“24/7 – Live The Moment” Series
Two Courageous doctors – one unforgettable assignment!
Working in the wilds of Papua New Guinea, Dr Jonah Armstrong is against Dr Jacinta McCloud joining him on a dangerous medical mission. He tragically lost his sister there, and refuses to risk someone he cares deeply about again.
But Jacinta is headstrong, and doesn’t listen to Jonah’s warning – and very soon they’re both held captive in the jungle. In the face of grave danger they finally give in to their mutual feelings. But a dramatic escape leaves Jonah with amnesia, unable to remember the magic they shared – and unaware that Jacinta is pregnant with his child…
24/7 Feel the heat – every hour… every minute… every heartbeat
Reviews
Kelly Bowerman – CataRomance
Feeling flat? Need excitement in your day? Try Fiona McArthur and her novel ‘Dangerous Assignment’ a rodeo ride of emotion and danger.
Dr Jacinta McCloud had triumphed over tragedy and pain to build a life for her self and then along comes Dr Jonah Armstrong to shake the foundations of that life. Taken over by his passion for his work with Missions Pacific in Papua New Guinea and just a little bit by him, she travels to PNG. Little does she think that her whole life is about to be changed in tragic and unsuspecting ways.
Jonah Armstrong was pole-axed from the start by mesmerizing Jacinta McCloud, but the last thing he ever wanted was for her to follow him to dangerous Papua New Guinea. He’d already lost his sister there and he didn’t want send another woman he loved into danger, but he can’t fight his feelings for her. Will these two lovers have a happily ever after or will exotic, deadly PNG tear them apart forever?
This is my first Fiona McArthur novel but it certainly won’t be my last. I enjoyed this powerful, well written novel. I liked the spice of danger mixed in with love and true dedication to helping others. The characters were skillfully written and both Jonah and Jacinta have past tragedies that motivate their actions. The reader feels for Jacinta when she finds her lover is alive but has completely forgotten her and their love they shared. You can see just how strong the heroine has been made by her past circumstances, to not be entirely shattered by this tragic revelation.
The technical terms dotted throughout the novel reassure the reader that the author knows what she is talking about. What make’s this book is the author’s descriptive words and the ability to encourage readers see the picture she is painting. The PNG setting is as beautiful and deadly as Fiona depicts in her book. My fav scene is the opening sentence, ‘Jonah Armstrong groaned as he surfaced through the fracturing thinness of his delirium towards the sound.’ One of the best openings I have ever read!!
Fiona McArthur and ‘Dangerous Assignment’ grab your attention from the very first sentence and they don’t let you go to you are fully satisfied. Don’t miss this book, it’s a keeper.
Excerpt
JONAH ARMSTRONG groaned as he surfaced through the fracturing thinness of his delirium towards the sound.
“Jonah. Can you hear me?”
There was something about the cadence in her voice that calmed him. The nightmare receded as he eased out of the strangling mists and opened his eyes a sliver as he tried to focus.
The face of the speaker was surrounded by a halo of light, which seemed reasonable for an angel, and she must be an angel because he didn’t recognise her. Jonah’s tongue seemed glued to the roof of his mouth as he tried to speak, and she brought her face closer to hear.
“Melinda’s ring,” he whispered, but even his eyelids hurt when he opened them and the struggle with their weight was too great.
Jacinta McCloud, Director of Emergency at Pickford General Hospital, glanced at the man’s large, capable hands and tapped the finely wrought signet ring on his little finger. There was a tiny butterfly fashioned from gold on the signet and she shivered at the sight and rubbed her shoe over her ankle where her own tiny tattooed butterfly hid unnoticed. “There is a ring on your finger, Jonah.”
Her voice again. He sent the message to his brain to open his lids, but the synapses weren’t listening. The peppermint of her breath touched his face. “Jonah, the airline ticket in your wallet says you flew in from Papua New Guinea two days ago and your passport says you spend a lot of time there. When did you take your last antimalarial?”
This time his muscles obeyed and her eyes were dark and caring. He finally articulated his answer. “Last night. In pocket.”
