This HaBO request comes from Paula, who wants to find an early romance she read:
I read this book eons ago, when I was new to the romance genre. I remember feeling very fond of this story. I only remember bits and pieces of the plot/characters.
It’s a story about lost love; the main female protagonist steps aside for her friend to have the boy, while they are all at college or something, when really the boy prefers her more and not the friend.
She eventually moves away as she can’t stand to see the love of her life with her best friend, and the boy leaves her a rose while she is moving (I think). She eventually completes her education to become a physiotherapist (I think). One odd fact I seem to sort of remember from the book is that the female protagonist had a t-shirt that said “physiotherapists do it better”, or something to that effect. I don’t remember how, but she and her lost love reunite at a cottage. Oh, and I think there’s a dog involved as well.
I hope that’s enough to figure out the title of this book that’s plagued me for years.
A smartypants heroine? Sign me up!
I don’t know the book – as a physiotherapist (now training in a different field), I tend to avoid books featuring physiotherapists as any inaccuracies (and the often professionally unethical behaviour) drive me crazy. That being said, I do remember t-shirts when I was in university last time around along the lines of “Physiotherapists Do It Better” and “10 Reasons to Sleep With a Physiotherapist.”
So is there any possibility that this is a combination of two books? Because I swear Linda Howards Come lie with me has a heroine who is a physiotherapist and wears that t-shirt but I don’t remember the best friend piece….
This sounds a lot like the plot of Sarah Mayberry’s Her Best Friend. Though I’m pretty sure the heroine wasn’t a physiotherapist…
Is it Serena Bell’s “Cant Hold Back”? It has a very similar “handing off guy to other girl” setup, although I don’t recall roses or cottages.
Not sure any of these fit, just looked for the physiotherapist angle.
One that might fit the best is “Once a Champion” by Jeannie Watt
http://www.paperbackswap.com/Once-Champion-Harlequin-Jeannie-Watt/book/0373718578/
oops, that was published more recently, but wasn’t sure what “eons ago” meant. 😉
Anyway here’s another: “Basic Training” by Julie Miller
http://www.paperbackswap.com/Basic-Training-Harlequin-Julie-Miller/book/0373792425/
or “Michael’s Discovery” by Sherryl Woods
“THE SAILOR WAS EDGY, STUBBORN…AND THE LOVE OF HER LIFE.
For years, Kelly Andrews had waited for her big brother’s best friend to notice her. Now navy SEAL Michael Devaney was back in Boston–as her bitter physical therapy patient…but still every inch her hero. She vowed he could be whole again–with a little help from his family and her healing touch.
Broken in body and spirit, Michael seemed determined to defy Kelly and his reunited kin. Although he finally gazed at her with the passion she’d always craved, Michael held himself back, saying he was only half a man. How could Kelly convince her lifelong beloved that he was all the man she would ever need?”
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1703126.Michael_s_Discovery
I swear this sounds almost like one I recently read… only I can’t remember the name or the author. In the one I am thinking of, physiotherapist meets guy at a town picnic and because she has issues, gives him to her sister. They date for a month or so and he goes off to Afghanistan because he was a soldier on leave. The sister and the soldier never had sex. This is an important detail. The soldier emails the sister but she has dyslexia and so the physiotherapist emails him back, sends him a care package. Soldier gets wounded just before his tour ends and his buddy gets killed. Sis breaks up with him because she was never really that into him anyway. Soldier ends up at the facility where physiotherapist is and, of course, is assisgned to her and, of course, they fall in love, which is unethical, and he finds out she sent the email and the care package and some other tantalizing stuff.
The only two books I can recall reading that had physio heroines were the already-mentioned Come Lie With Me (Linda Howard) and Adam’s Fall (Sandra Brown) but the setup isn’t right for either of them. Sorry.
I’m wondering about Dinner At Rose’s, by Danielle Hawkins. It has a physiotherapist heroine, a love separation, a tumbledown cottage, physio slogan t-shirts, and I think it may also have a dog? Definitely has sheep!
However, I don’t know if it was published long enough ago or not.
Either way, it’s a gem of a book, sweet, funny, tender, and heartrending by turns.
Haha FD. I completely agree 🙂