Review and Giveaway: Medical Judgment by Richard Mabry

Just what the doctor ordered: heart-thumping suspense and intrigue, courtesy of Richard Mabry’s new medical drama, Medical Judgment. Someone is after Dr. Sarah Gordon. They’ve stalked her and set a fire at her home. Trying to recover from the traumatic deaths of her husband and infant daughter is tough enough, but she has no idea what will come next. As the threats on her life continue to escalate, so do the questions: Who is doing this? Why are they after her? And with her only help being unreliable suitors in competition with each other, whom can she really trust?

Join Richard in celebrating the release of Medical Judgment by entering to win an e-reader!

 

One grand prize winner will receive:

• A copy of Medical Judgment
• A Kindle Fire HD 6

Enter today by clicking the icon below, but hurry! The giveaway ends on June 21st. The winner will be announced June 22nd on the Litfuse blog.

My Review - Quality Medical Thriller

Medical Judgement is a standalone medical thriller, but the focus is definitely on the thriller side rather than the medical (which is good news for all those who turn away from the gory parts on TV shows like House).

Dr Sarah Gordon has recently lost her husband and daughter in a car accident, and is having trouble getting past the grief. She's woken one night by smoke in the house--someone has lit a pile of oily rags in her garage. It's more annoying than dangerous, but it's the start of a chain of events: someone is after her.

As with all good thrillers, we get an early insight into the mind of the perpetrator so we know what he's planning while Sarah--his intended victim--doesn't. What we don't know is his identity, which means the tension ramps up every time a new male character is introduced and we ask if this is the whacko. Sarah is an excellent character, weak at first but who gradually grows stronger as she decides she's going to get past her grief and not let this guy win.

There are some excellent supporting characters as well: Bill Larson, the recovering alchoholic detective with a broken marriage. Kyle Andrews, a friend of Sarah's husband who seems to want to get a little too close to Sarah. Steve Farber, Sarah's pastor and another recovering alcoholic.

And the plot made sense (thankfully. The last Richard Mabry novel I read left me feeling confused as to the identity and motive of the perpetrator), and I enjoyed the subtle Christian themes woven into the story.

Thanks to Abingdon Press and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review. You can read the start of Medical Judgment below.

Review: Life Support by Nicki Edwards

Great Next Installment to Medical Rural Romance Series

Nurse Emma Chirnside’s marriage is over, but her husband dies before they can get a divorce. She finds he’s left her a house in her rural home town of Birranagulla . . . only it turns out to be more mansion than house. And it’s managed by her high school crush, Tom Henderson. Meanwhile, Tom seems to have picked up some baggage of his own, including a sick mother, and a daughter.

First up, Life Support isn’t Christian fiction, although there are references to prayer and heaven. It is a clean read (there is an extremely vague sex scene, I don’t recall any bad language, and the only violence and gore is related to the fact Emma works in an Emergency Department. It seems even small-town Australia gets more than their share of car accidents and other medical emergencies. (No, not a book for those who don’t like medical drama.)

I liked both Emma and Tom as characters. Emma, because she works in the Emergency Department even though she’s financially independent. Tom, because he’s a man of true character, in that his decision to pursue a relationship with Emma is about Emma—her inheritance doesn’t come into it. The minor characters are also good, especially the loveable Ruby. And Liam.

Life Support is a sweet, well-written romance with plenty of conflict in all the right places, and a fabulous setting (which is based on the real life Mt Mitchell Homestead, in case you're looking for a wedding venue in Victoria, Australia). It’s the fourth book in the series, but easily read as a standalone novel. Now I’m hoping this isn't the last in the series, because I'm really looking forward to Liam's story . . .

Thanks to Momentum Books and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

Review: Hallowed Halls by Hannah Alexander

Excellent Medical Romance

Dr Joy Gilbert is getting to the end of her patience with her new boss, Weston Cline. Not only has her role as a “pain management specialist” turned into legal drug pusher, but he’s reluctant to let her take pro bono cases, and seems to expect more from their relationship than employer/employee. The only positive is her relationship with Tressa, his daughter, who is struggling with her parental relationships after their divorce.

An unexpected telephone call takes her back to her home town, where her mother has been admitted to hospital, and is under the care of Dr Zachary Travis, Joy’s ex-fiance. She arrives to find more than she bargained for—she has a stowaway. Tressa. Tressa, who is suddenly having fainting spells for no apparent reason.

Hallowed Halls is a combination of a medical thriller, and second-chance romance. There’s history between Joy and Zack, and there’s a story as to why she left her home town to work for Weston. There was so much unspoken backstory that I wondered at times if this was actually the second book in the series, but it’s not. While the medical aspect is central to the story, it’s well-written and not so detailed that I was grossed out (a distinct advantage. I had to skip pages in one novel recently, because the medical description was too, well, descriptive).

One thing I did keep getting hung up was Weston, who is a complete slimebag. Weston isn’t a common name, and the only Weston I’ve ever known was the complete antithesis of this fictional Weston, and it took me a while to get into the story for that reason. However, this improved once Joy got home and the focus of the story was more on Joy, her mother, Tressa … and Zack.

Overall, I really enjoyed Hallowed Halls. It was a good plot (especially the medical bits), and the characters were fascinating. Recommended.

