Review: The Drifter by Susan Wiggs

From the Back Cover:

Comes a drifter to a windswept island...

He wanted to tell her everything. About the lost years that had changed him from a desperate young boy into a man hardened by life. About the night he'd sold his soul for a woman who wasn't worth the price...

But Jackson Underhill said nothing. After all, he was an outlaw, clearly on the run - reason enough for silence.

The truth was Dr. Leah Mundy scared him. She made him want to trust again, to share his burden. She made him want a home, a family. And it was dangerous to want such things. Because the past would find him if he stayed - and there could be no future with a woman who would not leave.

My Thoughts:

Whidbey Island, 1894. One of the lush, green islands dotting the Pacific Northwest coastline, and home to Coupeville, a sleepy little seaside town. Dr. Leah Mundy, the town physician, awakes in the middle of the night to find a stranger with a gun trained on her, demanding her help. The stranger is Jackson Underhill, a man on the run from a dangerous past, and the patient is Carrie, his childhood sweetheart.

Leah has devoted her life to the study of medicine and caring of patients and even though the circumstances are unnerving, she agrees to treat Carrie, who is suffering a miscarriage and who is also in the throws of wicked withdrawal symptoms from a morphine addiction. Leah and Jackson become closer as they struggle to help Carrie get well. But just when it seems Carrie has turned a corner and is on the road to recovery, she leaves town with another man and Leah learns that all is not as it seemed between Jackson and Carrie.

Jackson has discovered he likes the way of life on Whidbey Island and he likes the serious, yet vulnerable Dr. Mundy. Though he feels his past could catch up with him at any moment, he yearns for the quiet, stable life that has thus far eluded him but could be within his reach. But of course, there are complications: suspicious townfolk, a corrupt sheriff, a smuggling ring and the U.S. Marshall on his trail. I won't go into more detail about the plot because there are some twists and turns and I don't want to give anything away.

Ms. Wiggs has a talent for creating multi-dimensional characters that every reader can relate to and that talent shines through again in this book. It's a better than average romance, with lots of sexual tension, mystery, action and excitement. I have not read her contemporary romances, and of her historicals I still think her Calhoun series is her best work. But this one is good, too, and I recommend it to fans of historical romances.

My Rating:  3.5 Stars out of 5