Please welcome author Heidi Cullinan, who is here today to talk about her new series!
Welcome to Copper Point
Thanks for having me as a guest today! I’m here to talk about my latest new novel, releasing tomorrow: The Doctor’s Secret, book one in the Copper Point: Medical series.
Contrary to how I usually compose my series, Copper Point: Medical was written all in one go over the course of a year. I planned the rough synopsis for each novel before beginning—all three at once—and also spent significant time building not only a hospital but a town and region where, if need be, I could return someday to write other books.
Copper is a fictional town of approximately 9,000 people in far northern Wisconsin, situated roughly where the real city of Ashland is, about seventy miles east of Duluth, Minnesota. It’s far north in the state, situated near a bay of Lake Superior. The town shares things in common with the city it replaced, but it also has its own elements invented for the story. It’s a small regional city, the largest one for hours around. With a small university, it attracts a wider diversity of people than would otherwise be found in the area and boasts more variety of cultural events. Yet it is decidedly small town, in its isolation and its limitations. And in its propensity to gossip.
Copper Point was founded as a fur trading outpost by Spanish, French, and English explorers and developed because of its potential for mining, especially copper (hence the name). However, after the Civil War the interest in mining declined, and so did the town, until the timber industry came in the late 1870s. This did well for a time, until clear-cutting devastated the landscape and removed the tree crop and blighted economic development by 1960. Tourism began to rebuild the local economy at the turn of the 21st century, but a renewed interest in mining—this time for sandstone.
St. Ann’s Medical Center doesn’t much care which way the town develops, so long as it does. It’s holding its own, no longer in constant danger of going under thanks to being declared a critical access hospital, but the hospital administration is all too aware they’re dancing on the head of a pin, and all too easily their house of cards could come down. Of course, the fact that the hospital board itself is corrupt doesn’t help anything. And it’s a small hospital and a small town. There’s never any shortage of hallway drama.
If you’ve never been to northern Wisconsin, you’re missing out on some beautiful landscapes, from the forests to the lake shore. It gets a little colder than it does in the southern part of the state, and lake-effect snow is nothing to sneeze at.
I hope you come visit Copper Point soon, and I hope you enjoy The Doctor’s Secret.
Blurb
The brilliant but brooding new doctor encounters Copper Point's sunny nurse-next-door... and nothing can stand in the way of this romance.
Dr. Hong-Wei Wu has come to Copper Point, Wisconsin, after the pressures of a high-powered residency burned him out of his career before he started. Ashamed of letting his family down after all they’ve done for him, he plans to live a quiet life as a simple surgeon in this tiny northern town. His plans, however, don’t include his outgoing, kind, and attractive surgical nurse, Simon Lane.
Simon wasn’t ready for the new surgeon to be a handsome charmer who keeps asking him for help getting settled and who woos him with amazing Taiwanese dishes. There’s no question—Dr. Wu is flirting with him, and Simon is flirting back. The problem is, St. Ann’s has a strict no-dating policy between staff, which means their romance is off the table… unless they bend the rules.
But a romance that keeps them—literally—in the closet can’t lead to happy ever after. Simon doesn’t want to stay a secret, and Hong-Wei doesn’t want to keep himself removed from life, not anymore. To secure their happiness, they’ll have to change the administration’s mind. But what other secrets will they uncover along the way, about Copper Point… and about each other?
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Excerpt
“Are you all right?”
Breathless, dizzy, Simon glanced up at Hong-Wei. Oh, he was so close. So handsome. Simon could still feel the ghost of the heat of Hong-Wei’s chest against his back, that temporary feeling of being cradled. Now Hong-Wei stood in front of him, one arm braced against the brick as he leaned in close, his face full of concern.
Simon ached for him. He knew he shouldn’t, knew he couldn’t,but in that narrow space, with the object of his affection a literal breath away, there was no way to stop himself.
