A Baby for the Flying Doctor

by Lucy Clark

When you wish upon a star… Outback Flying Doctor Phemie Grainger prides herself on being cool, calm and capable – until a chance encounter with her professional idol, renowned emergency doctor Gil Fitzwilliam, throws her into turmoil! As a Down’s Syndrome carrier, Phemie’s always known that her dreams of love, marriage and children are impossible. But as she starts falling for Gil’s English charm, the sweetness of his kisses, even the sadness she sees in his eyes, Phemie can’t help wondering if, with Gil at her side, her dreams of holding her very own baby might one day come true…

Genres: Romance, Contemporary Romance

192 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2010

About the author

Lucy Clark was born in England in the Lake District, but at the age of two, her parents decided to move to Australia and thankfully took her with them. Lucy loves the sunburst country, the land of sweeping plains, with its rugged mountain ranges and droughts and flooding rains! She recalls only happiness during her childhood, even when her two older sisters and older brother used to tease and manipulate her (like all older siblings).

She first discovered a passion for the written word when receiving excellent grades in her comprehension and English lessons and rather appalling grades for everything else. A "late bloomer" in the reading department, she would sit up until all ours of the night (or early morning) devouring one romance novel after the other. At the age of seventeen, she decided she could write one, and immediately knew she'd found her calling in life. She wrote her first manuscript, sent it over the wide, blue ocean to the offices of Mills & Boon in London and received a very nice rejection letter. The devastation set in. Dreams of becoming a well-known romance writer, of travelling the world, of book-signing tours, of international recognition…were blown away with the wind.

After meeting Peter, the man of her dreams and marrying him, Lucy decided to once more try her hand at writing a romance. While working full time in a teaching hospital as a medical secretary for two busy orthopaedic surgeons, she typed up a fresh story and submitted it for publication. Rejection again. Although by this time, she'd called for reinforcements—her romance writing group. They provided counselling (lunches) and support (dinners). Then one day she had an idea! Lucy decided to try and write a Medical Romance book in collaboration with her husband. This she did and broke through the barriers into the publishing world. Elation! Excitement! Euphoria! When she floated down from the clouds, she now realized the enormous task that lay ahead in producing further work. Planning books is now a necessity, editing is an appalling process that unfortunately must be done. Ideas, medical research, characters, situations and settings now fill most of her time…along with her family, of course.

Lucy and Peter currently live in Adelaide, Australia, and have the desire to travel the world with their children. Lucy largely credits her writing success to the support of her husband, family and friends. She looks forward to a long and happy association with her characters, her editors and her readers with only one eternal wish. That the dry sense of humor she and her husband share doesn't get her into trouble, as it often has in the past!

Reviews

[Lizzy Chandler]

I have to say straight up: I'm not the target audience for this book. I borrowed it from a friend to read for the 2012 Australian Women Writers Challenge,* thinking it would be a quick read and might help bring me up to 50 by the end of the year. Life got in the way, and I only finished it today (January 2, 2013). It's not the first HM&B Australian medical I've read - years ago, I enjoyed reading a couple by Marion Lennox set in Tasmania. While this one isn't up to Lennox's standard, it does have an interesting aspect to recommend it.

- SPOILER AHEAD -





The story - like all good Harlequin Mills &Boons (HM&Bs) - centres around the hero and heroine, two doctors who specialise in Emergency Medicine. They meet on a transcontinental train on the way to a conference where one, the English hero, Gil, will be the key note speaker. The heroine, Euphemia, is a doctor with the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) who has escaped to live life in the Outback after devoting her childhood and young adulthood to helping care for a brother with Down's Syndrome. As a teenager, Eupehmia - or Phemie, as she's known - had genetic testing and discovered herself to be a carrier of the "translocation trisomy 21 chromosome... [the] defective chromosome usually related to children being born with Down's" (p61).

What makes this story stand out from other HM&B romances is the conflict which threatens to prevent Gil and Phemie getting together happily. It's not just the fact he is a career doctor from the other side of the world, although that is an issue. More importantly, it's that Phemie doesn't want to risk having children: she fears subjecting her child to the kind of life she led: in the shadow of a sibling with Down's. Having a heroine who doesn't want to fall pregnant is a risk for Clark, because, without careful handling, Phemie could seem unsympathetic. By making Phemie protective of her unborn (healthy) child, Clark ensures Phemie retains the romance reader's sympathy. But she also goes one step further (and earns my admiration): Phemie admits, much and all as she loves her brother, she's not sure she's up to the sacrifices required of a parent of someone with Down's.

Clark manages to resolve Phemie's conflict in a believable (and yes, happy) way. How? By hedging her bets: arranging for an adoption and having Phemie fall pregnant - with the hinted possibility of genetic testing in utero. Phemie and Gil will become parents, possibly of a biologically healthy child - or possibly only of an adopted child. It's a happy ending, yes, but one that touches on what I'd have thought would be a taboo subject for HM&B novels: the possibility of termination.

So why haven't I given it more stars? The written expression lets it down: cliches abound. It's symptomatic, I think, of the time HM&B authors are given to write their books: some are asked to write three or four books a year. It's not much time to craft and hone the language but, even so, some of Clark's clangers are unforgivable and do nothing to elevate the genre's reputation of being the domain of hack writers.

Who will enjoy it? HM&B regular readers and students of romance interested in topics that push the genre's boundaries.

* 'Lucy Clark' is actually the pen-name for a husband and wife team.

[Caro]

I really liked this book. I liked how it was not just about the characters but presented the medical side some too. I like medical romances for the same reason I like suspense books. They have page turning events and show a side of medicine that I know nothing about, it educates me in a way. I also like the way the author presented the feelings and emotions linked with a family that has a member with a disability. It opened my eyes to the things that some people have to live with and made me more thankful for my healthy family, even if it isn't happy all the time. :) Enjoy