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Book Summary and Reviews of Moral Injuries by Christie Watson

Moral Injuries by Christie Watson

Moral Injuries

A Novel

by Christie Watson

  • Critics' Consensus (8):
  • Published:
  • Jun 2024, 272 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

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.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"[P]ropulsive…[Watson] shines in her portrayal of medicine as an imperfect blend of art, science, and emotion. Fans of medical fiction will admire this." —Publishers Weekly

"Gripping, introspective, and packed with as much drama as a whole season of Grey's Anatomy." —Booklist

"The sins of the mothers are visited on the children in former nurse Watson's superior medical thriller." —The Guardian (UK)

"This deep dive into professional ethics, which reads like an ITV thriller, Sunday nights, 9pm, is likely to leave the reader deeply unsettled, and perhaps never again willing to view healthcare professionals in quite the same light." —The Independent (UK)

"Moral Injuries takes the reader into a world where medicine meets morality, and every choice has a cost. With page-turning twists, it explores friendship, betrayal and the decisions that define us." —Nathan Filer, Sunday Times bestseller and Costa winning author of The Shock of the Fall

"An exploration of moral ambiguity and what it really means to protect a life. Watson understands human flaws with empathy and insight. I've never read a novel before that combines such riveting accounts of frontline medicine, female friendship and family dynamics. Unique and compelling." —Elizabeth Day, bestselling author of Magpie

This information about Moral Injuries was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Christie Watson Author Biography

Photo: Cheryl George

Christie Watson is a Professor of Medical Humanities at University East Anglia and worked as a nurse with the National Health Service for over twenty years. She has written five books, including her first novel Tiny Sunbirds Far Away, which won the Costa First Novel Award, and a memoir, The Language of Kindness, which was a number one Sunday Times bestseller. She is a contributor to the Times, Sunday Times, Guardian, Telegraph, and TEDx, and her work has been translated into twenty-three languages and adapted for theater. She lives in London.

Author Interview

Other books by Christie Watson at BookBrowse
  • Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away jacket
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