Review: Just One Last Night...

Just One Last Night... by Amy Andrews
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I've read this before, I know it but I can't find a review, so here goes again.

Although this was written in 2011 it 'feels' much older, like 1990s. Dr Grace Perry is a senior doctor, after the tragic death of her sister and husband she is suddenly, at nearly 40 years old, looking after her teenage niece Natasha and nephew Benji. In order to take advantage of her large family she is moving back to Melbourne, Australia (from Brisbane) and is interviewing for the Head of Emergency Medicine at Melbourne Ventral Hospital. Arriving at her interview, flustered after a fight with her niece and the flight from Brisbane, she is horrified to find one of the other candidates for the position is her first love, Dr Brent Cartwright. 20 years ago Grace made the decision to leave Brent, despite being desperately in love, because she wanted a career and he, as the product of the child welfare system, desperately wanted a wife, family, dog and white picket fence. To make matters worse, Brent has been acting Head of Emergency Medicine for several months - so basically he's a shoe-in.

As I said earlier, this reads like a standard category romance of the 1990s (even though it was published in 2011), the women are allowed to have careers but actually turn out to be failures at pretty much everything. Grace can't get through to Tasha and can't stop Benji having nightmares, heck she can't even get him onto a football team until Brent steps in and offers to let him join the team he coaches. She goes from interviewing for the Head of Emergency Medicine to working part-time family-friendly hours reporting to Brent. Brent on the other hand, despite being twice-divorced, is a paragon: brilliant doctor; good with children; patient; yadda yadda yadda. Oh, and nothing naked happens until very late in the book, and only once Grace has admitted to herself that she is a failure and made a wrong decision (and is probably responsible for global warming come to think about it).

If you can overlook the slightly anti-feminist message then this is a sweet second-chance romance.

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