When Dr. Martin Ellingham arrived in the little Cornish fishing village of Portwenn a little more than four years ago, he was still reeling from his devastating fall from grace. Once a renowned London vascular surgeon, he had been blindsided by haemophobia and forced from the surgical theatre.Martin came to Cornwall in hopes of securing the position of Portwenn's General Practitioner. He was expecting a hospitable and perhaps even welcoming environment, but then he met Louisa Glasson.The spiky but beautiful young school teacher, who served as the lay-member on his interview panel, immediately dismissed his impressive credentials and challenged his suitability as the village's standard-bearer for health. Though his skills as a surgeon were unsurpassed, dealing with people had never been Martin's strong suit. And as Miss Glasson made clear to him immediately, "If you want to be a GP in our village, then social skills and a good bedside manner are really essential."But the school teacher found the doctor had an unconventional appeal, and she was immediately drawn to him.And for the new GP, the ways of the quirky inhabitants of the village would have made life in Portwenn unbearable if it weren't for Louisa Glasson's presence there. Despite their frequent rows, a romantic relationship developed between the new doctor and the school teacher. The path their tumultuous relationship took was a convoluted one, leading them from an aborted wedding, to parenthood, the altar, and finally to a marriage in crisis. For more than four decades Martin had kept the demons spawned by an abusive childhood buried. But the stresses of fatherhood and married life had exhumed them, and the hour of reckoning had come.