Book: The Patient

[elusivek]

The Patient
Jane Shemilt
Amazon Product Link

What price would you pay for falling in love?

Rachel is a respected doctor who lives in a picturesque and affluent English village where her husband Nathan teaches at an elite private school. Competent, unflappable, and nearing 50, Rachel has everything in her life firmly in her control, even if some of its early luster has worn off. But one day a new patient arrives at her practice for emergency treatment. Luc is a French painter married to a wealthy American woman who’s just bought and restored a historic home on the edge of Rachel’s posh neighborhood. The couple has only recently arrived, but Luc is struggling with a mental disorder, and so he goes to the nearest clinic…to Rachel.

Their attraction is instant, and as Rachel’s sense of ethics wars with newly awakened passion, the affair blinds her to everything else happening around her. A longtime patient appears to be following her every movement, turning up unexpectedly wherever she goes. Her somewhat estranged adult daughter Lizzie is hiding a secret—or at least, hiding it from Rachel. Nathan has grown sour and cold as well—or is that merely Rachel’s guilty conscience weighing on her? But when one of her colleagues winds up murdered and Luc is arrested for the crime, everything Rachel didn’t know about her life explodes into the open—along with her affair with her patient—a disgrace and scandal that will have consequences no one could have predicted.

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Took me forever to read this book because the main character (Rachel) was soooo frustrating to read. I’ve finished the book and while I enjoyed the interesting twist in the end (which i totally called it, just wasn’t sure of the why), Rachel was just annoying. It’s like… naive or dumb. She’s supposed to be a doctor, no?

Also, the book didn't focus much on the aftermath of the disgrace and scandal. It was like.... a good big half chunk was of the affair and her thoughts, and then, swiftly at the end,.... the end.

Comments

[gilda_elise]

A frustrating main character is probably the best way to ruin a book for me. I have to be able to empathize with whoever it is. But if I don't care what happens to her, what's the point?