Customer Reviews

Turn Back Time

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Radclyffe's knowledge gained during her surgical training clearly informs this work as the passion, dedication, frustration, and occasional disillusionment of the characters speak with the voice of authority. Based on realistic experiences, but entirely fiction, "Turn Back Time" is another utterly gratifying romantic medical drama that, in my opinion, is Radclyffe's crowning achievement so far. In this tightly woven tale about two amazing women who are destined to be together against all odds, Drs. Pearce Rifkin and Wynter Thompson tango around a relationship until they finally can't deny that their attraction is real. .

Classes graduating from Philadelphia's four medical schools gather at the University of Pennsylvania to find out where their training will continue. Quite by accident, fourth-year medical students Pearce and Wynter meet on match day. The meeting doesn't amount to more than a spark, but little do they know that fate will bring them together again after a four-year separation.

Radclyffe's novels continue to offer strong characterization, which makes it easy to become attached to the protagonists. Pearce is striking to look at with her angular features, dark shaggy hair, and athletic build: "Wynter tracked the path of fabric over flesh and was struck by the unexpected beauty of muscles playing beneath soft skin. She saw bodies every day of her life, clothed and unclothed, in every stage of health and disease, but she couldn't remember ever seeing anything quite so lovely" (p. 98). Pearce's self-confidence, intelligence, and prowess in medicine further make her desirable and admirable.

Pearce makes no apology for being gay, and she excels at everything she sets her mind to. Not one to want anything for herself and living her life as if following a script, she's surprised when she meets Wynter, the first woman who has ever distracted her from her goals. Pearce wrestles with her feelings for Wynter. "She didn't need to look at Wynter to remember the shape of her face or the color of her eyes or the way she tilted her head and looked out from beneath those long honeyed lashes when something amused her. She didn't need to look at her to feel that tug deep in her belly" (p. 71).

From something as simple as realizing that casual affairs no longer satisfy her to accepting that she is willing to forgo certain ambitions to be with the woman she loves, Pearce not only struggles with the fear of intimacy, but she shows an incredible growth curve. Strong women who have a heart, live by a moral code, make the world a better place, and yet struggle with vulnerabilities are what compel me to care about them and read on. I love learning what makes a person tick, and Radclyffe does it especially well by revealing different layers of her characters like buds slowly opening into flowers.

Radclyffe writes like a highly skilled surgeon; she demonstrates emotion with the same precision, paying close attention to detail, and making sure everything works and connects properly in the end. That her characters are imaginary defies logic. Pearce is one character this reader wouldn't mind emulating. She's a good person in every way, and I would trust my life in her hands, if only she were real.

Wynter, unlucky at love and struggling between her personal responsibilities and her career, is not looking for a relationship. She is surprised to discover she is attracted to a woman, and not just any woman, but her senior resident, Pearce Rifkin. The fact that Pearce pulls away each time they get too close doesn't deter Wynter. Once the strong-willed woman makes up her mind about something, there's no changing it.

One endearing trait Wynter shows is sticking up for and doing what's best for the people she loves. You have to admire a person who puts others' well-being before her own.

Crisp internal and external dialogue, which is believable, honest, and witty, shows the layers of the characters as we get to know them. In addition, Radclyffe's tight plot, where every scene moves the story along, maintains the intensity and interest. Wanting to find out what secrets the characters are hiding, what will happen next, and praying that it will all work out in the end, make it impossible to turn the pages quickly enough.

Romantic fiction is meant to engage the reader and elicit feelings of longing, desire, and intimacy. Sometimes, as an added bonus, it provides sizzling sex for a totally satisfying drama. "Turn Back Time" not only meets the criteria for the genre but goes beyond to give the reader more than she hopes for. Even readers who are not in the health field will understand, enjoy, and feel how vital and stimulating the environment is where life and death hang in the balance. Radclyffe displays remarkable skill at making settings believable.

"Turn Back Time," by award-winning, best-selling, and beloved author, Radclyffe, is a winner. Don't miss this exciting glimpse into the medical world of two highly acclaimed surgeons or into the hearts and minds of two multi-faceted women. Radclyffe fans will love this one and beg for more about the two new exciting heroines.

The story is full of humor and moments that are laugh out loud funny. This is a wonderful romance - with gentle moments of tenderness. The chemistry between Wynter and Pearce is riveting, they share the best kiss I have ever read.

