Reviews for That Certain Spark

The average rating for That Certain Spark based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-03-04 00:00:00 Tim Gardner This book... When I got to the end, my reaction should have been, "Awww! Yay!! They got together!" like it usually is with these types of books, but I'm afraid to say that at the end of this book, I went, "YAY!!! IT'S OVER!!!" That's bad. Why did I feel that way? Well, first, I read this after re-reading A Tailor-Made Bride by Karen Witemeyer, which was AMAZING. At the end of that book (which was the author's first), there was a page in the back that said something like, "Did you like this book? Try THESE books by Cathy Marie Hake!" So I was like, "Sweet! A recommendation!" GAG. The writing was bad. There was NO "spark" (as the title indicates) between the hero and heroine, and I was WAY more interested in what happened with the heroine's brother than I was with the main characters. In fact, I wish I'd been reading a book about HIM instead. There was, what I assume was supposed to be, a "mysterious" element to the books, but it was so disjointed! As it turns out, finding out who had been doing two or three little prank-type-things during the book was the big climactic element! What a let down! There were also some big issues with the hero and heroine themselves. Taylor was an intelligent woman who just wanted to be a doctor in a time when that just wasn't really heard of. I get that. But even though I'm an intelligent woman who studied a male-dominant subject (engineering), I just couldn't really seem to get her. Her reactions to situations just were NOT what mine would have been. She freaked out about the stupid things and didn't at the things I would have been up-in-arms about! Drove me crazy. Plus, I really wanted to hit Karl about 90% of the time. I get that he was German or whatever, but his obviously accented English drove me crazy. I was like, "I get that he's German (or whatever), but stop with the bad grammar already!" He was a hard-headed .... *GAAAAAAHHHH* and I mostly just wanted to punch him in the face and then kick him in the balls the whole time. And their romance? I guess it's really romantic to sit around debating whether or not a woman should be a doctor? Not! It just wasn't romantic. It felt like Karl's "OMG! I'm in love with her!" came out of NOWHERE. And the same goes for her feelings. Fail. Just fail. The only reason I'm rating this two stars is because Enoch and Mercy's romance was ADORABLE! :)

Review # 2 was written on 2009-12-03 00:00:00 Andrea Fox Siblings Enoch and Taylor Bestman have just arrived in Gooding, Texas. Enoch is the new veterinarian, and Taylor is the new, long-awaited doctor. When the townsfolk find out that their new doctor is a woman, they're ready to run her right back out of town ~ especially the men! Unfortunately, Taylor has to deal with one such man as her very first patient, Karl Van der Vort, not long after arriving in town. The women, and children, are fairly quick to accept Taylor's medical expertise, while the majority of the men try to get Enoch to treat them as well as their animals. There are quite a few quirky characters in That Certain Spark ~ they are what kept me somewhat interested in finishing it. Widow O'Toole, who is fond of riding her velocipede all over town; Hope Stauffer who is known for turning around sayings, "yet they make sense in their own funny way"; Skylar, Karl's dog; and last but not least, Piet, Karl's brother ~ when he gets really upset he mixes up his word order. He still speaks in English, but reverts to Dutch word order. There are a few others, but I'll let you discover them for yourself. I was really excited to read That Certain Spark because I normally enjoy Cathy Marie Hake's witty romances. Sadly, this one is not going to be one of my favorites. Don't get me wrong, it's still an okay book, but not what I've come to expect from this author. In my opinion, there was really no romance whatsoever between Taylor and Karl; most of the book they spend their time "debating" whether or not Taylor should be a doctor, since she's a woman. This got really old. Thankfully, there was a bit of a romance between a couple of other characters, but I won't go into that and spoil it for you. :) If you enjoy mystery/suspense ~ there is somewhat of a mystery intertwined in the story ~ someone is trying to sabotage Taylor's efforts, and run her out of town. If you're interested in reading other books by Cathy Marie Hake, I would recommend trying a couple of her other books first: Fancy Pants, Forevermore, or Letter Perfect, just to name a few. This way you can decide for yourself how That Certain Spark compares to her previous novels.