Behind the scenes with Behind the Bench!
I used to fuel my creativity by heading over to HomeSense and wandering around the store soaking up all the colour and pattern. When I caught myself subtly rearranging the displays, I thought, okay, I need a change – it was time to find another creative outlet. I’m a family physician, and after years of working in an Urgent Care Clinic, it became obvious that patients are like sponges when it comes to health information – the more they learn, understand, and absorb, the happier they are and the better the outcome. Surely medical education could be more interesting than the boring posters in the waiting room! I started writing fast-paced, sexy romantic comedies, weaving the best parts of medicine into the story. I decided to target a female audience because women are more likely to have regular visits and most often, are the driving force behind men and children visiting a doctor, too. Turns out, writing romance novels is really fun (and even though I’m sure the display designers at HomeSense miss my input, just think of all the money I’ve saved!)
Dr. Danni Angelo, the heroine in Behind the Bench is the doctor for a professional hockey team. She’s fanatic about the hockey players not sharing their water bottles (even before COVID!). I’m with her on that and it’s not just drinks I won’t share. In our household, we each have our own toothbrush holder and tube of toothpaste. If a guest uses our toothpaste, I’ll send it home with them or throw it out and start a fresh one. Wasteful maybe, but staying healthy is the name of the game.
Love a hockey romance? A medical hockey romance? Then you’ll love this one!
Behind the Bench by Linda O’Connor
Dr. Danni Angelo is the team physician for the Clarington Quakes hockey team. She’s worked hard to earn the players’ respect, but the new coach, Trey Mason, is stirring things up, and Danni’s worried her job may be in jeopardy.
Trey finds Danni…distracting. Beauty, brains, and sexy moves on the ice have him uncomfortably attracted. He’s the new guy on the block. He has a reputation to build and a standard to set. The last thing he needs is a complication.
When the team spirals out of control and Danni and Trey get caught up in a drug scandal, things heat up on and off the ice. It’s a whole new game plan…Behind the Bench.
Enjoy an excerpt ~
Danni watched the tail end of the in-house broadcast of the news conference and flicked off the screen. How could you not be impressed with that? Trey Mason was confident and eloquent, and spoke in a relaxed and engaging way. The beach-bum blond hair, sculpted cheekbones, and easy smile would win over the non-hockey fans, and his passion and knowledge of the game would impress the followers. He had it all, and landing in a town like Clarington must be a dream come true. For him.
And a nightmare for her.
She had worked part-time as the team physician for the Clarington Earthquakes, Quakes for short, for the past three years. It had taken time to gain the players’ confidence. Being a female physician for a men’s hockey team hadn’t been easy, but she’d built a solid professional relationship.
She loved everything about the job – the energy of the games, working with high-level athletes, and a new clinic in a state-of-the-art arena. She certainly didn’t want it to change because of a new head coach.
Trey Mason couldn’t fire her. Theoretically. That would be up to the owners of the team. He could, however, make her life miserable. And if there was friction between them, it would affect the players, and ultimately, what affected the players influenced the owners. There were two other physicians who shared the job with her and a few more who would be eager to take it on.
He, on the other hand, could be set for a long run if he delivered half of what he’d promised today. She certainly hadn’t seen any charm when he’d walked into the pressroom, and yet it came out in spades when he spoke. She could only hope that her initial impression had been wrong, because between the two of them, it wasn’t likely that he’d be leaving any time soon. Bottom line – she needed to suck it up and get along with the new guy. She sighed. She hated sucking up. She’d thought she was done with that. Apparently not. She shook her head and gritted her teeth. Time to smile and play nice.
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