Under Southern Stars
Code Blue Hearts, Book 1
by Cari Blake
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Pub Date Aug 01 2025 | Archive Date Sep 06 2025
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Description
She survived a toxic marriage, a brutal divorce, and the chaos of the ER. Her heart? Flatlined. Love? Marked DNR.
Emergency department nurse Sophia Mitchell has made it through the worst: single motherhood, long shifts in one of the country’s busiest ERs, and a man who nearly broke her. Now she’s built walls around her heart strong enough to stop a trauma team. And she has exactly zero interest in letting anyone past them.
Especially not the charming New Zealand paramedic whose radio flirtations are making her question everything she knows about keeping men at a safe distance.
Jack McKenzie wasn't supposed to be more than another EMT dropping off patients at Metro General. But his coffee deliveries, his easy way with her fifteen-year-old daughter Madison, and an accent that does dangerous things to her pulse are slowly dismantling every defense she's built. When he invites them to New Zealand for spring break, Sophia takes the biggest leap of faith since signing her divorce papers.
What she discovers halfway around the world changes everything.
Jack isn't just a paramedic with perfect coffee skills—he's Jackson Charles McKenzie, heir to a wine empire and owner of a vineyard estate that belongs in a travel magazine. Standing in his family's mansion, watching his mother assess her like a lab specimen, Sophia realizes she's made the same mistake twice: falling for a man who's been playing a carefully edited version of himself.
But when her toxic ex-husband escalates his campaign of psychological warfare, Sophia discovers Jack has been quietly protecting Madison from threats she never knew existed. Now she faces an impossible choice: trust the man who deceived her, or lose the only person who's ever made her feel truly seen.
From Metro General's controlled chaos to Central Otago's breathtaking vineyards, this is a story about second chances, the courage to trust again, and discovering that sometimes the biggest risk is letting someone see all of you—scars, walls, and all.
A Note From the Publisher
This isn’t fantasy medicine or a sanitized Grey’s Anatomy knockoff. I got tired of reading that, so I wrote something steeped in lived experience, adrenaline, and emotional realism. If you’re tired of medical romance that gets everything wrong or turns nurses into accessories, Code Blue Hearts is your remedy.
Book 1 of a completed 4-book series.
Marketing Plan
First-in-series romance with three sequels already completed and scheduled for release
Launch promotion includes a $0.99 pricing campaign to build visibility and drive reviews
Outreach to 4,000+ subscribers from a prior political campaign list, all of whom opted in via donation or newsletter signup
Written by a real-life emergency room nurse, former firefighter, and EMT—bringing firsthand realism to the medical, emotional, and action elements of the story
Targeted outreach to reviewers and influencers in the romance/romantasy space, especially those drawn to grounded, high-stakes stories featuring strong female leads
Available Editions
EDITION | Ebook |
ISBN | 9798998947513 |
PRICE | $2.99 (USD) |
PAGES | 418 |
Links
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews

What a gorgeous gorgeous book! The beautiful cover stood out right away but the story kept me reading the whole thing in just a few sittings. I loved Sophia’s character I could relate so much to her and also who doesn’t want a sexy EMT worker to sweep them off their feet haha! But of course there is no simple story in this book and tings get complicated fast…with a messy ex and a lot on her plate both professionally and personally we see if true love really does prevail.