy Hannah Goddard. While trying to draw Hannah out of her depression, she comes to know the girl's father and appreciate his friendship, as he does hers. But it becomes harder and harder for him to hide his doctoring skills, and he fears the trouble he could bring down on the them all if word gets out . . .

I enjoyed the way the author is able to weave plot and subplots together so that they're all integral to the story. I greatly appreciated the maturity the characters display; the author does a good job of paving the way for them to accept hard truths with grace. For example, in the inevitable revelation of Austin's true profession, Catherine doesn't run in fear and loathing, but has already started accepting that there may be other doctors more respectable and competent than the local leech--they can't all be bad. It is far from the only example of characters slowly growing over the course of the story so that when confronted with something that could have been crippling at the beginning of the story, they can deal with it because God has been working in them to get them through.

It's fun learning something new in anything I read, and this time it was the ancientness of plastic surgery--even the name for it is much older than I would have expected. Knowing the author to be good about ensuring her historical details are authentic, I suspected it must be the case when the term and practice came up in the story, but her author's note at the end confirmed it, with even more detail. Who'd have thought? I loved the role it played in the story, both its use for good, and the enterprising criminal who sought to take advantage of it.

Another sweet love story!

Thank you Revell and NetGalley for a free e-book. I was not required to write a positive review, and all opinions are my own.

Cimarron Creek
1. A Stolen Heart
2. A Borrowed Dream