By the close of the first chapter I was fully vested in what would happen next. So many moments in the novel were so real it was as if it were unfolding right before my eyes. I had to put the book down at a couple parts, I actually hurt for the characters when they hurt.

'Turn Back Time' is more detailed in hospital / doctor life than the author's earlier novels. The reader gets a deeper feel for a doctor's first years. Although Wynter and her sister don't have many moments together they have one of the best and sweetest bits of dialog.

This is super story if you are in the mood for a traditional romance, heck it's super if you want a page turning can't put it down novel. Best of all, the main characters are strong woman that the reader wants to understand and know well. I won't give anything away, but the ending is truly epic and leaves a huge smile on the reader's lips.

This is a Keeper !

from the publishers web site: Love has a way of derailing the best of plans.
Barely recovered from a failed relationship, Wynter Thompson struggles to balance the demands of her surgical residency with the responsibilities of her personal life - and between the two, discovers there is little time left for anything else. She manages to convince herself that she has everything she needs, because another chance at love is definitely not in her game plan.

Pearce Rifkin is a woman with a plan, and it doesn't include a serious relationship. Chief Surgical Resident is just a stepping stone to her lifelong goal - chairmanship at one of the top ten medical centers. Determined to follow in her father's footsteps, even though she isn't the son he dreamed of, Pearce has no time for romance.

Two women with nothing in common but a shared passion for surgery clash at every opportunity, especially when matters of the heart are suddenly at stake.

I've read several of Radclyffe's offerings and this one has fully developed characters (that are typical of her writing, but still, developed) and a storyline that helps advance the romance rather than smother it with plot points. Pearce is like so many of her strong I'm-too-damaged-to-be-loved, characters, but she grows throughout the story. The ending is a little unbelievable (or one that will make any serious med student/intern/resident snort derisively) but the love story helps ease what could be a cynical response to the plot. It's worth a read, but not the best lesbian romance out there.

If you are a fan of Radclyffe's books, you may find that Turn Back Time seems very familiar. Not only are the characters standard Radclyffe fare, but the plot is very reminiscent of Fated Love.

Pearce Rifkin and Wynter Thompson are surgical residents who met years before in a brief encounter. They felt an immediate attraction, but circumstances were against them. Now they find themselves in the same hospital where Pearce is the Chief Surgical Resident and trying to compete with the reputation of her father, a brilliant surgeon. Wynter has fallen behind in her residency due to complications in her personal life and she's determined to catch up and show her skills have not suffered. As can be expected, the two find themselves drawn to each other, but any chance they might have at romance has to compete with their personal situations. Romance isn't what either one planned on, but it may be what they need. When they find their lives are about to be ripped apart again, the question becomes whether or not they can stand up to the forces working around them and find the happiness they see is possible.

Turn Back Time and Fated Love have many similarities. Both have two doctors who work together on the same team. Both have one of the doctors have a daughter that the other doctor develops a relationship with. Both have one of the doctors face a life threatening condition. The stories are also dissimilar. In one book both doctors are surgeons and in the other they are both Emergency Room physicians. There is no looming father figure in Fated Love and the danger in that book is a medical condition, where the danger in Turn Back Time comes from an attack. Once you have read one though, you can't read the other without a feeling that you've already been in this story. Turn Back Time seems a little flat. It's not a bad story. It's very expectable and predictable, but a nice read for a long afternoon or evening. I would have given it 3 1/2 stars, but Amazon doesn't allow that.

Chief Surgical Resident Pearce Rifkin is on a fast track through her career so she doesn't have time for a lover. At least that's what she tries to tell herself. So imagine her surprise when someone she knew long ago re-enters her life in the form of one Wynter Thompson, the new surgical resident at the hospital where Pearce is now working.

As if life isn't complicated enough for a resident, the past causes the two women to butt heads at first. However, it's not long before Wynter shows her merit and earns Pearce's grudging respect. Surely they can't be becoming friends! And Pearce is certainly not showing Wynter her `secret hideaway' in the hospital...right?

Working long hours and having to push themselves to a level of endurance seemingly impossible, does nothing to hinder what now looks as a comradarie forming between Wynter and Pearce. Something that is sorely tested when Wynter finds out just who Pearce's father is and how that played into Pearce's current position.

And just as Pearce begins thinking that maybe something more could develop out of their friendship, her thoughts are brought screeching to a halt by the entrance of someone into the mix that Pearce would never have suspected. Will this new person help or hinder the two women's chance of going from friendship to maybe something more?

