March 2014

Like her earlier books, OXYGEN and HEALER, Carol Cassella, who is a practicing physician (an anesthesiologist), takes on a complex medical issue in GEMINI, weaving a strong story from it.

A woman is found critically injured and unconscious on the side of a road and arrives at a hospital as a Jane Doe. There, ICU doctor Charlotte Reese is charged with her care. As she unravels this case, her longtime boyfriend Eric, a science journalist and author, becomes involved in Jane Doe's plight. At the same time, their relationship is tested in ways that they never could have imagined.

I loved it. I had the pleasure of meeting Carol in Seattle four years ago, and we talked for hours in the hotel lobby bar. Carol has two sets of twins, and thinking about the science behind twins drove her to thinking about DNA as she wrote this story. I always come away a bit smarter about a medical topic when I read one of Carol’s books. She has a strong sense of storytelling and the ability to share complex science information that is succinctly told within the storyline. GEMINI would be a great book group discussion title.