Review Blitz: Dr. Dempsey (Dempsey Follies #1) by Grace Maxwell

DR. DEMPSEY
Grace Maxwell
Release Date: April 6

Buy Link:
https://a.co/d/08Sr0Gfv
Available in KU

Why you need to #ONECLICK this book…
🔥Medical Romance
🔥Work Romance
🔥Small Town
🔥Second Chance
🔥Family Drama
🔥Forced Proximity

Blurb
He left with a goodbye.
I learned how to live without him.
Now we’re in the same town—and the past is wide awake.

Alaric
Liz Ward is the woman I loved.
She’s also the woman I walked away from.
I told myself leaving was the right choice. That going back to Paradise meant being there for my family.
I convinced myself she’d move on.
She didn’t.
Neither did I.
Now Liz is here in Paradise—she’s brilliant, capable, and here for the job she’s earned.
And someone in Paradise is making sure she doesn’t get to keep either.
The sabotage starts quietly. Easy to dismiss.
I don’t dismiss it.
Because I know her. I know when something’s wrong. And I know this is my fault as much as anyone’s.
I lost her once by choosing absence.
This time, I choose her.

Liz
Alaric Dempsey broke my heart with a goodbye and no explanation.
I thought Vancouver was forever.
Then my brother moved. My best friend followed. My parents chased the sun to Mexico. When the perfect job opened up in Paradise, I took it.
A clean start.
Or so I thought.
The job turns hostile fast. Files disappear. Mistakes pile up. Someone wants me gone—and the last person I want watching it happen is Alaric.
He’s still calm. Still controlled. Still looking at me like I never stopped mattering.
A business trip to Hawaii and one hotel room makes it impossible to pretend I’m over him.
His family drama makes it impossible to keep things simple. And the man who once left is suddenly the one standing between me and the fallout.
I survived being abandoned once.
If I let him back in, I need to know he’s not leaving again.

MY REVIEW

Liz may be in Alaric's town, but she's not the same woman she was when he left her in Vancouver without an explanation. No longer his, at least that's the front she'll put on when she has to see him at the hospital where they both work. She's determined to do her job, but his steady presence is making it hard to remember how much he broke her heart before. She might be up for giving him that heart, if he can show her he won't leave her again.

Alaric never told Liz back then what the reality of his family was like. And now that reality is coming around again. The difference this time, is that he wants to be with Liz more than he wants to hide everyone from the truth. But can he really hope that Liz will want him when she finds out what's the truth of his family is? Should he even drag her into this mess when this mess is the reason why he left her before?

Whew, Liz and Alaric's story is an emotional rollercoaster! Alaric has not been OK since he left Liz. He was so used to being the eldest of his siblings, with the weight of the world and of their family secrets on his shoulders, that he couldn't possibly imagine showing it all to Liz, so he left. But he never got over her, drowned in the guilt of hurting her, even as he knew leaving had been his only choice unless he wanted to hurt her even more by showing her his reality. Thankfully Liz was stronger than he had imagined, and she became his rock, his strong, beautiful, rock. I love their second chance story even though it hurt my heart more than once. What a beautiful, heartfelt, emotional second chance!

Meet Grace Maxwell
Grace Maxwell writes saucy, fast paced contemporary romance. She like her drinks sweet, her music loud, and her books steamy. When she's not reading, writing, or sleeping, she is a chauffeur, Sherpa, and lives on all forms of caffeine and carbohydrates as she moves her family around.

Connect with Grace Maxwell
https://www.instagram.com/authorgracemaxwell/