Out Of Practice (The Larkford, #1)

by Penny Parkes

[zooloo1983]

I read a review that said this book read like the series Doctors and do you know what it really does but throw in a bit of Virgin River too! I picked up my audiobook copy of this book from the library, awhile ago I requested book 3 of the series without realising it was book 3 – doh! So as I do not like to read books out of sync, I requested the audiobook from the library. I have to admit…I am in love with Larkford and its residents.

Holly, a downtrodden wife, who is an awesome Doctor, up sticks and moves her obnoxious husband Milo, urgh, and her two gorgeous twin boys to Larkford. The husband has been put on administrative leave by the university he works at. Every time he came up in the book, I wanted to literally jump through the pages and punch him. He was vile and horrible and all things negative.

Moving on!!! We have some of the best doctors in this book, you have Delicious Dan, the Cold Julia, the hot Welsh Taffy (well he’s my favourite as I have a HUGE weakness for men with a welsh accent). Plus you have the administrative staff and Elsie, she, however, is an eccentric patient and she is a complete hoot. The camaraderie with the village, doctors, friends was a delight in this book. So much light in this story, just such heartwarming and feel-good book!

Elsie also has many “teachings” in this book, it made me, Holly and Julia take a look at themselves. Life is not about what you ‘should’ do but what do you want to do. What do you want from life? How can you make you happy? Definitely some food for thought!

Watching Holly throughout the book has been a journey. She has had an epic journey. She learned how to stand on her own two feet and fight for what she wants. When we meet everyone we don’t know their story (obviously) we don’t know the practice story and what is going to happen, we don’t know the villagers, well you get the picture. By the end though, I felt liking getting in my car and moving to the Quaint Larkford and spending my days there.

Obviously not every day would be sweetness and light, but the majority of the book had me smiling like a loon. Can someone please tell me where I can get my own Taffy Jones, I mean sorry men but he puts you all to shame! He is the type of bloke that walks into a room, and a light shines. I was getting excited by the Orange clubs just as much as Holly.

There is so much going on, with all the storylines interlinking. Yes, this is Holly’s story predominately, but we do get insights to Dan, Taffy and Julia. I hope it stays the same in the next one because they have become like family to me as they kept me company on my working days. Providing me with little anecdotes and jokes. I mean where else will you sit there playing Marry, Snog and Avoid with characters from a book!! I really did love the behind the scenes of the Docs unwinding in the staff room chatting away. But I did love watching them having to do their rounds and some of the things the residents came in for…shocking!

Not going to lie, this book is quite long! Normally that would put me off, but once I was in that Practice I didn’t want to leave and actually got annoyed once I had listened to all 16 hours of the audiobook!!

Penny is a new author to me, all thanks to NetGalley, and she is an author that I will be keeping an eye out for even once I finish the other books in this series. I need to get back to my community and see how they are doing. It is just a must!

I enjoyed this so much I even checked out the novella, Swept Away which is currently free on Amazon, looking forward to that and I am waiting patiently for the audiobook for book 2.