Too Little, Too Late?

Life and Love

By: M.T. Cassen

Narrated by: Ashton Haugen

Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

Will the truth you ignored come back to bite you? Did your youth and immaturity push your true love away?

That’s the question for young Maddie Anderson. The path to her true love would prove to be winding and twisting.

And a path that she would have to learn to maneuver on her own.

Maddie never anticipated that the first stop in her search for happiness would be Lourdes Russo, the single, beautiful, mature woman that started working alongside her in the Cardio-Pulmonary department at Camped.

Lourdes seemed full of wisdom and beauty that Maddie would only be able to explore briefly. Lourdes seems eager to get to know the younger woman, despite Maddie’s demonstrating the ways they differ. The similarities far outweighed the differences for Lourdes.

When Camped starts to discuss budget cuts, Maddie has difficulty giving the patients proper care and being the fast-paced nurse the staff desire. Maddie questions how it's possible to give good patient care when you're trying to rush them through like they're only a number. That's when Maddie's health starts to deteriorate, and her stress increases. A worried Lourdes insists that Maddie can’t do all she wants to do until she prioritizes her health first, but that does not go over well. Maddie asks why Lourdes can’t be sympathetic, and doubt settles in on whether their bond is strong enough to overcome those hurdles.

The inevitable break-up comes. Maddie works on nurturing her broken heart the only way she knows how: work, work, and more work. But that does not go well. The stress becomes too much, and a panic attack puts Maddie in the place she wanted to avoid at all costs: a hospital bed.

A recovering, introspective Maddie has a deep desire for the one thing missing in her life: Lourdes Russo. But sometimes you don't always get what you desire. Will Maddie find her happy ever after? Lourdes was right all along, but will Maddie's improving health be enough to get them back together?

Or will it be too little, too late?

©2023 M.T. Cassen (P)2023 M.T. Cassen

Pay attention to your body

I like a medical romance and this one deals with life stress and how it can get out of hand. I found Maddie to be a little over the top and bratty. Lourdes has been where Maddie is and tries to help, but sometimes you need to hit the bottom before you get help. They are given a second chance to explore their love for one another.

OK, but longer than needed

I've enjoyed Cassen's novels in the past, but I found this one to be very slow and, in some cases, longer than it needed to be. There were scenes where things took forever to happen. This is definitely more of a sweet romance with a couple of spicy scenes. It was a good listen, but not one that I would listen to a second time.

Boring and no real stakes.

Narrator was fine. Not sure why she made all the older chapters talk slow and snobby and condescending tones.

The author prides themselves with inner conflict but it's really just whiny. What exactly was the inner conflict? Life?

Author has experts helping her with this? What was Maddie actually doing wrong? Just not getting through patients fast enough? She was not working in the ER. It was pre-planned appointed patients. She wants to be everyone's friend? Very unclear. The start of book she was portrayed as calm and collected and everyone looked up to her. Then a couple days go by and she is a mess?

Is this how women think? Base whole life in a couple days. I seriously doubt a 25 year old Nurse would get frazzled this fast.

The relationship seems forced to me. No real stakes. Just a fling that after a month was all about love and soul mate material.

The writing is simple and easy to follow. Sex scenes are not terribly graphic.

I am clearly not the target audience and was sent a free code in hopes of a review. Hopefully the author puts more stakes if they are going to use medicine as their background. Heck, Hearts Medicine, which is a game phone app has more heart and emotion than this. I do wish the author luck and good will. If you want to bring listeners in who would normally never listen to this type of book, put more stakes in.