"An interesting contemporary romance"

In 1987 in the newly opened Serenity House for Troubled Girls in Hyde Point, New York, pregnant Paige Kendrick and her sister Jade learn their parents died in a motorcycle accident. Paige immediately goes into labor giving birth to a healthy girl. Paige rejects the baby, refusing to even see or touch the newborn.

Fifteen years later Obstetrician Dr. Ian Chandler asks Paige, a pediatrician, to join his new center for unwed mothers and children without any money. At first she refuses as she hates any reminder of where she comes from, but he manipulates Paige into finally joining. As they work close together, they fall in love, but she feels betrayed by something he does.

Readers who take pleasure in an interesting contemporary romance starring a scarred lead protagonist will want to read Kathryn Shay's latest novel, PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT. The story line focuses on the concept that the child becomes the adult as Paige takes plenty of teenage baggage with her into her present life even though she overcomes much to become a doctor. Though her reaction to what Ian does that she doesn't agree with seems overkill some fans will see even that as a defense mechanism of a hurting soul worth reading about.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted May 23, 2002

Summary

They'd grown up at Serenity House--a group home for girls. Now they're coming together for the first time as adults. Childhood friends who'd shared difficult times, who'd shared hopes and fears, laughter and tears--and perhaps most important of all...secrets.

Dr. Paige Kendrick--one of the first residents of Serenity House--has a perfect life. Her patients are the children of affluent, educated women whose worlds are very different from the one in which Paige grew up. There's nothing in her practice to remind her of her own past.

But Dr. Ian Chandler's about to change all that. He needs her in his inner-city clinic and he wants her in his life. His first request is difficult to accept. It means Paige will have to deal with patients who'll remind her of the painful choice she made fifteen years ago. His second request is difficult to refuse. After all, he's the man she's beginning to love....