My Sunshine (Coulter Family)

Rating:
Summary: Sunny and Warm. ** Grade: A- **
Review: Catherine Anderson is one author you won't forget and fans of this gifted author will welcome the return of her favorite family - the Coulters. In MY SUNSHINE, Anderson delivers an incredibly poignant contemporary bursting with her usual flare. This is one author who continues to push the romance genre forward by blending sweetness with remarkable insight.

Isaiah Coulter is the youngest Coulter -- successful, attractive, and very desirable. Isaiah has his life planned, and his planned life does not include a wife - at least not anytime soon! Veterinary medicine is a demanding field!

Laura Townsend is attractive and very lonely. Once Laura Townsend was an environmental scientist, today she is happy to be a kennel keeper at the Coulter Animal Clinic. Laura Townsend refuses to dwell on life's `what ifs' and instead lives each day within a sunny outlook.

Ms. Anderson develops a wonderful, warm romance for Isaiah and Laura. Isaiah realizes his life is empty and little Miss Sunshine is the antidote. Laura would love to be in Isaiah's life, but Laura is also a realist. She has aphasia, five years ago a diving accident damaged her brain's left lobe, and sadly Laura realizes she must deny Isaiah. What Isaiah needs is an accomplished woman, who can complete his potential, he must not settle for less.

MY SUNSHINE is an admirable read. Catherine Anderson writes with respect and shrewdness for the aphasia condition. Again I discovered Anderson can bring her reader a new understanding for a perplexing condition. Anderson's books are always worthy of notice and MY SUNSHINE is very noticeable. Grade: A-

This review is based on an Advanced Reading Copy.

Grace Atkinson, Ontario - Canada.

Rating:
Summary: enjoyable contemporary romance
Review: Five years ago, environmental research scientist Laura Townsend nearly lost her life in a swimming accident when she hit her head on a rock. She suffered aphasia, a form of brain damage that affects language. Since then she lives in Crystal Falls, Oregon off her disability check supplemented by odd jobs like walking dogs for people.

Veterinarian Isaiah Coulter cannot say no to his mother so when she asks him to hire Laura, he agrees to interview her. He realizes that she is ideal for the job so they agree to a trial period. As he observes her gentle healing touch that his clients seem to respond to, Isaiah falls in love; Laura reciprocates but believes he deserves a complete woman not someone who cannot remember how to say her name.

MY SUNSHINE is an enjoyable contemporary romance starring a unique protagonist who has retained her intelligence, but suffered brain damage that has impaired her verbal communication skills. The story line is superb when the plot concentrates on Laura's struggles on the job and in her changing relationship with her boss. However an unnecessary bizarre spin of suspense takes away from the fabulous prime theme of an inspirational person overcoming her impairment through encouragement, caring and love.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: Good, but it's getting a little creepy....
Review: I liked this book, I truly did. I have been reading all of the Coulter series and I'll admit, I'm hooked; I will end up reading everything from Anderson that I find. That being said, I could *not* read this book with out recalling the others I have read by this author. A blind woman. An abused woman. A paraplegic. Now someone who can't use language? It really took something away from the book I felt, because all I can see in the heroine is another victim. It's becoming a theme, which makes the story seem more cookie-cutter than beautiful.