Jacinta slid her hand into his trouser pocket, retrieved the tablets and read the label. Then she stepped back from the bed and spoke to the nurse beside her. “If it’s malaria, presumably this strain is resistant to Doxycycline. We’ll just have to try something else,” she murmured.
When Jonah regained consciousness, he accepted he was finally on the mend. Eyes forced open, he stared at the tiny square of morning light coming from behind the edge of the curtain as if it were a signpost to the normal world. Tentatively he stretched his legs, and although the ache was there, the flooding pain of movement from yesterday had subsided.
Warily he turned his head on the damp pillow as someone approached his bed. Still fuzzy, he squinted to bring the woman’s two heads together. Once she’d fused, he could see she had the darkest brows he’d ever seen above brown eyes filled with the compassion he’d noticed yesterday. So she wasn’t an angel.
“Good morning, Dr Armstrong. I see your fever’s broken.”
Jonah swallowed and licked his lips as he tried to form the words his brain had no trouble coming up with. She must have noticed because she moved swiftly to the bedside table, procured a plastic tumbler of water and directed the straw into his mouth before he even realised he was desperately thirsty.
He sighed as the coolness slid down his throat and the roof of his mouth no longer felt like the floor of a bat cave.
“Thank you.” His voice cracked with weakness and he despised the sound. Still, it was better than being dead.
“The strain of malaria you had was a particularly vicious one and I thought for a while we were going to lose you.”
He could tell she was genuinely glad he was awake, and the knowledge warmed the last of the cold spots in his body. “Tell me about it.” The idea was vaguely amusing that he could survive tropical snakes, spiders and guerrilla activity in the depths of Papua New Guinea and succumb to a mosquito in the height of civilisation.
“And you are…?” He could feel the strength seeping back into his limbs and there was sweetness to the feeling that reminded him he shouldn’t take his body for granted.
“Jacinta McCloud. I’m one of the doctors from the emergency department here at Pickford.”
She smiled and suddenly he was light-headed again, but this time for a different reason and the old barriers refused to assemble as he’d trained them. Blame the malaria, or fate, or timing because there was something about this woman that slid like a stiletto straight to the core of him in a way he hadn’t experienced before.
His life did not include women you couldn’t leave behind!
Almost as if she sensed his panic, she turned away and walked to the window. He watched the way she moved, her back ramrod straight like one of those old-fashioned missionary nuns he’d grown up around. Yet somehow it didn’t come off. She would always be unmistakably a woman.
And there he was again, speculating about someone outside the parameters of his life. Angry with himself, he pulled his disgustingly weak body upright past the pillow until the cold Formica of the back of the bed was hard against his spine, and he had control.
Jacinta McCloud felt as febrile as this patient had looked the first time she’d seen him, and impulsively she swept back the curtains to allow the morning glow to flood the room. When she slid the window open, cool air damped the heat in her cheeks and memories of yesterday and her first sight of Jonah ran through her mind.
Pushed through the casualty doors by the ambulance personnel, he’d been agitated by the movement of the trolley and she’d spotted him immediately. He’d mumbled semi-audible phrases and the depth of his despair had made Jacinta slip her fingers into his hand to comfort him on his trip to the assessment room.
Strangely, he’d seemed to rest more easily on the bed at her touch, and when the stretcher had stopped and she’d retrieved her hand, he’d twisted his head on the pillow as if searching for the comfort he’d known briefly.
The imprint of his long fingers on hers had burned with more than the man’s fever. Not the sort of fanciful notions she was known for.
Then, last night at home when she’d turned out the light to go to sleep, his tortured blue eyes had still haunted her. Almost as if she’d imagined they had some deep connection she’d never known about, which was bizarre, as she was the least fanciful person she knew. Whims and past lives had no place in Jacinta McCloud’s busy schedule and neither did malarial-stricken mystery doctors who blew into Casualty. It was probably just the lure of tropical medicine that piqued her interest, not the man.
my second Kimberley’s of Western Australia book has hit the shelves.
Makes you wonder about the covers in all the other countries. 