Especially when Hong-Wei’s hand rose to stroke Simon’s face. Nothing more than a brief, lingering brush, but Simon shuddered all the same, his lips parting on a gasp as he stared, caught in Hong-Wei’s gaze.
“I’m sorry I got you involved.” Hong-Wei rested his hand on Simon’s elbow. “Are you hurt?”
Unable to make a sound, Simon shook his head. He couldn’t move, couldn’t look away.
Simon chided himself for letting his fantasies run amuck. Hong-Wei was simply checking on him after an intense encounter. Any second now he’d smile, release Simon, and they’d go to the OR for surgery.
Except Hong-Wei didn’t smile, and he didn’t let him go. If anything, he moved closer. His smell engulfed Simon: spice, crisp linen, and Hong-Wei. Simon’s hands itched to fall to Hong-Wei’s hips, and he had to ball his fists, resting them on his thighs so he didn’t reach out. Hong-Wei leaned closer, his lab coat draping around them as his arm bent against the wall. His gaze never left Simon’s.
Wu is into you.
Simon couldn’t exactly argue with Jared’s assessment any longer. The question was, what did he want to do about it?
Never mind, that wasn’t a question. Simon wantedhim like he’d wanted nothing in his life. But he didn’t know if he shouldhave him. Not the doctor he worked with. Not with Andreas’s policy hanging over his head.
What he shoulddo was an easy answer. Funny how knowing that didn’t motivate him to move at all.
Hong-Wei touched Simon’s cheek again, stroking with more purpose this time, his thumb scraping Simon’s chin, lingering on his neck. “Should I stop?”
Carra's Review
I’ve read a few books by this author, and I enjoy her writing style. When I saw she had a series coming that is in a hospital setting, it definitely caught my attention. Here in book one we have a doctor/nurse pairing, but with the hurdle of a no-exceptions “no dating” policy among the hospital employees to overcome.
Simon is pretty adorable, a bit geeky, craves romance, cares about others, and is really good at his job. He has a slight obsession with Asian culture—music, television, food—so when Hong-Wei arrives in town you know Simon’s more than a little interested. Hong-Wei is brilliant, but like I’ve seen before in stereotypical Asian characters, he’s trying to live up to the standards he’s perceived his family has set (which, don’t get me wrong, I do understand as I have friends who have gone through the same thing). You may think his secret is that he’s gay; not so much—while not vocal about it, it’s not like he’s hiding it.
Things between Simon and Hong-Wei initially start slowly. The hospital policy complicates things, but Hong-Wei also wants to take his time in courting Simon. That pesky policy is a constant in their minds—along with other characters—almost to the point where it becomes a bit too much with how the administration keeps pushing it. As a reader, you know at some point it will be addressed in some big way…honestly, the way things went down it felt a little overblown when that happened.
This book is the start of the series, and what was done quite well was the setup of other characters. I liked Simon’s friends Owen and Jared a lot, so I’m looking forward to their stories coming in books two and three (especially Owen’s!). Kathryn and Rebecca are also favorites of mine, and I just liked how the majority of the town were so supportive—though to be honest, I’m not sure just how true-to-life that is considering they’re in a rural-type area of Wisconsin.
The Doctor’s Secret was right around a 4-star read for me—it was the constant niggling of that dang policy that started to get annoying (particularly with the hospital board’s overt double standards) and Simon’s excessive addiction to all things Asian that had me leaving off that last star. While not super steamy, there’s still enough going on to make this book one for readers 18+ for adult language and sexual content.
About the Author
Author of over thirty novels, Midwest-native Heidi Cullinan writes positive-outcome romances for LGBT characters struggling against insurmountable odds because she believes there’s no such thing as too much happy ever after. Heidi is a two-time RITA® finalist and her books have been recommended by Library Journal, USA Today, RT Magazine, and Publisher’s Weekly. When Heidi isn't writing, she enjoys cooking, reading novels and manga, playing with her cats, and watching too much anime. Find out more at heidicullinan.com.
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