Roland's Labyrinth
For fans of Geraldine Brooks's Year of Wonders, a story set in 1400s Provence about a young, passionate doctor who falls in love with a mentally ill young woman--and soon finds himself immersed in a web of danger, deceit, and mystery. Roland, a young man from Barcelona who inherited a passion for healing others from his deceased mother, has rebelled against his family's wishes and chosen to attend medical school in France. The university in Montpellier is the most prestigious medical school in all of Europe, and yet Roland is quickly disillusioned by his professors' false teachings. Seeking more accurate knowledge of the body, he leaves Montpellier and apprentices himself to a surgeon in nearby Arles for the summer. Roland soon finds himself with two mentors in Arles--Hubert, a master surgeon, and Isaac, a Jewish doctor who advocates searching for remedies in ancient texts and testing them on patients--both of whose lessons he absorbs readily. But when he falls in love with Magali, a young woman suffering from a mental illness, he extends his quest for the truth about the body to include the truth about the mind. Readers who loved Rachel Kadish's The Weight of Ink will be drawn to Roland's story as he follows the woman he loves into her "labyrinth of the spirit"--one filled with wonder, mystery, betrayal, and love--and find themselves enthralled by this finely wrought depiction of the beauty and danger of life in early Renaissance Provence.
Real Medicine, Unreal Stories
When medicine loses its way, who will fi nd it again? Real Medicine, Unreal Stories: Volume 4 confronts the forces reshaping modern healthcare-with fi ercer honesty, sharper insight, and stories that refuse to look away. Through forty-two bold, dialogue-driven narratives, physician-author Arthur Lazarus shines a light on the hidden battles of today's medical landscape: the weaponization of science, the quiet collapse of mental health care, the dangerous seduction of artifi cial intelligence, the exploitation of doctors and patients by corporate greed. These fi ctionalized stories-rooted deeply in clinical truth-capture the moral fractures and everyday heroism that defi ne the practice of medicine now. This volume doesn't merely refl ect on the changes happening around us; it pushes back. With a voice more urgent and ideologically charged than ever before, Lazarus gives readers a front-row seat to the struggles physicians face-and the stakes for all of us if they lose. If you've ever wondered what's happening behind the headlines-inside exam rooms, hospital boardrooms, and the hearts of those still fi ghting for real care-you'll fi nd your answers here. Brave. Provocative. Unforgettable. Real Medicine, Unreal Stories: Volume 4 is not just a book-it's a call to remember why medicine matters. The stories are unreal. The future they warn of is not.
The Phoenix Strain
The Phoenix Strain (79,000 words) is a biothriller that combines the scientific authenticity of Michael Crichton with the emotional depth of Mary Robeson's The Cure and the propulsive action of Terry Hayes' I Am Pilgrim.Dr. Eva Richter has spent three years developing revolutionary viral delivery systems, believing her work will cure genetic diseases. But when a colleague dies horrifically during a lab accident, Eva discovers her research has been weaponized by the Phoenix Order-a neo-Nazi organization planning to release a genetically-targeted virus that will kill four billion people deemed "genetically inferior."The Phoenix Order's leader is Klaus Richter, Eva's own father.Fleeing with evidence of the conspiracy, Eva reluctantly partners with Ben Carter, an ex-CIA analyst haunted by a Syrian operation that killed 47 civilians. Ben has been hiding in academia, but Eva's desperate mission offers him a chance at redemption. Together, they race across Europe, pursued by Phoenix Order operatives and international authorities who've been convinced they're the terrorists.Eva's only hope lies in her late mother's research. Before Klaus murdered her and made it look like cancer, Elena Richter hid a counter-virus formula in the last place anyone would look-encoded in the lullaby she sang to Eva as a child. But decoding the cure requires equipment only available at Klaus's facility, forcing Eva to return to the scene of her childhood and confront the father whose love has twisted into monstrous ideology.As Christmas Eve approaches and Phoenix Order operatives prepare to release the virus at twelve major airports, Eva faces an impossible choice. The counter-virus works, but synthesizing it requires a living test subject to prove its effectiveness. With Ben dying from his wounds and time running out, Eva makes the ultimate sacrifices she injects herself with both virus and cure, using her own body as the final battlefield.Eva dies creating the cure, but not before uploading the synthesis formula to laboratories worldwide. Ben survives to hunt down remaining Phoenix Order cells and establish the Eva Richter Foundation, dedicated to preventing future bioweapons. In a thought-provoking epilogue, Eva's previously unknown sister Sophia emerges as an advocate for voluntary human enhancement, asking whether preservation of humanity as-is is noble or naive.The Phoenix Strain explores timely themes of genetic engineering, scientific ethics, and the dangers of ideology while delivering the page-turning suspense thriller readers demand. It offers strong potential for a series following Ben Carter's continued fight against bioterrorism and the ethical dilemmas posed by enhancement technology.
