Review Post: Beg, Borrow or Steal by Susie Tate

Rating/Review: ☕☕☕☕ (4 delightful cups!)

Beg, Borrow or Steal is one totally fun ride, not just because of the funny and quirky characters and a plot that is more than the usual in the romance trope but also because of one strong and fantastic female lead.  This is one heroine that doesn't need a prince to rescue her from her circumstances she just wants somebody to really respect her despite it.  Libby is not the usual med student making rounds and learning how to be a doctor.  She is a single working mum on top of being a full-time student.  When she meets Jamie, he thinks she's a party girl especially when she keeps falling asleep during his rounds.  As he gets to know her and her adorable little girl he can't help falling for her and wanting to help her.  But Libby has a little secret she hasn't told him, it's something that most men won't really be comfortable with.  Unfortunately, her secret got spilled in the most spectacular way.  Now it's just a matter of finding ways to accept this in Jamie's case and for Libby to maybe finally trusting that he really is serious about her.  

This is one book that really kept me reading and surprising me with the way things are tackled especially with Libby's circumstances.  I really, really loved Libby, her independence, her fighting spirit and of course her not accepting the being rescued by her prince because she knows that she really needs to be taken seriously as a person who has worth.  I definitely love her daughter Rosie as well, perfect portrayal of a demanding yet adorable four-year-old!  Beg, Borrow or Steal is not just a romance its also about not giving up on your dreams and just going for it!  Libby got her dream and her Prince!

Blurb: 

Jamie is proud of everything he’s achieved. A consultant anaesthetist and the Medical Education Director – he’s a pretty big deal. So when one of his medical students falls asleep, right in the middle of a tutorial, he is furious. He’s a bloody good teacher, damn it! 

Maybe he could have been a little more understanding. Maybe he didn’t have to try and humiliate her. But the shock of how beautiful this particular student was when she finally opened her eyes, and his inappropriate reaction, only fuelled his anger. He’s tired of lame excuses from wild party animals burning the candle at both ends, and he’s going to make an example of this one. 

For Libby, pride is a luxury and beauty is currency. Pregnant at seventeen and an aspiring doctor, she couldn’t afford to be proud, so she cashed in on her looks instead. She will beg, borrow or steal to achieve her dreams and give her daughter the life she deserves, even if she has to forgo sleep – even if she has to leave her dignity behind. 

Only now that she’s not just sitting in lecture theatres like her first two years of medical school, now that she’s working in a real hospital, Libby is realizing that the thread she’s been hanging onto for so long may be about to snap. The last thing she needs is to have riled the gorgeous, judgmental Head of Medical Education. But there’s only so far you can push yourself, only so much pressure you can be under until you break. Libby’s been on that cliff edge for a while; her health may just tip her over. 

A kick in the shin from a gorgeous little four-year-old girl and a confrontation with her tearful, exhausted mother soon forces Jamie to see what a bastard he’s been. Libby may not accept his help, but he’s relentless when he wants something, and it’s not long before he realizes that this mother and daughter belong with him.  So when a stag night he’s on ends up in the best strip club in England and he sees who the main attraction is, his reaction is explosive. 

Despite everything, Libby finds she still has some pride left. This man has made her feel small twice now. He won’t be getting a third shot. No matter how gorgeous he is, no matter how persistent …

Excerpt: 

‘For the love of God, please let it stop,’ Jamie pleaded through gritted teeth as the first chords of the next Justin Bieber song sounded obnoxiously throughout the enclosed space. 

‘You know as well as I do, me old mucker, that the surgeon gets to choose the songs,’ Pav said from his position at the end of the bed, between the patient’s legs. His dark head was bent to concentrate on his task, but Jamie could just about make out the smirk he wasn’t trying to hide. ‘This isn’t a democracy you know. I need this kind of existential beauty to soothe my soul and help me focus my genius.’

‘You are making me, and the entire theatre staff, suffer for your own satisfaction. You hate this stuff as much as the rest of us, you sick bastard.’ 

‘Aren’t you a true Bielieber then, Grantham?’ Mick the ODP’s low voice rumbled from the other side of the patient. ODPs, or Operating Department Practitioners, were the anaesthetist’s right-hand men and women. Without Mick on side, Jamie would be royally screwed.

‘No, Mick,’ Jamie said slowly. ‘No, I am not.’ Mick shrugged his massive shoulders, exposing some more of his elaborately tattooed forearms. He was bald and about as wide as he was tall. 

‘Not averse to a bit of the Biebs. Little fucker can sing, after all.’  Mick delivered this in such a deadpan voice that the half the theatre staff who didn’t know he was a purely heavy metal man probably thought he meant it. The other half were sniggering. They all enjoyed Jamie’s torture sessions during these urology lists.

Ever since Jamie had let slip to his best friend that Justin Bieber gave him the creeps and his music made him feel physically ill, it had been playing on loop every Friday morning for months. Months. Pav was a persistent and diabolical wind-up merchant; if something amused him he would keep it going well past the tolerance of any other reasonable human being.  

