I hate going to the doctor, not a fan. I always freak out when they want to take my blood pressure. No clue why. I’m a healthy lady. I put in miles and miles of running every week and am contentious about what I eat. Why does the doctor freak me out? With that being said I LOVE books where doctors are the main focus, so a no brainier when this one came up with relatively good reviews.

The book begins as a relationship between Dr. Ward Thrasher and Dr. Jess Benson is in its final stages. Jess and Ward have been together for years. They have seen each other through medical school, buying a house, the loss of a parent, but for whatever reason Jess has begun to pull away. Jess has always been Ward’s everything thing, but things go awry. No matter how hard she tries she cannot save their marriage. Heavy right, now let’s throw in the fact that Jess’s father has decided that Jess needs to give up her lady loving ways and marry a man. Wowzers! He’s found a match for her too, and decides to add some Rohypnol to Ward’s beer at the local tavern. Let’s just say all hell breaks loose and Jess does not have Ward’s back?

So Ward leaves the small idyllic Pennsylvanian community and the house she shares with Jess and takes a job as a traveling Doctor, hopping from one ER to the next on a monthly rotation. On her last rotation, with plan to move back to Philly when its all said and done she meets hospital CEO Abby Benson. Abby is a breath of fresh air not only to Ward’s life but the book’s too. Abby has charisma, she fun and her banter with Ward is the highlight of the story.

Now there is one more player to the story, an evil villain, Dr. Edward Hawk. This guy is as sick as they come. He doesn’t save patients. He hunts them, looking for one’s he can murder while no one is the wiser.  He delights in pain and suffering. As the body counts begin to rise, you are literally on the edge of your seat trying to figure out how in the world is her going to be caught and for heaven’s sake WHEN!

My thoughts are mixed on this one. I loved Ward and Abby’s relationship, and I was mesmerized by the evilness of Edward Hawk. My problem was the beginning is so awkward and time consuming.  Quite a bit on the book is spent on Jess and Ward’s relationship’s demise. And there are parts of that that are just ridiculous. The whole story line with the father and his desire for Jess date a man, and the fact she entertains it, is asinine. It detracted form the work, when more time could have been spent on furthering the better parts of story line. Overall the book is good, the beginning is just too long and too artificial.

3.75 out of 5 stars

• Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
• http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

Deadly Medicine
by Jaime Maddox
Link: https://amzn.com/1626394245