After years of hard work, Dr. Charly McKenna finally has it all. Prosperous career as a dermatologist? Check. Spacious apartment overlooking Central Park? Check. Handsome lawyer husband? Double check.
Then one night, a bullet rips through the right side of her skull and she loses everything.
As Charly struggles to recover from her brain injury, she begins to realize that the events of that fateful night are trapped in the damaged right side of her brain. Now she must put the jigsaw pieces together to discover the identity of the man who tried to kill her… before he finishes the job he started.
Book Information: Print Length: 334 pages. Publisher : Hollywood Upstairs Publishing. Publication Date: 30 April 2016
#1 Amazon bestselling author Freida McFadden is a practicing physician specializing in brain injury who has penned multiple Kindle bestselling psychological thrillers and medical humor novels. She lives with her family and black cat in a centuries-old three-story home overlooking the ocean, with staircases that creak and moan with each step, and nobody could hear you if you scream. Unless you scream really loudly, maybe.
To hear Freida talk more about herself in the third person, visit her website: https://www.freidamcfadden.com/
My Review:
I hadn’t heard of Freida McFadden until I read The Housemaid last month (which I absolutely LOVED) and was delighted to learn she has a back catalogue of books so when a member of THE Book Club posted a glowing review of Brain Damage I immediately purchased it and started to read it.
Dr Charlotte Mckenna (Charly) is a doctor specialising in skin conditions. She’s successful, lives in a very prestigious address in New York and at the age of 37 has accepted she will remain single and childless until a patient starts to show interest. Clark is a very handsome lawyer and despite Charly never getting involved with a patient, his determination and good looks eventually win her over.
Fast forward eighteen months and Charly is now in a hospital, having been shot in the head and miraculously survived. With a severe brain injury remembering her name is a struggle and suffering from Left Neglect she also can’t use the left side of her body or see anything unless its on the right side of her. Whilst this is a serious medical condition, there were moments in Charly’s rehabilitation that had me laughing out loud.
Charly is determined to get better despite the odds and also try to work out who shot her and why. The story has dual timelines taking the reader back to the past when Charly met Clark and follows their romance to the present day in the hospital.
Brain Damage ticked almost every box for me personally. I loved the narrator and her wonderful sense of humour and this was one of those books that I couldn’t put down but didn’t want to finish.