‘It’s not like you really need to concentrate anyway,’ Jamie complained. ‘It’s just a TURP. You’re not removing the bladder or anything; just making sure that this guy isn’t going to be pissing every five minutes.’ 

‘I’m not sure that if you were the one with a metal bar up your cock, getting your prostate hollowed out, you would agree.’ 

Jamie rolled his eyes. ‘Saving the world one dick at time.’ 

‘Damn right I am. I’ll have you know – ’

The double doors to the theatre crashed open and all eyes swung to the dishevelled figure that stepped through. Her scrubs were inside out and massive on her, her theatre shoes were different colours and sizes, and her hair was a huge mess on top of her head, secured with multiple elastic bands and clips. She was trying to shove a torn theatre cap over the mass as she moved through the doors. Jamie smoothed down the front of his perfectly fitted scrubs and frowned.

‘Dr Grantham,’ she said as her wide bright blue eyes met his, ‘I’m so sorry I’m late.’ She was out of breath, her cheeks were flushed pink, and despite the crazy disarray of her appearance she looked absolutely stunning. Pav had stopped squinting down his ‘metal rod’ to take her in, and was openly smirking. Jamie shot him a warning look before turning to deal with the latecomer.

‘One of the most important things in anaesthetics is preoperative assessment,’ he said, frowning down at her and trying unsuccessfully to block out how bright her eyes were after her rush to get here, or how full her bottom lip was as she bit it. ‘You’ve not only missed assessing the patients on the ward but also the anaesthetic itself.’ 

Libby released her lip and took a deep breath in. For a moment her eyes clouded with the strangest look of bone-deep weariness and defeat that he almost wished he could let her off the hook. But by the time she spoke, that look had been replaced with hard determination. 

‘It won’t happen again,’ she told him. ‘I just had – ’

‘Let’s forget about it,’ he cut her off. He’d heard too many lame excuses from medical students burning the candle at both ends over the last few months since he’d agree to be Educational Director. To Jamie it was black and white: you turned up, you put the effort in and you got the job done, end of story.

‘You may as well come up this end, newbie,’ Pav put in, having gone back to operating. ‘The Gasman has already done big syringe, little syringe. All he does now is listen to the inane beeps and watch porn on his iPhone. 

‘Pav, will you please, for once, shut up,’ Jamie snapped. ‘And turn this goddamn music off. I feel like I want to rip my brain out through my nose.’ 

‘Boys, that’s enough,’ the theatre sister snapped, thankfully shutting off the Bieber. ‘No swearing. Ladies are present.’ 

Pav snorted a laugh (they’d already heard this particular lady using the c-word when referring to a theatre manager before the list started), which, under the sister’s glare, he managed to turn into a cough. Jamie waited until he’d caught Pav’s eye and gave him a long stare before turning back to Libby. 

‘Okay … Libby is it?’ 

He knew her name. He’d been thinking about her name, her hair, her eyes, her skin, even her baggy bloody jumper way too much over the last few days. But he wasn’t about to reveal that to her or anyone else for that matter. She nodded, her breathing still fast, and Jamie had to put all his concentration into not looking down at her chest as it rose and fell rapidly. 

‘Right, Libby. Sit up on here.’ He gestured towards a stool next to the monitors at the patient’s head end. ‘We’ll go through some of the equipment and what the “inane beeping” actually indicates (without it the patient would be dead). So, contrary to what Testes Twiddler over there thinks, our job is a little more involved than watching porn on my iPhone.’ 

Libby gave a nervous laugh and sat up on the stool. Jamie had had too many med students pass out in theatre to risk having one who was obviously a party animal standing for an hour. 

‘Is that the CO2 tracing?’ she asked, pointing at the screen. Jamie gave a short nod and ignored Pav’s long-suffering sigh as he started explaining the physics behind the tracings and equipment. 

‘Jamie,’ Mick interrupted him mid-flow a few minutes later. Jamie looked over at the big bastard in frustration and was shocked to see what might pass for an actual smile on his craggy face. 

‘Yes?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows in expectation. 

‘Give it up, mate.’

‘Mick, what are you – ?’

‘She outters, zonko, dead to the world: you’ve put the poor girl to sleep.’ 

Pav, who was unfortunately finishing up with the prostatic resection, let out a loud bark of laughter as Jamie slowly turned to face a sound-asleep Libby. She was still perched on the stool, her back surprisingly straight and her pen in her hand poised over her notepad; but her eyes were shut, her long lashes forming shadows over her cheekbones, and her breathing had evened out. 

‘I knew you were a boring fucker but this is the first time I’ve seen a female fall unconscious whilst you were mid-sentence,’ Pav managed to get out through his hilarity. Jamie shot him an irritated look before focusing back on Libby, whose hand had now gone lax, causing her pen to drop the floor. As she started leaning dangerously to the side Jamie caught her arm to stop her from falling, and she scowled. 

