Farrah Rochon - Deliver Me

Monica Gardner is starting over. The broken-hearted St. Louis native has nothing left at home any longer: her future is being an ER doctor at a New Orleans hospital. Her first day makes for a bumpy start as she continually runs into handsome but irascible Dr. Elijah Holmes—a man who could make her change her mind about finding true love.
For years, Dr. Eli Holmes has been living up to his own high expectations—and is burning himself out in the process. The only time this “Super Doc” ob-gyn slows down is to notice the beautiful eyes of a newcomer, Dr. Gardner. He’s pleased to know that she’s more than just a pretty face, she’s also an ace physician. When they work together, sparks fly. But with both Monica and Eli trying to hard not to fall in love, they realize they can’t resist this affair of the heart.

Comment: I've decided to read this book after seeing a positive recommendation about it on a site

somewhere. What made me interested was the fact this was described as an enemy to lovers trope and this one happens to be one of my favorites so I got the book and now, months later, I finally started it. However, it didn't end up being what I imagined.

In this novel, we have the story of Elijah Holmes, an OB doctor who is considered by many as brilliant, friendly and caring about his patients.

Then, in comes Monica, also a doctor who moved to New Orleans after a bad breakup. Monica is wary of being so attracted to Eli when they met but a quick reaction by him during a medical situation makes her dislike him too which means they don't get a very good start in terms of dealing well with one another.

However, the need to work together in one of the hospital's committees finally provides the opportunity for them to know each other better. Will they be able to overcome their personal fears and accept the other as the perfect partner?

From the start, this book has many ingredients to make it a good one for me: two people who meet each other under a stressful situation, which causes a misunderstanding that is the reason behind their animosity but they work in the same hospital so there would be plenty of chances for them to interact with one another and deal with it.

It also featured a second couple that hopefully would act as a bonding tool for the main couple and the medical setting would be a good one to exploit.

Sadly, for me, none of the above worked out. 

The story has a good enough structure, meaning, the way the scenes are linked together is good enough, some things make sense but since I struggled to enjoy the character's actions and decisions, this element didn't really stand out.

I've read this was the author's first book, so I can imagine how she has improved in her abilities but I just can't sem to muster the will to try another.

The main characters, Eli and Monica, are never really developed, I'd say. They both have things in their lives that cautioned them to be wary of relationships but the way they deal with that is just simply annoying at times.

Eli is a bright doctor and we see him in several family situations to notice how solid his upbringing was and how dedicated he is to his mother and brothers so he can't claim his attitude towards life and relationship has a bad or inconsistent past. He acts like a player would and it annoyed me that he didn't even consider changing his way of thinking, even while connecting with Monica.

Monica is a good heroine for the most part and I liked how she "disliked" Eli on principle and I looked for to see their interactions slowly making he change her mind. This didn't happen, and Monica started to like Eli, started to think about his physical attributes very often to the point of practically letting go of her reasons to just be a jealous girlfriend. Why dis she have to change so quickly just because he is attractive? Especially after her break up and lack of trust, can physical attraction really demote your brain cells that way?

The romance lacked impact, the committee they are involved in never caught my attention as a tool to make them be together. 

The medical setting wasn't used well, in my opinion, and the secondary couple we also see communicating - she is a patient of Eli - has a complicated situation to solve but they do it and never in relation to Eli nor Monica so why were they there in the first place?

Then we get to the end of the book and after jealousy, miscommunication, Monica making decisions for the two of them, Eli never coming clean about his ex girlfriends, suddenly in two pages all problems are solved and we see..... nothing.

The story stops there and that's it. 

I can assume we'll see more of them in the following book about one of Eli's brothers but it's just not the same thing.

This family didn't win me over enough to want to follow their adventures so I think I'll just stop here because I don't feel like going through more of the same - even admitting a different book might be better.

Grade: 4/10