Millie Barnes is not the kind of protagonist I usually root for. And honestly? For the first five hours of this audiobook, I wasn't sure I was rooting for her at all.
Let me set the scene. It's Saturday morning, Carlos took the kids to his mom's, and I'm making adobo - the real kind, the one that takes three hours and makes the whole house smell like vinegar and garlic and home. I've got my earbuds in, I'm browning pork shoulder, and Millie is making me want to reach through my phone and shake her.
A Doctor Who Doesn't Act Like One
Here's where my professional brain kicked in: Millie is a doctor on Cape Cod. A family practice doc in a small town. Higgins actually gets the vibe right - the way everyone knows your business, the way your patients are also your neighbors, the casual intimacy of small-town medicine. That part felt real. What didn't feel real was Millie herself. She's so focused on this "perfect life" checklist - the cottage, the dog, the golden boy Joe Carpenter - that she can't see what's actually happening around her. She's pining for a guy who barely registers her existence while a perfectly good cop named Sam Nickerson is right there being funny and kind and present.
And look, I get it. I spent years trying to be what my mom wanted before I figured out my own path. But Millie's particular brand of self-sabotage got under my skin in the first half. She's whiny. I'm just going to say it. There were moments at the stove where I was stirring rice and muttering "girl, WHAT are you doing" loud enough that the dog looked concerned.
But here's the thing Higgins does well - she makes you stay. Because underneath the whining, Millie is genuinely lonely. She wants connection so badly she's built this fantasy life that has no room for actual human messiness. And when the story finally cracks that open - when she starts letting Sam in, when she stops performing the version of herself she thinks people want - the second half of this book hits different.
Xe Sands Carries What The Plot Sometimes Can't
Xe Sands. This woman. Her voice is warm and natural in a way that makes even Millie's more annoying moments bearable. She's got this gift for comedic timing - there's a dry humor in Higgins' writing that could easily fall flat with the wrong narrator, but Sands knows exactly when to pause, when to let a joke land. She doesn't do wildly different voices for every character, which honestly? Fine by me. What she does is shift tone just enough that you always know who's talking. The emotional scenes land because Sands doesn't oversell them. She trusts the material.
I will say - and this is a compliment - when I switched from the audiobook to music for a bit during cleanup, I missed her voice. Like missing a friend mid-conversation. That's rare. I've listened to narrators who made me want to drive into a canal (night shift exhaustion talking, but still). Sands is the opposite. She makes 11 hours feel like a long chat with someone you like.
The Romance That Almost Wasn't
Okay, the romance. The central love triangle - or really, it's more of a love line where Millie is facing the wrong direction - is both the book's strength and its weakness. Joe Carpenter is a non-entity. He's handsome and nice and that's... it. He's a screensaver, not a person. Sam Nickerson deserves better than being someone's backup plan, and the book knows this but takes its sweet time getting there.
The pacing in the first half genuinely drags. I was through my adobo prep, had cleaned the kitchen, and was folding laundry before the story found its groove. But when it does - when Millie finally pulls her head out and sees what's been in front of her - there's a sweetness to it that caught me off guard. Carlos asked why I was crying in the car. I blamed allergies. (I was actually finishing it on my Sunday night drive to shift. Don't judge me.)
This is a book about growing up and letting go of the life you planned so you can live the one that's actually yours. Two Lives of Lydia Bird wrecked me with that same theme - the grief of releasing a future you'd already built in your head. As someone who was supposed to be a doctor and became a trauma nurse instead? Yeah. That hit.
Who Gets This Prescription
If you need a fast-paced plot with twists every chapter, this isn't it. If you have zero patience for a heroine who takes her time figuring things out, you'll throw your phone. But if you're in the mood for a slow-burn Cape Cod romance with genuine humor and a narrator who makes you feel like you're being told a story by a good friend - especially on a long drive or during weekend cooking - give it a shot. Push through the first half. The payoff is worth the simmer.
My mom would love this (she still thinks I should've been a doctor). Millie would understand.
