The Doctor and the Midwife

Alva (Everything She Wants) offers up a sweet but uneven contemporary romance that’s overshadowed by medical drama. Audrey Novak, a Salt Lake City midwife and doula, immediately clashes with her arrogant new neighbor, ob-gyn resident Ammon Parker, when they meet at their church’s singles mixer and Ammon wrongly assumes Audrey is a reckless, new age amateur and disses her approach to birth care. Their mutual dislike only increases when they end up working together at the hospital. Audrey blows off steam in flirty text conversations with a mystery man from an online rock climbing forum—not knowing that he is actually Ammon—while Ammon advises his favorite online stranger on how to deal with jerks—not realizing he’s speaking with Audrey and commiserating over his own behavior. This coincidence will be too goofy for some, but anyone with an interest in birth care will be pleased by the accurate, if messy, details of home birth and medical practices as Audrey and Ammon assist their patients. Audrey and Ammon’s relationship develops from enmity into collegial friendship as they grow both personally and professionally, but their romantic dynamic feels tacked on and their chemistry never rises above lukewarm. Readers will be unconvinced. (Sept.)