Rescue Team - by Candace Calvert

Kate Callison has been running from her past for years, never staying in one place for long.  10 hospitals in 6 years, with the latest resting point being at Austin Grace Hospital as their interim Emergency Department Director.  While she hopes to make this stop permanent, she has some big shoes to fill of the previous ER Director who went missing six months ago.  In addition to Sunni's disappearance, the ER has been plagued with issues and the team Kate has stepped into isn't sure she's the one to help solve their problems.  The issues she's dealing with are stirring up Kate's own troubles, and while she's drawn to Wes Tanner, a member of the area's search and rescue team, she continues to insist she doesn't need rescuing.  Can Kate work with her team to get the hospital out of the media's hot water?  Can she reveal her past to Wes?  Can she find her own healing?

This book drew me in, and I found myself liking it more than I expected to.  Kate presents such a tragic figure of one who feels like her past is so unforgivable that she would rather run from it and try to hide it than to try to work through it for healing.  She keeps everyone at arm's length, certain that they would cast stones if they knew what she'd done.  Wes Tanner was a great love interest, having his own past to work through - a past that was definitely at odds with Kate's.  Although he had it in him to want to rescue everyone, he wasn't over-the-top in his interactions with Kate - he fell for her genuinely, and not for her unaccepted need to be rescued.  

There were, I felt, some inconsistencies within the story's characters - for instance, could a nurse really change jobs 10 times in 6 years?  Wouldn't that look sketchy on a resume?  But for the most part, it didn't affect the story enough to detract from it, it just added to the sense that Kate wasn't going to be able to settle down until she actually dealt with her past.  

I loved that there were no "perfect" characters within this novel.  Even those who were so busy helping others were dealing with their own messes, and nobody really pretended to be perfect.  

Overall, I give this book 3.5 stars.  The focus of the book is really on Kate's path to healing, but the surrounding stories and characters help to get her there without getting in the way of her story.

You can find Rescue Team, and the first book in the Grace Medical series, Trauma Plan, HERE and HERE. (While Rescue Team is the second in the series, it stood well on its own, and appears to maybe have only a slight character carry-over.

You can find the author's website HERE. Her background as an ER nurse added a very real-life feel to this book.  I plan to look into some of her other books!

There is a Q&A from Tyndale with the author HERE.

I received a copy of this book from Tyndale House Publishers, in exchange for my honest review.