ScienceThrillers.com book review of Trauma :

Wow, another CJ Lyons book that I just loved. This is book #3 (of 4) in the Angels of Mercy series which began with Lifelines. (I strongly recommend you start with that book.) All three books in the series so far have some things in common.

• A cast of four strong women in the medical profession, women with well-developed characters and believable problems & weaknesses;
• A setting in the ER of a big-city hospital (Pittsburgh) with all the attendant chaos, surprises, and heroism of such a place;
• A powerful romance subtext with four men, any of whom I’d run away with;
• Fascinating, accurate, and original medical scenarios;
• Un-put-downable pacing with interwoven plot lines. Dr. Lyons writes like a movie filmed without any cuts.

Obviously I’m a fan. As a reviewer, however, here are things that might not make this the book for you.  The driving force in Urgent Care is the mystery of who assaulted and murdered the nurse. Violent sexual assault and victimization of women is a dominant theme, and some may find this off-putting. CJ Lyons does not use graphic descriptions as much as many thriller writers (such as Tess Gerritsen or Kathy Reichs) do. On the contrary, her emphasis is on how survivors endure and cope, and the reader is spared forensic detail. This is ultimately a story of a woman’s strength, not her weakness. But there are several emotionally disturbing scenes.

The book has a soap-opera quality to it that may appeal more to women than men. I mean that in a good way; author CJ Lyons describes her work as “thrillers with heart,” by which she means the story is about people and relationships, not just action.

I’ve read a lot of sci/med thrillers so it’s very hard to surprise me, yet this book made me gasp out loud when something totally unexpected—yet not ridiculous—happened in the story. If I needed another reason to bump up into the four-star rating, that clinched it.

Search terms: ECMO; encephalitis; rape kit; Somalia; sleepwalking

This book was originally published as Urgent Care

Pick this book up if: you loved the TV show ER

Angels of Mercy series: Lifelines; Catalyst; Trauma; Isolation