ISBN 1-5955-4054-7

The following review was contributed by: SHELDON (SHELLY) WAXMAN:  Click to view Shelly's  reviews.

This is a book about the heart—both physical and spiritual. The setting is today. The narrator in first person is a heart transplant surgeon. He is a miracle worker. But he couldn’t save his wife’s heart problem. She dies. He falls apart and retires incognito to northwest Georgia and builds a house on a lake.

He does no more surgeries and disappears from the medical community. He builds boats and skulls on the lake with his brother in law. Then he meets little Annie whose physical heart problem is grave. Her spiritual heart, however, is very much alive. The narrator is the only doctor who can save her. Annie captures the Doctor’s spiritual heart and he is confronted with a dilemma. Will he overcome his pathos over his inability to save his wife and transplant Annie? To do so, he has to come out of the closet and forgo his self-pity. And after much agonizing, he does so.

The writing is beautiful, literate and erudite. The author imparts a global knowledge. Since it does not appear that he is a medically trained, a great deal of medical research must have been done.

I very much liked the book, even with some of the drawbacks. The book I reviewed was an Advance Review Copy. There is a serious error where there is a description of the donor of a heart that wasn’t used for the Doctor’s wife. It is described as being from a 20 year old man, who was in a motorcycle accident at page 160. However, at page 203, it is described as coming from a mother of seven. I hope there is time to change it.

The book gets off to a slow start but quickly we are in the action. Sometimes there is too much detail and it somewhat distracts from the story of love and compassion. There are many scene switches and back in forth in time.

The Doctor is a super nice human and down to earth. He loves cheeseburgers. How can you not love a guy like that? The dialogue is exceptionally good and the language poetic. All in all, it is a very good and worthwhile read.