Romance Recommendation: Love Takes Wing

Belinda Simpson is still grieving the death of her husband when she arrives in a small Missouri town to take over as town doctor. An infection is rapidly spreading through town and the townfolk blame the children at the orphanage; Belinda must do all that she can to find a cure and protect the children, aided by her friend and fellow doctor Annie and the young blacksmith Lee Owens.

The Love Comes TV movies (I believe there’s six now) are based on a series of romance novels by Janette Oke, and they’re all sweet, cliched, delightful little romances with absolutely zero surprises and no particular inspiration, but plenty of frontier and midwest romance between strong-willed women and reserved, humorous men. They’re essentially one step up from Hallmark movies. The first two in the series have been the best so far – Love Comes Softly and Love’s Enduring Promise – with the others variations on the same theme and growing more and more uninspired – so I was surprised to find that this, the latest, is very strongly-written and just as good as Love Comes Softly. It’s also a cut above acting-wise – part of why Love Comes Softly worked was Katherine Heigl’s performance, and Sarah Jones in this delivers the role of extraordinarily stubborn, kind, tempestuous Belinda as if it was made for. Haylie Duff co-stars in a long line of random semi-famous stars this series has managed to pull in. For unabashed romance lovers.