Moral Injuries
A Novel
-
-
2.7 • 3 Ratings
-
-
- $12.99
Publisher Description
“Heart-pounding. Soul-wrenching. A psychological thriller that dives into the dark beauty and madness of medicine. What a catharsis to see women bound by friendship and love and ambition peel away the layers of who they are at work. We see them bare their teeth and their souls. It is Big, Little Lies meets Grey’s Anatomy in this delicious and satisfying mystery about friendship, love, and why we choose the work we do. Christie Watson has written a masterpiece.”—Kate Bowler, New York Times bestselling author of Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I’ve Loved)
From the author of the smash UK bestseller The Language of Kindness comes an electrifying, high-stakes literary thriller following three best friends since medical school and the twenty-five-year-old secret that now threatens to shatter their lives.
When you're trained to protect the lives of others, how far will you go to protect your own?
Ruthlessly ambitious Olivia, anxious perfectionist Laura, and free-spirited risk-taker Anjali couldn’t be more different. Yet their friendship—which began the first day of medical school—has kept them inseparable these past twenty-five years. As wild all-nighters and exam pressure gave way to the struggles and joys of new motherhood and new jobs, their unbreakable bond helped them support each other through it all.
Long ago, they promised that nothing would come between them, and to do anything for one another—including burying that night they have never spoken about: a university party fueled by drugs, sex, and secrets that forced them to make a deadly choice that could have destroyed them. But is there a limit to what we would do for those we love?
When an eerily similar tragedy strikes involving the women’s teenaged children, everything the three friends have built threatens to crumble around them . . . forcing them to decide how far they can stretch their friendship before it snaps.
A taut and explosive novel about loyalty, ambition, betrayal, and revenge, Moral Injuries explores the sometimes-hidden costs of friendships, and the lengths people will go to protect themselves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the propulsive if schematic latest from Watson (The Language of Kindness), three female doctors in present-day London find their friendship and their ethics tested when they're confronted with a secret from their past. Olivia, the perfectionist, is a cardiothoracic surgeon, while Laura works as a doctor on a helicopter rescue team and Anjali is a general practitioner. When Olivia's teenage daughter, Freya, attends a party with Laura's son, Rudy, another boy named Joe Duggard falls down a flight of stairs and sustains brain damage. With Joe in a coma, the women try to guard their children's futures. Laura's position on the hospital's ethics committee becomes particularly thorny, as she's empowered to determine whether Joe will be kept on life support or the children will face involuntary manslaughter charges. The situation echoes a drug-fueled party during the women's med school days, when a classmate was accidentally killed during a brawl and they fled the scene to avoid being implicated, and they argue now over who was at fault. Watson's tendency to withhold key information can feel gimmicky, but she shines in her portrayal of medicine as an imperfect blend of art, science, and emotion. Fans of medical fiction will admire this.