All That Really Matters
Joe Bosco is an arrogant, hard-charging transplant surgeon whose ambition knows no bounds. He pursues his job with a take no prisoners approach and saving patients is not just his job, or even his passion--it's his religion. After doing his surgical residency, he passes on a job offer from Stanford, instead taking a position at a private hospital in San Francisco which pays Joe an exorbitant salary and where the bottom line is...the bottom line. Joe leaves behind academic medicine, much to the chagrin of his father-- a German Jewish Holocaust survivor who is a world-renowned neuroscientist and Nobel Prize winner--and his girlfriend, Kate, who sees Joe turning into a different man than the one she met at Harvard Medical School.Dr. Bosco makes it to the top as a star in the transplant world but soon realizes that the new world he inhabits is fraught with moral and ethical transgressions, some his partners commit and, eventually, some he commits. When the hospital administration sides against Joe in an operating room catastrophe, he is isolated, left with a career in shambles, a girlfriend who wants nothing to do with him, and a father who can't hide his disappointment.It is not until his life spins out of control that Joe must come to terms with his own failings and find his true purpose in life...in the most unlikely of places.
The Underground Doctor
Whether you are a medical professional keen to expand your knowledge base or just someone interested in medical fiction who wants a good read- this book is for you!Revolutionizing the way you learn medicine!! The Secret Doctor is an exciting and new way of learning medicine, presenting fictional scenarios with accurate factual medical information entwined in them- learn medicine without realising you are doing it!Do away with those medical textbooks with endless lists of facts, complicated words you don't understand straight away, and pages which leave you half asleep!What would you do faced with extracting casualties in the middle of a war zone? Find out what to do in this book.From the author: 'I present to you a very different style of medical book. This book aims to help make some of the key facts required for medical treatment stick in your brain, not just for the exam you are to sit and then to forget afterwards, but for good. By putting medical scenarios and facts in the context of a novel, I hope that this book may make you learn and revise things in a way which is a bit more interesting than the usual dull lectures or list based text books.'The books main focus is emergency scenarios including, but by no means exhaustively: Basic trauma and haemorrhage, MI, stroke, diabetic coma, overdose, meningitis and renal failure. It also covers chronic diseases. Follow Ian Mellows as he journeys through medical training to become a doctor in Her Majesty's secret service.
After the Fall
How do you move forward when the weight of grief keeps pulling you back?After the tragic suicide of his best friend, Zane is shattered. His world no longer makes sense. In a desperate attempt to rebuild what's left of his life, his parents send him to a new school-hoping that a fresh start might fix the things they call "problematic behavior."But what no one sees is that Zane isn't trying to escape who he was. He's trying to survive it.Haunted by guilt and unanswered questions, Zane quietly begins to piece himself back together. He keeps his head down. Tries to blend in. Fakes the smiles. Hopes that healing might come with time. And then-he notices her.She's a girl who walks like she's carrying her own storm. Quiet. Withdrawn. Drowning in something no one else seems to see. Zane sees it, though-because he knows what it's like to wear pain like armor.The only problem?She has no idea he exists.This isn't a love story.It's a story about two broken people orbiting each other in silence. About grief, survival, and the quiet courage it takes to reach out-even when you're not sure anyone will reach back.Heart-wrenching, intimate, and painfully real, this book explores the raw edges of mental health, trauma, and the small, human connections that might just save us when we least expect it.If you've ever felt invisible, alone, or lost in the noise of your own mind, this is a story that will stay with you.
