The Queen of Hearts by Kimmery Martin

About the book:

(from the publisher) Zadie Anson and Emma Colley have been best friends since their early twenties, when they first began navigating serious romantic relationships amid the intensity of medical school. Now they’re happily married wives and mothers with successful careers–Zadie as a pediatric cardiologist and Emma as a trauma surgeon. Their lives in Charlotte, North Carolina are chaotic but fulfilling, until the return of a former colleague unearths a secret one of them has been harboring for years. 

As chief resident, Nick Xenokostas was the center of Zadie’s life–both professionally and personally–throughout a tragic chain of events in her third year of medical school that she has long since put behind her. Nick’s unexpected reappearance during a time of new professional crisis shocks both women into a deeper look at the difficult choices they made at the beginning of their careers. As it becomes evident that Emma must have known more than she revealed about circumstances that nearly derailed both their lives, Zadie starts to question everything she thought she knew about her closest friend.

Genre: Fiction/Women’s Fiction/Contemporary

If this were a movie, I’d rate it: R (for language and sexual content)

About the author:

Kimmery Martin is an emergency medicine doctor, born and raised in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. A lifelong literary nerd, she reviews books, interviews authors, and works extensively with the library foundation in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she resides with her husband and three young children. The Queen of Hearts is her first novel.

Connect with the author: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

My take:

As I reluctantly turned the last page of Kimmery Martin’s dazzling debut, I felt as if I were emerging from a wind tunnel. The Queen of Hearts revs high from first page to last: an exhilarating joy ride of a book.

With zesty prose that reminded me of Joshilyn Jackson’s, it somehow managed to blend charm and grace with drama, maintaining a just-right balance between humor and gravitas. How the author managed this feat, I can only guess, but sheer talent comes to mind.

Aside from the brilliance of its vibrant narrative, it’s the characters that set this novel above the rest. To wit:

Dr. Bernard Elsdon was an energetic, possibly manic beanpole with an odd poof of Einsteinesque hair and a flair for teaching. He resembled an agitated Q-tip, often becoming so overwrought during medical student lectures that he required a change of shirts.

This, mind you, for nothing but a walk-on character. If she devotes that kind of care to the least of her minors, can you even imagine what the author pulls off for the ones that stick around for a bit?

It’s not a perfect novel (the credibility of some characters’ behaviors may be a little thin), and as no book is for everyone, neither is this one: It does not quite pass the grandmother test — i.e., I would not read it aloud to my grandmother. It was, however, an enormously entertaining read, right down to its last acknowledgement (not even kidding).

I eagerly await whatever this gifted writer offers next.

Thanks to Berkley Books for providing me this book free of charge. All opinions are mine.

Buy it here. 

After words:

What’s on your TBR pile these days?