Thanks to Hannah Alexander and Soul Inspirationz for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Hannah Alexander at her website (well, their website. Hannah Alexander is the pen name of husband-and-wife writing duo Cheryl and Mel Hodde).

Review: Lip Reading by Harry Kraus

Medical Thriller

Rebecca Jackson has dedicated her adult life to the discovery of synthetic blood, atonement for a teenage car accident that resulted in a small boy getting HIV after receiving a transfusion of contaminated blood. Her research takes a great leap forward after a trip to Africa, when she finds she can see problems in an entirely new way—although she has no idea why.

Noah Linebrink’s life purpose was determined in that same car accident. He’s now a researcher for a competing pharmaceutical company, and is tasked with poaching Becca to work with his firm. That means confronting their joint past, a task made more difficult by the threats they start getting.

The plot moves smoothly from Africa to corporate America, where Becca learns the reason behind her new ability to solve medical problems … and has to fight for the right to continue her research.

This isn’t the first novel to invent artificial blood for transfusions—that idea has been a staple of vampire novels for years. But it’s the first novel I’ve read which has gone into the scientific issues of such a project, as well as the costs and potential benefits. I didn’t necessarily understand all the science (much the same way as I never understood the technobabble in Star Trek: TNG), but that didn’t stop me enjoying it.

Lip Reading was well-written, with a detailed and engaging plot, interesting characters and a lot of interrelationships that only became apparent as the story progressed. Excellent suspense.

Thanks to Bethany House and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Harry Kraus at his website.

Review: An Open Heart by Harry Kraus

Moving from comfortable Virginia to Kenya to begin the nation’s first heart surgery programme sounds like a noble objective, but Dr Jace Rawlings is running away. He’s running away from a broken marriage, a possible affair and memory loss, and returning to the town where he grew up as a missionary kid, working at the hospital where his Dad was a doctor, and where he lost his faith and his twin sister.

But this is Africa, and there are challenges in getting the programme started, not least in getting the equipment through customs. And once Jace undertakes the first operation, he finds a strange after-effect: his patient is giving him messages from beyond this dimension. And that’s not his only problem. Someone is out to end the heart surgery programme, and it looks as though he might be implicated in a death back in the US.

I’ve read and enjoyed novels set in Africa and other exotic locations (particularly those by J M Windle). I’ve read and enjoyed medical dramas (by authors such as Candace Calvert and Hannah Alexander). I’ve read and enjoyed novels with a supernatural element (like The Widow of Saunders Creek or Illusion). And I’ve read and enjoyed several of Kraus’s previous books (including the Claire McCall series), so I thought I would enjoy this. I did, but not as much as I expected.

The opening of An Open Heart was excellent, as Jace found himself thrown in jail, then refusing to pay the bribes to release his medical equipment. But as I progressed, it felt as though the novel was trying to be a supernatural thriller (with supernatural messages and a witch doctor), a medical thriller (the surgery) and a suspense novel (who wants to end the heart programme and why, the US element and the back story about Jace’s twin sister) all at the same time. It was too much, and I’m not sure it worked.

But my big problem was Jace’s faith. While I could understand why he turned away from Christianity as a child, I didn’t see why he essentially faked faith throughout his adult life. He married another missionary kid, a strong Christian woman; he went to church, then he goes back to Africa to serve in a missionary hospital, yet he has no personal faith. (SPOILER: He then has a major change of heart at the end of the story, yet it came out of nowhere. It seemed convenient rather than heartfelt).

And there were times when An Open Heart was let down by the writing. I found that the technical dialogue that comes across quickly in a TV medical drama doesn’t work so well on the page. It sounded authentic, but it read like a foreign language. There were too many points of view, odd changes of tense, and some of the scenes had a repetitious sentence structure (like starting consecutive paragraphs with adverbs). And there’s a spelling mistake in the Amazon blurb (it’s maelstrom, not maeltsrom), which isn’t good.

Overall, An Open Heart could have been great, but it wasn’t.

Thanks to David C Cook and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Harry Kraus at his website.

Review: Stress Test by Richard Maybury

Dr Matt Newman has just finished his final shift before starting his new job when he is kidnapped and left for dead in a back alley in Dallas. He wakes in hospital to find that he is now the lead suspect in a murder: the victim was found in his car trunk, his wallet was underneath her body, and the police think his kidnapping story is just a story.

Then life gets worse. His girlfriend abandons him, his new employer reconsiders the job offer, he has no car and no money, and his kidnappers, having failed in killing him the first time, are keen to rectify their error. Enter Sandra Murray, a sole-practice lawyer and Christian, to help Matt get his life back on track, and prove his innocence.

Stress Test is an exciting combination of a medical thriller and a romantic suspense, and it certainly meets the test for being thrilling and having loads of suspense. It’s the kind of book you don’t want to put down because you want to know what’s going to happen next. There were a couple of suspension of disbelief moments, but these were able to be quickly ignored as Matt searches for the real criminals and their motives, and comes to rediscover his faith in God in the process. Well worth reading for those who like their thrillers or suspense with a medical flavour.

Thanks to Litfuse Publicity Group for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Richard Mabry at his website or at Litfuse Publicity.