They say write what you know and Radclyffe continuously displays that she most definitely takes that to heart. Two of her previous books, Passion's Bright Fury, and Fated Love also take place in or around the world of medicine. Along with Turn Back Time, they each provide the reader with a wonderfully indepth look at the lives and loves of women as they make their way in the medical world and come together despite odds that appear stacked against them.

The plot of this book is as described elsewhere.

In Radclyffe's hands, this story goes beyond being just another lesbian romance. She has written a timeless romance - a romance that triumphs over tremendous odds. She has created two characters that are honorable and who try to do what is right even in the face of adversity. The author's detractors may say that her characters are larger than life, too good to be true, and therefore unbelievable. All that is true, but isn't that what we really want in a well-written romance regardless of the gender of the characters? Wouldn't we all want to either be Pearce and/or Wynter or to be with someone like them?

I was introduced to Radclyffe' through the Justice series and was hooked from the first book given to me. I was impressed with her writing abilities - no first book jitters, no second book let down - strong entries with every book - consistenly good writing, consistently good stories - and they would be good stories even without the lesbian romance - and consistently good dialogue. What more can you ask for in a novel?

Be careful though. If you are like so many of us - to read one of Radclyffe's novels is to be hooked. You'll find yourself buying them two and three at time with the rest of them in the cart for later purchase, you'll feel bereft if you don't have any waiting on your bookshelf, and once you've read them all, you'll haunt Amazon and the publisher's website waiting for her next novel.

As a retired surgeon, Radclyffe has written love stories about physicians, even surgeons, but she has never devoted one of her romances to the details of a surgeon's life until now... In her 24th published book, Turn Back Time, Radclyffe offers tribute to her passion for medicine by giving us a stirring and heartfelt romance filled with the power of love.

Through her characters Wynter Thompson and Pearce Rifkin, both surgical residents at University Hospital in Philadelphia, Radclyffe shares with her readers a private part of her self through her fiction. Her prose is eloquent. She executes the story perfectly by drawing the reader into her characters' world and holding us captive as we experience the sheer force of Wynter's and Pearce's love for each other.

Few authors can expertly construct a romance with such all consuming emotion that the reader forgets the world around her. Turn Back Time connects deeply with us because Radclyffe's love of her professions, both medicine and writing, permeates every page of the book. The reader is not overwhelmed with technical jargon because Radclyffe's focus is on the two women and their interactions with each other.

While Radclyffe states in her acknowledgment that this is not her personal story, I believe it is a bridge from her past through her present to her future. With Turn Back Time she is saying a final goodbye to a profession that has given her so much and to which she has dedicated most of her life. With so much love poured into this romance, I could not help but feel Wynter's and Pearce's story within the depths of my soul.

I liked this book a lot, once I got past the problem of not knowing what in the world medical terms like carotid endarterectomy, orbital floors, fem-pop bypass, intra-abdominal washout, and gastric plications were. All the surgery scenes are probably intersting to the small minority of people in the medical field but the rest of us find our eyes glazing over. But that's all that is a problem. Everything else in the book is good with believable characters you care about, especially Wynter, Pearce, and Mina. The child Ronnie doesn't really come to life much, but it is more of an adult romance anyway. I liked the more realistic viewpoint of the lovescenes as compared to the last Radclyffe book I read where I had a hard time believing in them.

All in all a good book that could have been edited somewhat of - not the stress and rush of the residents - but of the excessive surgical stuff. We know Radclyffe was a surgeon and there is no need to prove it.

This is a regular old classic romance like I have always enjoyed. It is well worth reading.

Radclyffe is unquestionably one of this genre's most talented authors. She certainly doesn't disappoint with her newest release. This book fully captured my attention in the first few pages and never let me go.

The immediate attraction between Wynter and Pearce is white hot from the second they grasp hands as strangers at a party in college. That is, until Wynter's husband calls to say he's on his way there too. Unsure of her intense reaction to Pearce, Wynter is immediately ambivalent about his call.

The women part ways, only to find each other again a few short years later. They fight attraction because of their professional relationship. However, fate eventually finds a way to overcome stubbornness.

This reader can't say enough about the talented Radclyffe. If all authors of lesbian fiction were as good as she is, our genre would be mainstream. Go buy this book. Enjoy it... over and over again...

I loved this book. I've read it several times over the years and it still ranks up there as one of my favorites in this genre. It's engaging, smart and the characters are very likable. I have to also add that I didn't see all of the plot points coming and that says something. It's a classic romance in its purest form.