Healer

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By Carol Cassella

Publisher Description

From national bestselling author Carol Cassella comes the story of one doctor’s struggle to hold her family together through a storm of broken trust and questioned ethics.

Claire is at the start of her medical career when she falls in love with Addison Boehning, a biochemist with blazing genius and big dreams. A complicated pregnancy deflects Claire’s professional path, and she is forced to drop out of her residency. Soon thereafter Addison invents a simple blood test for ovarian cancer, and his biotech start-up lands a fortune. Overnight the Boehnings are catapulted into a financial and social tier they had never anticipated or sought: they move into a gracious Seattle home and buy an old ranch in the high desert mountains of eastern Washington, and Claire drifts away from medicine to become a full-time wife and mother.

Then Addison gambles everything on a cutting-edge cancer drug, and when the studies go awry, their comfortable life is swept away. Claire and her daughter, Jory, move to a dilapidated ranch house in rural Hallum, where Claire has to find a job until Addison can salvage his discredited lab. Her only offer for employment comes from a struggling public health clinic, but Claire gets more than a second chance at medicine when she meets Miguela, a bright Nicaraguan immigrant and orphan of the contra war who has come to the United States on a secret quest to find the family she has lost. As their friendship develops, a new mystery unfolds that threatens to destroy Claire’s family and forces her to question what it truly means to heal.

Healer exposes the vulnerabilities of the American family, provoking questions of choice versus fate, desire versus need, and the duplicitous power of money.

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30 Reviews

3.0

Elizabeth Andress

Created 5 months ago

Dr. Pep 👩‍⚕️

Created 6 months ago

“Read in college, as a pre-med student. As soon as I saw the keywords "residency" "MD" "biochemist" "ovarian cancer" "blood tests," and "research," I was sold! I started reading it and could not put it down! I loved learning about Claire and her path with medicine. One thing I am still confused about is that at one point she says she found out she was pregnant with Jory (her only daughter) during the OB/GYN rotation (that's medical school...), yet it is constantly mentioned in the book how she didn't finish residency (after medical school). I guess I should assume that from the moment she found out she was pregnant to when she gave birth, she went into residency. This still doesn't make much sense because Jory was born very prematurely. The books says that when Jory was born her head was the size of a tennis ball. That's seems insanely small to me. I loved learning about the characters, Claire's journey in medicine, Addison's research, and the cool new house, which I picture as a summer house, lacking any insulation. I picture it as having shaky walls with lots of metal material and shaky windows that allow all the cold air in during the winter. However, in the middle of the book, the story got so boring to me because it was the same thing that kept being repeated over and over: the constant arguments between Claire and Addison, the constant hiding of truths between everyone in the family, the 10000000 examples of the 14/turned 15 Jory being treated as if she is 9 and acting as if she is 9 y.o. (I actually picture her as a little little girl), and the lessening amount of description of Claire's work life, which was very interesting in the beginning. However, towards the end, maybe the last 60 pages, GET SO GOOD!! At this point, the medical mystery begins! The very very end was incredibly anti-climactic for me. We don't find out what happens with Claire and her work life, we don't find out what happens with the clinic, Addison, Jory, or even Dan! That was very hard for me because I had developed these relationships with these characters, especially since I stretched out the reading of this book over a year. I read the majority of the book within the past two days, however, the initial knowledge and interest I acquired about the characters came a year ago! Then to not really have any kind of resolution to the story was tough for me. There is a resolution to the medical mystery, but this is presented within the very last 60 pages..... There were great lessons to be taken away from the book. First, Frida, who seemed to be offended or taken aback by how Claire is so used to having lots of money and depending on it for her happiness and for her relationship's stability. She tells Claire that even though she is in a poor financial situation, she does not realize what she has : a husband and a daughter!! She "shakes" Claire up by telling her about her life's tragedy, and then tells her that maybe the being in the middle of the financial classes isn't so bad if you are not alone...because again, she has Addison and Jory. However, this lesson is subjective. Many books and movies will talk about how it's not money that will make you happy, it's the relationships you form with other people. However, for some, it could be success, knowledge, health, etc. that makes them happy, rather than other people. Just my 2 am thoughts... Another lesson is that relationships aren't easy: sometimes you hide, sometimes you put on a brave face, sometimes you don't lie...but you omit (so ... is that lying? depends on how you interpret it), and relationships get very complicated when you mix money and financial stability into them.”

Ashley Deasy

Created 9 months ago

Solson99

Created 12 months ago

Ashley Nelsen

Created over 1 year ago

About Carol Cassella

Carol Cassella, MD, is a practicing anesthesiologist, novelist, and speaker. She majored in English literature at Duke University and attended Baylor College of Medicine. She is the bestselling author of the novels Gemini, Oxygen, and Healer, published by Simon & Schuster. Carol lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington, with her husband and two sets of twins. Visit the author at CarolCassella.com.