‘Hands off the merchandise,’ she mumbled as she attempted to slap his hand away. ‘No touching.’ 

At this Pav started another round of sniggers, closely follow by the rest of the theatre team as they prepared the patient for recovery and cleared the equipment away. Libby continued to fall off her stool, no more awake than before, despite being able to form sentences. Jamie caught her before she could hit the ground and, on instinct, lifted her small body up against his chest, and then watched as her eyes fluttered open to focus on his face. She blinked once, then her body went stiff before she gave a small yelp and struggled out of his arms. 

The entire experience, including the feel of her against him, the smell of her light perfume mixed with her shampoo, and the incredible beauty of her eyes close up, somehow short-circuited Jamie’s brain. His arms actually tightened to try to keep her suspended close to him, as his body seemed to have decided that this woman was right where she needed to be. It took a few long seconds for reason to kick in and override his almost overwhelming attraction to her. At that point he let her go abruptly and, much to his horror, she fell in a heap at his feet. 

‘Shit,’ he muttered, extending his hand, which she ignored as she staggered upright. ‘Are you okay?’ The theatre had now fallen deathly silent. Pav’s registrar was writing up the notes as Pav watched open-mouthed, his eyes widening as if to question Jamie’s sanity. 

‘Fine,’ Libby snapped, looking unsteady and disconcertingly fragile now that she was standing on her own. ‘Sorry, I’ve always been a bit clumsy but I – ’

Jamie, being a little bit of a control freak, and not relishing embarrassing himself in front of the entire theatre, not to mention his fury at her ability to fall asleep mid teaching session (okay, so he knew the physics behind the anaesthetic machine was unlikely to butter everyone’s bagel but he wasn’t that dull, was he?) was suddenly furious. Nobody had actually lost consciousness from boredom whilst he was speaking before. In all honesty he was used to a very different reaction when it came to the opposite sex, and it certainly didn’t involve them falling asleep. He gritted his teeth. 

‘You were asleep,’ he told Libby, holding onto his temper by a thread. 

‘Oh no, I couldn’t have been. I’m sure that –’

‘You were asleep and this is the second time it’s happened,’ he snapped. The sharpness of his tone must have cut through even Pav’s amusement because the atmosphere in theatre was thick with tension. Libby lowered her head and rubbed her temples, before clasping her hands together in front of her chest and looking up at him with wide, pleading eyes. 

‘I can explain,’ she whispered. ‘You wouldn’t believe what a – ’

‘It may have escaped your notice, Ms Penny, but there is still a patient on the table. Maybe we could finish this up before we get into the gory details of your life?’ 

The patient was transferred to another trolley in near silence. After he had been taken to recovery, and with all of the theatre staff still milling around on clear-up, Jamie turned to Libby. 

‘Ms Penny,’ he said sharply, and Libby appeared to brace. ‘I know you probably think you have a valid excuse for today, but I’ve heard every excuse under the sun for below-par performance from medical students, and I’m afraid that they all equate to the equivalent of “the dog ate my homework”. You are in your third year now. You’re not dealing with lectures and paper; this was a real patient having a real operation. I’m keeping him alive during it and taking the time to teach you. There is no excuse for coming in half awake; there is no excuse for not listening. It’s April, you will have already had one clinical attachment before you started on Anaesthesia and Elective Surgery. All the induction is finished now; it’s time to knuckle down to some real work. You will not pass this rotation if you carry on like this and you certainly will not become a doctor if you keep up this attitude.’

‘But, I – ’

‘Just go. Sleep. And for God’s sake buck up your ideas tomorrow.’ 

Libby’s mouth closed and her shoulders slumped. She glanced around at the theatre team before nodding, tucking her hair behind her ears and muttering, ‘I’m sorry,’ in a barely audible whisper as she backed out of the double doors. 

There was a long pause as they all watched the doors swing shut. Jamie looked over at Mick, who was frowning at him, with his big tattooed arms crossed over his chest. 

‘What?’ Jamie spat, stalking back over to his chart as the surgeons backed away from the table. 

Mick just raised an eyebrow, as if that said it all for him, and then started to clear away the ventilation equipment. 

He turned to Pav, who was also uncharacteristically sombre. 

‘I can’t let them get away with that shit,’ Jamie explained. 

Pav put the rigid cystoscope back up on the theatre trolley and narrowed his eyes at Jamie. ‘There’s a time and place, Jamie. That was a bit of a public dressing down. She’s only just starting out. You could have let her explain. 

‘Oh come on,’ Jamie scoffed. ‘You know as well as I do why she’s tired: young, beautiful student? Falling asleep in clinics? Think what we were like for Christ’s sake.’

‘Don’t judge her by your standards, Jamie.’

‘You know what I mean.’ 

‘You know nothing about that girl’s life. When did you become such a hard-arse? Everyone’s fighting their own unique war, man. Wait until you know hers before you judge.’