The past 18 months have been tough on everyone in the face of the global pandemic. Families, jobs, careers and studies have been more than just disrupted, and yet our intrinsic human resilience comes shining through. This month’s BookTrib/WFWA theme pays tribute to the people who put their lives on the line so that others may live and survive. We honor the healthcare workers, caregivers, and first responders under the umbrella theme “My Life for Yours.”
Bedside Manners by Heather Frimmer
Bedside Manners (SparkPress 2018)
by Heather Frimmer
As Joyce Novak’s daughter, Marnie, completes medical school and looks ahead to a surgical internship, her wedding and a future filled with promise, a breast cancer diagnosis throws Joyce’s own future into doubt. Always the caregiver, Joyce feels uncomfortable in the patient role, especially with her husband and daughter. As she progresses through a daunting treatment regimen including a biopsy, lumpectomy, and radiation, she distracts herself by planning Marnie’s wedding.
When the sudden death of a young heroin addict in Marnie’s care forces Marnie to come face-to-face with mortality and her professional inadequacies, she also realizes she must strike a new balance between her identity as a doctor and her role as a supportive daughter while. At the same time, she struggles with the stark differences between her fiancé’s family background and her own and comes to understand the importance of being with someone who shares her values and experiences. Amid this profound soul-searching, both Joyce and Marnie’s futures change in ways they never would have expected.
Uncovering by Lorelei Brush
Uncovering (Mascot Books 2019)
by Lorelei Brush
Shahnaz is a liberal but observant Muslim, a nurse in northwest Pakistan with a passion to help pregnant women deliver healthy babies. Between caring for new mothers and counseling parents of children stricken with a genetic blood disease Shahnaz finds herself embroiled in a debate with the local imam who declares vaccines are evil western potions.
In the midst of the daunting work, Shahnaz’s parents announce that it’s time she marries. Although they choose the gentle Naseer who is supportive of her work, marrying him means she must live with his fundamentalist older brother, Raja Haider. Raja soon becomes head of the family, he orders Shahnaz to quit her job and stay at home. Naseer respects his brother’s authority, but Shahnaz rebels with the strength of a courageous warrior. Determined to realize her own dreams within the increasingly confining rules of her family.
The Antidote for Everything by Kimmery Martin
The Antidote for Everything (Berkley 2020)
by Kimmery Martin
Georgia Brown’s profession as a urologist requires her to interact with plenty of naked men, but her romantic prospects have fizzled. The most important person in her life is her friend Jonah Tsukada, a funny, empathetic family medicine doctor who works at the same hospital in Charleston, South Carolina and is openly gay.
When Georgia leaves the country for a medical conference, Jonah shares startling news. The hospital is instructing doctors to stop providing medical care for transgender patients. Jonah is the first to be fired after refusing to abandon his patients. Stunned by the predicament of her closest friend, Georgia’s natural instinct is to fight alongside him, but when her attempts to address the situation result in incalculable harm, both Georgia and Jonah find themselves facing the loss of much more than their careers.
The War Nurse by Tracey Enerson Wood
The War Nurse (Sourcebooks Landmark 2021)
by Tracey Enerson Wood
Superintendent of Nurses Julia Stimson must recruit sixty-five nurses to relieve the battle-worn British, months before American troops are ready to be deployed. She knows that the young nurses serving near the front lines will face a challenging situation, but nothing could have prepared her for the chaos that awaits when they arrive at British Base Hospital 12 in Rouen, France. The primitive conditions, a convoluted, ineffective system, and horrific battle wounds are enough to discourage the most hardened nurses, and Julia can do nothing but lead by example — even as the military doctors undermine her authority and make her question her very place in the hospital tent.
When trainloads of soldiers stricken by a mysterious respiratory illness arrive one after the other, overwhelming the hospital’s limited resources, and threatening the health of her staff, Julia faces an unthinkable choice — to step outside the bounds of her profession and risk the career she has fought so hard for, or to watch the people she cares for most die in her arms.