Rating:
Summary: How did he ever get to be a vet?
Review: I loved the idea of this book, I liked the characters (I thought they were extremely sweet together), & I've always had a special fondness for Anderson's Coulter Family Series. However, I don't think she did very much research concerning the care of adult dogs & puppies & day-to-day practices of a vet clinic. My grandmother & mother are both dog breeders. My grandmother has raised poodles for thirty years. My mother has raised dogs (cocker spaniels, poodles, bloodhounds, chihuahuas, & schnauzers) for twenty-five years. I'm twenty-one, so that's well over my entire life. I have been deeply involved in the business since before I could even walk or talk. There were several errors or really just odd things involving both the care of adult dogs & the care of the puppies. I have helped raise several litters of puppies where either the mother refused to care for the puppies,her milk had gone bad, or the mother had died; the most recent a yorkie puppy a little over a year ago. The following is a list of some of the errors & just plain odd things below:
1)Every vet clinic I've been to has always had those metal kennel cages (that always look the same) where they keep the dogs that have just had surgery, have just given birth, are in labor, or still have i.v.'s in them. They also, of course, have the outside or inside kennel pens. I don't think Isaiah had ANY cages for those puposes. A lot of those dogs shouldn't have been in the pens.
2)Why did they use doll bottles? Every vet I've ever known has the little bottles made specially for puppies & kittens. If he didn't have any, why didn't they just go to a pet store and buy some? They always have them.
3) Why did they buy 13? It seems like it would have made it harder to deal with rather than easier. You only need a few bottles, depending on how many people you have helping. We had a litter of 16 bloodhound pups; Daisy's (the mother) milk went bad. We raised 13 of them from the time that we realized her milk was bad (2 days after birth). 3 of them died shortly after we took over because they were poisoned by Daisy's milk. Believe me, we didn't have 13/16 bottles of formula sitting in our fridge.
4) Isaiah fed the puppies w/ a syringe, I believe, @ one time. As a vet he should know not to feed puppies or kittens w/ a syringe or an eye dropper, either. Something about b/c you're controlling the amt. of milk the pup is getting, it can easily leak into the puppy's lungs, cause them to aspirate, & possibly lead to death. Bottles are much safer.
5) From what I read, it sounded as if the puppies were "doing their business" all on their on. Puppies that young have to have help eliminating their waste. They have to be stimulated. That has never been my favorite part of raising puppies.
6) A whole litter of puppies generally opens their eyes @ 10-14 days. This book's litter did it @ like 7 days.

I really got into the story, the plot, of this book, but I never could see Isaiah as a vet. When you're reading a book, the characters are alive to you. Isaiah just wasn't as alive as he could have been. He didn't know a lot of stuff that he should have known, that he should have had experience with.



Rating:
Summary: Awesome!!
Review: I read this book in one setting! As always Catherine Anderson writes a great story.

Rating:
Summary: My Sunshine
Review: I thought this book was not one of this authors better ones. For one thing, for about the first 200 pages, the guy is denying any romantic interest in the woman. He seems rather cold and uncaring except towards animals.
Also, the author's books have always been verging on the sloppy sentimental side; I'd say this and a few other recent ones have taken a nose dive into sloppy sentimental. I love animals myself very much, but the main characters think about the vet's work as on a par with finding the cure for cancer. I don't think even the work family doctors do is seen as important in that way. Of course, after acting like animals are more important than people, then these dedicated people are just about to euthanise some perfectly healthy, purebred (sure to get a home)orphaned,puppies without expending any real effort to figure a way to raise them.
Finally, I really hate the main guy character's twin brother. I would have thought the main guy would punch him out for the things he said about his fiancee, or at least throw him out of his house. Not only were the things he said cruel about the fiancee herself, they showed a lack of decency towards people with disabilities in general. I don't think listening patiently was appropriate, I think the man should have been outraged.

Rating:
Summary: Catherine Anderson is consistently wonderful
Review: Loved my sunshine. It runs along the same themes as her other books, so don't expect to be amazed with originality or by the small mystery/suspense part of the story. However, I love the way she has female characters who are flawed (not genius supermodels like in most romance novels) yet win out in the end. A great heartwarming read. I read it in one sitting. I will definitely reread this book.

Rating:
Summary: Romance, suspense, cats, dogs
Review: This basically feel-good romance between veterinarian Isaiah Coulter and his new employee Laura Townsend, who suffers from aphasia, will probably not be very surprising to Anderson fans. The strategies Laura uses to create a rich and satisfying life for herself were fascinating to me, but I was a little uneasy at the same time; some of the details didn't mesh very well with other things I've read about aphasia.
Also, the violence in the main conflict got more intense than I would have liked, and the book struck me as just plain crude in places in its language and comparisons.