Review: The Best Medicine by Krysta Dearson

The Best Medicine by Krysta Dearson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was provided an ARC of this book via the author and Smartypants Romance, all opinions are my own.

I'm going to be honest it took me a while to warm up to Polly, but by the end I was 100% on team Polly  Her upbringing by a controlling single father who expected perfection at all times played a huge part in that.  Polly was expected present the right image and to earn the affection of her father she had to be perfect at all times.  She is deemed a failure because her marriage didn't work out, despite being a pediatrician with two kids.  It took her almost the entire book to come out of her shell and start advocating for herself.  With some help from her handsome and kind nanny Jace, her best friend Leah, and her book club, she learns to ask for help when she needs it, have fun with her kids, and speak up and fight for what she believes in and those she loves.  Jace on the other hand is a bit of a drifter.  He works odd jobs, helps his parents, and volunteers with the drama program, but he doesn't have a traditional career like his siblings.  He is exactly what Polly needs.

Through a series of unfortunate events and a comedy of errors, Polly hires Jace to be her live in nanny.  He is amazing with her kids, and nice to look at too.  Polly doesn't expect to be attracted to her much younger nanny, and while she is happy to keep company with her spicy romance novels and audiobooks, the more time she spends with Jace the harder it is to ignore the chemistry between them.  The more he is around the easier it is for her to relax and have fun again especially when she sees the kind gestures he makes to help her kids thrive and help with some of her daily burdens around the house.  Jace and Polly not only had great chemistry they developed a really great friendship as well, which was nice to see.  They both had great character development both together and individually.

This is a little on the long side in my opinion, however it does tackle some great topics like mental health, school accommodations for students with disabilities and mental health needs, relationships both romantic and familial, and more.  Overall this is a solid debut and I look forward to reading more from the author in the future.  

This is the 5th book in The Teacher's Lounge series, however it reads as a complete standalone.  It does feature characters from the other books in the series, but it is not necessary to read those before reading this.  Polly and Jace's story stands on it's own as do all of the bools in the Pennyverse.

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