Medical Oxygen

Now in paperback, Carol Cassella’s riveting national bestseller that seamlessly melds compelling women’s fiction and medical drama to create an “involving debut that’s just what the doctor ordered” (People).

• Perennial hot subject: From ER to Grey’s Anatomy, from Complications by Atul Gawande to Stiff by mary roach, there’s a proven appetite for stories of human drama centered around medical establishments.

• Authenticity: Carol Cassella is a practicing anesthesiologist in Washington state whose work informs that of her compelling heroine, Dr. Marie Heaton, as well as the fabulous medical writing throughout the novel.

• Gripping, timely story: Oxygen opens with Marie Heaton, an anesthesiologist at the height of her medical career, facing a nightmarish operating room disaster that ends a child’s life and launches a tangled malpractice suit. As Marie twists through depositions, accusations, and a remorseful preoccupation with the dead child’s mother, she must also cope with her own aging father and confront questions of love and betrayal, family bonds, and the price of her own choices. With a final twist as heartrending as it is redeeming, Oxygen is a gripping and auspicious debut.