All tagged Medicine

It was strange being there, eating dinner with them. They knew that I knew, and I knew that they knew, and there we all were, a zombie, an assortment of werewolves and/or weredogs, and me, a nurse who was getting used to dealing with vampires. I was struck by how completely normal it felt to be with them, for all of our differences.

Nightshifted by Cassie Alexander

Dragons and vampires and zombies… oh my!

Cassie Alexander’s debut urban fantasy novel, Nightshifted, hits a sweet spot with an appealing mix of action, imagination and humor, with just the right dash of romance. 

I picked up Nightshifted on the recommendation of Angie, whose taste in Urban Fantasy seems to be pretty similar to my own. She promised that this book featured a jaded heroine who’s easy to root for and a gritty world, and did Nightshifted ever deliver. 

Edie has taken a nursing job in a secret ward, Y4, at a run-down county hospital. The patients there aren’t quite… normal. They’re paranormal beings of all sorts, and many of them are very, very dangerous. Despite the low pay and occupational hazards, Edie works there as part of a deal with some unsavory characters who promise to use their magical mojo to keep her addict brother off of drugs following a near-overdose. 

Edie’s stuck. 

Things get a whole lot worse when a “Daytimer” (a semi-vampire thing—it makes sense, trust me) dies during Edie’s shift, and she goes looking for Anna, a name he uttered with his dying breath. She stumbles upon some bad stuff, and accidentally kills a very nasty vampire in the process of rescuing Anna, who appears to be a teen girl (trust me, no one in the Nightshifted world is as they appear). As a result, Edie finds herself wrapped up in the paranormal underground, trying to save her own life. 

Edie is a fantastic narrator—she’s real and funny and prickly.

Fracture by Megan Miranda

Usually I hate taglines on book covers,* but the tagline on the cover of Megan Miranda’s Fracture says it all, 

A lot can happen in eleven minutes.

That line is from this early passage in the novel, which creates the premise of this fascinating debut, 

A lot can happen in eleven minutes. Decker can run two miles easily in eleven minutes. I once wrote an English essay in ten. No lie. And God knows Carson Levine can talk a girl out of her clothes in half that time.

Eleven minutes might as well be eternity underwater. According to the lessons from health class, it only takes three minutes without air for loss of consciousness. Permanent brain damage begins at four minutes. And then, when the oxygen runs out, full cardiac arrest occurs. Death is possible at five minutes. Probable at seven. Definite at ten.

Decker pulled me out at eleven.