Customer Reviews

Delayed diagnosis

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
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Pretty good!

To come back from vacation and find that your best friend is near death would dishearten anyone, including me. But when Rhea checks on her, things don't add up between the paperwork at the hospital and what she sees. I can't blame her for going the extra mile to find out what happened to her best friend.

Lots of suspense keeps you turning the pages - well after you should be in bed sleeping. One thing leads to another, and while each thing only strengthens what Rhea believes is going on, the `why' of it is explained at the end, proving that some people will go to great lengths to get what they want.

I liked Rhea - stubborn to a fault, she digs and digs, unrelenting, even after the situation heats up and she becomes a target. I liked that stubborness and courage, even when faced with the most awful of things.

And I liked Mike. Similar to Rhea, they are a pair made for each other and I can't wait to read more about them. You feel the spark between them, the tension that the author intends for you to feel.

All the characters are likable, and the ones to hate you hate appropriately. The action scenes are great, whether being attacked or being saved. The ending came as a surprise. Just when I thought I had it all figured out, the one person I couldn't and wouldn't think of actually did the unspeakable. Incredible, terrific, can't wait to read the next!

Delayed Diagnosis was a great book. I has all the things a great novel should have, mystery, romance, suspense, and an interesting set of characters. I especially liked the main character. This book takes wild twists and turns that will leave you wanting to read more to find out what happens, guarenteed!!

This book is full of suspense with some humor. It keeps you guessing but entertained throughout. Gwen Hunter is an excellent author always in my opinion.

I *like* plucky female heroines. I am especially fond of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone because any woman who has the cujones to cut her hair with cuticle scissors is my kind of gal!

After reading DELAYED DIAGNOSIS by new writer Gwen Hunter, I have found another favorite fictional female! Rhea Lynch, M.D., works in the emergency room of a small South Carolina hospital. She is independent, feisty, very, very tough, although she's still smarting from a relationship gone bad.

When Rhea comes home from a much needed two-week vacation to find her best friend Marisa in the hospital fighting for her life, Rhea is devastated, but she has another shocker coming: Marisa's husband, Dr. Steven Braswell, will not let Rhea near Marisa.

Might as well have put a red flag right in front of the bull.

Once Rhea starts digging into the reasons behind Marisa's sudden 'stroke,' the bodies begin piling up. Rhea is not deterred and gets to the bottom of the mystery, with some pretty surprising results.

Gwen Hunter's new series is replete with hospital guts and gore, but her characterization of Dr. Lynch and her surroundings is so right-on that writing the stories any other way would seem the sissy's way out....and Dr. Rhea is no sissy!

I look for more from Gwen Hunter. She'll be on the NYTimes list soon! Trust me on this one.

Enjoy!

I bought this book because I had read its sequel (Prescribed Danger) without realizing it was the second book in a series. I was intrigued enough by the characters and the backstory that I went back and got this book, even though I already knew 'who done it.'

As the blurb describes, Rhea Lynch is a doctor who has not much in the way of biological family, but she is fiercely loyal to her informally adopted family. That's why, when Rhea comes home to find her life-long friend Marisa all but dead and oddly isolated, there's nothing that can stop Rhea from finding out the truth about what's happened to Marisa.

Delayed Diagnosis was published by Mira Books, which is a division of Harlequin Romance, so it should come as no surprise to anyone that Rhea has a love interest or two in her life. However, affairs of the heart are not the focus of the story. Instead, the mystery and the medicine and the bonds of friendship and family come to the fore. And the dogs. Don't forget the dogs.

I found the Hunter's characters to be brash, colorful, and charming, often all at the same time. Granted, there is a certain level of cliche, but I don't know of many books with Southern characters who don't suffer from that sort of thing. Hunter conveys the concern and the anger and the fear of a close-knit family and community when faced with such personal horror fairly well.

Like I said, I already knew who the culprit (or culprits) was before I read this book, but I still felt that the denouement was well handled, though it was possible for a careful reader to have ascertained the ending well before the book ended.

All in all, I found this to be a fairly good medical mystery of the bookrack variety.

Well, I could not put this book down. It rolled along like a freight train. Very well written. The medical terms were well explained and I really enjoyed it. Rhea is a great heroine and Mark is meant to be her guy.

