Publisher: Mills and Boon  (2008)

Sheikh Ghaleb has reached the ultimate limit. A man devoted to medicine as Head of Surgery at Jobail Advanved Medical Center in Omraania and his country as the crown prince, he is a man used to being in control and being in charge. With increasing duties on both sides, hard work, duty presses him on all flanks, stretching even him beyond his limits. Finally even Ghaleb must delegate some responsibility. Charging Adnan with the duty of finding a Co-Head to meet his most stringent medical qualifications, receives an unexpected shock. Not only does the new appointment stand up to his nearly impossible standards but the new appointment is a woman, not just any woman but Viv LaSalle, the woman he left seven years ago!

Viv LaSalle's passionate affair with Ghaleb brought her to the lowest point of her life. Now with a son in tow, she has worked her way up to the ultimate professional skills. Confronted with her past, will Viv rise to the challenge or face another setback? After seven years, is the spark still alive between Ghaleb and Viv and with Ghaleb's state marriage all the news, will she settle for second best and where does that leave her son Sammy?

In THE DESERT SURGEON'S SECRET SON, Olivia Gates creates vivid characters whose every action produce a wonderful range of emotion. Passionate yet a bit more reserved than the heroes in her THRONE OF JUDAR series, Ghaleb makes for an intriguing unique hero. Viv is a woman who will not cower before this man, not as a doctor and not as a future king. Her unrestrained gestures bring a sense of humor to the tension between them, a sense of humor that lightens the hero's heart. His responses to her joyful flippancy are divine. It is easy for the reader to see the joy she brings to Ghaleb's life. Ghaleb's responses to Sammy, and Sammy to his, are the most delightful father-son rapport I have ever seen in a romance and left me longing for more fathers and teachers in the world to impart such a sense of inner honor and intelligence with this kind of vision of parenthood. In each and every detail, from the origin of Sammy's name to the medical choices made, Olivia Gates gives the reader characters and a landscape to cherish. Fans of her Silhouette Desire recent series will be thrilled to discover all the passion in the Throne of Judar series right here in THE DESERT SURGEON'S SECRET SON, but for this reader, the real thrill came in discovering the fine subtleties of character here as well as the subtle changes provoked by the difference in setting. When reading this romance as well as other Medical Romances, the reader feels the dedication and hard work and deep calling within her characters for medicine, not just as a job but as a vocation deep within.