A review by agrippinaes
Hotshot Doc by R.S. Grey

2.0

When Bailey’s mentor retires, it leaves the young surgical assistant in need of a new job. Luckily, Dr. Russell has a new opening - if only he wasn’t the grumpiest, sternest surgeon in the hospital. Bailey takes on the position but finds Dr. Russell - first name Matt - almost impossible to work with - not least because she finds him so attractive. But when she starts to see a different side to Matt, she has to rethink her feelings about him.

The writing of this book is quite strong overall and the slow burn aspect of the romance worked well for me. I liked that Matt was genuinely hard to like for a lot of the early portion of the story - seeing him soften not just towards Bailey, but in general, was quite sweet. Their relationship was full of sexual tension and the sex scenes are hot and well-written.

However, there were a couple of parts of the writing I found a little clumsy, and I also thought it was a bit too long - the ending felt very dragged out and the

Spoiler

Costa Rica

plotline needed to be introduced way earlier than it was. There was also some language that I found gender essentialist, and a one-off use of a homophobic slur that I found very jarring. I’ve read stuff from this author before and have found it very hit-and-miss - this book falls somewhere in the middle as there were aspects I thought were well-done but some of the language used really let it down for me on reflection.

Content Notes:

Spoiler

Warnings: Scenes of surgery and medical care, blood, references to cancer, death of a parent (in past), traffic collision (in past, side character), use of a homophobic slur.

Other: On-page sex, minor OM drama

Spoiler

Heroine briefly dates the hero’s younger brother, but she doesn’t have feelings for him and he’s only doing it to annoy the hero. Nothing physical happens between them.

, divorce (hero, in past).