Dr. Rhea Lynch returned from a two week vacation to find out her best friend, Marisa, was almost dead. The official diagnosis was a paralyzing stroke. Rhea disagreed. However, Marisa's husband, Dr. Steven Braswell, refused to let anyone near his wife, especially close friends and family! So Rhea did her own, illegal, examinations and her diagnosis was totally different ... and horrifying!

Then two more men show up in Rhea's ER with the same symptoms and the same diagnosis. All three were unable to communicate what happened to them and who did it. Rhea's findings put he in danger. The more she discovered, the more someone wanted her dead!

***** Move over Robin Cook and Echo Heron! I had to stop reading a few times to calm myself down! My mother would call this exciting novel "A WOO-WOO!" (Her version of "Wow" and "Lu-Lu" mixed.) You will not be able to turn the pages fast enough. (I probably left skid marks!) Here is a novel that I highly recommend to everyone! A KEEPER! *****

Dawkins County Emergency Room physician, Rhea Lynch, never expected to find her oldest and dearest friend, Marisa Braswell, near death when she got home from a two week camping trip. The diagnosis, a catastrophic stroke. Talk around the hospital says Marisa is dying. After only a couple of days in the ICU, her husband, Dr Steven Braswell, took her home, and has forbidden any visitors, including friends and family. This course of treatment, or non-treatment makes absolutely no sense, medically, so Rhea sneaks into the Braswell house and conducts her own examination. The results tell her two things...Marisa didn't have a stroke, and whatever happened to her, happened on purpose..... Gwen Hunter's debut thriller is a fast paced, roller coaster ride, with a suspenseful and compelling story line and strong, well drawn characters. Her hospital scenes are intense, vivid and riveting, and her medical knowledge and attention to detail adds real credibility to the story. This is the beginning of a promising new series, and with the few loose ends left hanging, readers will look forward to Ms Hunter's next installment, and Dr Lynch's return.

When she left Charleston, and a life that was threatening to drown her, Dr. Rhea Lynch ran to Dawkins County, South Carolina, and the only real family she knew. She'd hardly settled in to her new life when her best friend, Marisa, suffers a mysterious and brutal injury that leaves her paralyzed and incapable of speech. According to the doctors, it was a stroke, but when Rhea finds out that she's been barred from even seeing her best friend, she begins to suspect the initial diagnosis. With the assistance of Miss Essie, Marisa's housekeeper, Rhea manages to sneak into the house and examine her friend secretly, discovering a clue that was apparently missed by both the attending physician and the emergency room doctor, a clue that tells her Marisa did not suffer a stroke. Rhea begins her own investigation into what happened, but when one and then another patient appears in her emergency room displaying identical symptoms, Rhea puts the pieces of the puzzle together, coming to a terrifying conclusion that threatens to tear apart not only the lifelong friendships Rhea treasures, but perhaps the very fabric of Dawkins County as well.

Gwen Hunter, a Rock Hill resident and medical professional, draws on her extensive experience to invest a sense of reality into this many layered conspiracy whose ultimate solution will surprise even the most jaded reader. Her prose possesses an easy, fluid clarity that captures her readers and keeps them glued to every page. Her characterizations are dead-on, making even the least important character in the book as real as the people we encounter in real life all the time: Mark, the handsome police captain who wants Rhea but is too hard-headed to admit it; Cam, a college buddy who may be more interested in the charming doctor than she ever knew; Miss DeeDee, matriarch, dressed to kill in blue jeans and pearls, who knows all the secrets the county has tried to keep hidden. But it is Rhea who leaps off the page. Fiercely independent and loyal to her childhood friend, Rhea's innate curiosity and attention to even the smallest details open up a wild tangle of deception, infidelity and attempted murder.

"Delayed Diagnosis" is a well-crafted tale, filled with suspense and intrigue enough to keep readers turning the pages until we reach the end, closing the cover first with a sigh of satisfaction, followed by an impatient groan at having to wait until the next tale falls into our hands.

I didn't see any medical credits attached to the author's name, so she must have had had some very good assistance from the sources she listed in the forward. I have read medical thrillers written by MD's that were not as believable and realistic as this story was. In addition to the excellent medical text, the characters spring effortlessly to life under Hunter's skillful descriptions. Dr. Rhea Lynch is a strong and resourceful character. But it was the dog in the story that captivated me. I just happen to have a large black dog named Belle too. Hunter writes about this dog as only a true dog lover can. The pace is fast and the action is non-stop. I look forward to reading future stories about Dr. Rhea Lynch and Belle.