Lip Reading

Before we all die, I think we want to leave behind a lasting legacy. One that will go on after we are gone from this earth. We want our life to count for something. Perhaps it's to achieve resolution after facing guilt, perhaps it's to right a wrong or to take a different path than the one life has offered to us. Yet many never have the opportunity to do that and instead lay awake on their death bed filled with a life of regrets. Becca Jackson isn't going to be one of those people.

Facing almost twenty years of regret and guilt for making the wrong choices in her life, she's about to get the push that will propel her life in ways she would never dream possible. While visiting in Africa for a publicity ad to turn around recent bad press for Jackson Pharmaceuticals, she finds herself being kidnapped. Only it will be unlike any kidnapping she has ever had to face. This is designed to make a point and a lasting impression not only in her life but in the lives of the people her uncle's company employs and the people whose lives are forever changed by the drugs they produce and use on people. In this case, a recent drug Mopivadine, an retroviral drug that inhibits the reproduction of HIV through the maternal-child transfer, which has been a complete success. Until Dr. Jacob Opondo reveals to her that children in Africa are dying at such a high rate due to complications caused by not being able to breast feed this children and not having any other source of nutrition is causing them to die while succeeding at preventing the transfer of HIV between the mother and her child.

Dr. Opondo wants Becca's financial help to provide clinics and nutrition as well as medical care to help these patients, because without it the children will continue to die even though the drug is considered a success. He wants $5 million dollars to help his people. He knows that it is money Becca's company can easily provide considering she is sitting on the cusp of cutting edge research of a blood substitute that can used world wide in life or death situations without the risks associated with blood transfusions in the future. Now if she can just get back to working on her research and find a cure to the headaches that keep her from concentrating on what has been going wrong with her work. What she does notice is just before the pain launches into a full grown migraine, she is able now to focus with such clarity, she is 5 steps ahead in her thought process.

When she is finally released to head back home to the United States, she runs into Noah Linebrink, her ex-boyfriend from high school that has been tasked to see if he can get Becca to work for Bradshaw Pharmaceuticals, a competitor of her uncle's on the same research she's been working on. Noah is confident that with the research he's been working on along with Becca's they both have the missing pieces to one anothers puzzle that could launch either company into netting billions of dollars in revenue. But Becca and Noah have a past that could prevent either of them from trusting one another, and after twenty years, the guilt that each of them has been carrying is about to end one way or another.

I received Lip Reading by Harry Kraus, MD compliments of David C Cook Publishers and Christian Fiction Blog Alliance for my honest review. I did not receive any monetary compensation for a favorable review and the opinions expressed here are strictly my own. I've been a huge fan of Harry Kraus' novels because of his incredible insight of using his knowledge as a surgeon and incorporating it into his novels to add a sense of realism that is often times lacking on other medical suspense novels. This one is no exception, and being a huge migraine sufferer, I found myself cringing each time, Becca's headaches began to materialize. I have to say this one took me places I didn't think it would and created a lasting message about the difference in salvation with grace and not works. This one easily deserves a 5 out of 5 stars and I can't wait for more from him in the near future.

For more information about Lip Reading, Harry Kraus MD or where you can pick up a copy of this novel today, please click on the links below:

Lip Reading by Harry Kraus MD

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To read more reviews on Lip Reading, please visit Christian Fiction Blog Alliance's Book Tour page.

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: David C. Cook (March 1, 2014)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0781405343
• ISBN-13: 978-0781405348
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches

An Open Heart

"Always trying to save the world, aren't you Jace? Well, look where it's gotten you now."

If-onlys crowded out hope. If only he'd upgraded to first class, maybe he wouldn't have arrived so sleep deprived, and his reactions would have been quicker. If only he'd let someone else pick him up at the airport instead of agreeing to drive a friend's Land Rover. If only that last goat hadn't tried to cross the road. He slipped his hand into his suit pocket and closed it around a small wad of shillings, the local currency in Kenya. If only he'd been willing to pay the bribe, he could have avoided the whole mess.

He should have known that the crowd that gathered around his Land Rover would have sided with the locals. "He was speeding," they had all agreed. Kikuyu mamas with colorful clashing sweaters and headscarves. Barefoot children pushing roasted corn beneath his nose, hoping for a sale. An old man on a donkey cart had rubbed his gray-chin stubble and nodded with apparent wisdom. "Shouldn't race on our roads." Everyone claimed it was Jace's fault. If he had only paid the bribe. If only.

In the latest novel from author Harry Kraus, An Open Heart takes the readers into the heart of Africa, right into the Great Rift Valley that separates Africa in two for his suspense thriller. The book opens with Jace Rawlings, a US heart surgeon who is sitting in a Kenyan jail awaiting the outcome of his crime, one that in most eyes would be ruled an accident but only if you were in the US. Only Jace wasn't in the US and now he could only begin to think of a way out of this mess. Only the prime minister of parliament in Nairobi is taking matters into his own hands to free Jake. He has consulted with Mzee Simeon Okayo, a town elder of Kisii who practices traditional witchcraft to assist with this most urgent matter and one that needs to be managed with discretion.

Only now it seems that Jace Rawlings has powers that even the local villagers have begun to take notice of beginning with the victim who died at the scene of his accident. Now it seems that what was once dead has now returned to life and now Jace it seems is the new magic man! Just when Jace arrived in Africa to escape his troubles in the US it seems like new ones have found their way to Africa and Jace's running is about to end. 

I received An Open Heart by Harry Krauss compliments of Christian Fiction Blog Alliance and David C Cook Publishers for my honest review. I received no monetary compensation for a favorable review. This is an interesting look at just what missionaries have to deal with in Africa. Not only the differences in cultures but also in religion. While the character of Jace Rawlings exemplifies the Christian doctor, he has to deal with the local people who still believe in the traditional witchdoctors to deal with virtually everything that happens to them from the crops to the weather. Is there more at work here than meets the eye? You'll have to pick this one up to see what the dead who are brought back to life have to say! I rate this one a 4.5 out of 5 stars. I've read quite a few of Harry Kraus novels and the experience of being a board-certified surgeon and medical missionary bring a sense of realism to this novel in unremarkable ways.

For more information about An Open Heart, Harry Kraus, or where to pick up a copy of this novel today, please click on the links below:

An Open Heart by Harry Kraus

To read more reviews on An Open Heart from the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance Tour, please click here.  

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: David C. Cook (June 1, 2013)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0781405351
• ISBN-13: 978-0781405355
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 1.2 x 8.2 inches 

Available in paperback and Ebook formats from your favorite book retailer. 

A Heartbeat Away

Oncology surgeon, Victoria "Tori" Taylor is a well-known for her ability to deal with the issues surrounding her patients. She is precise, methodical, and is successful most of the time. But it is her bedside manner and interpersonal relationships that lack the warm that should be present when dealing with her co-workers and patients. It's that arrogance of being great at what she does that have turned most of her co-workers against her. She is hated by the majority of the nursing staff, her interns cringe when they know they are assigned to follow her on rounds because in her eyes, they will never measure up to her perfect standards. Tori Taylor makes Dr. House look weak.

When fate deals Tori the worst hand possible, she is about to see things from a completely different side of the medical field, when a complication from a virus causes her own heart to fail and requires her to face a heart transplant if she wants to live. Now as she has to deal with those same nurses and staff in her own hospital, she begins to wonder if her own life is worth saving after all. When she wakes up in recovery, she learns how close to death she actually came and learns that she is being placed on a three month administrative leave and has to receive counseling before possibly returning to work. Seems like personnel at the hospital has received quite a few complaints regarding her actions from fellow employees and unless she agrees to change, she will be out of a job.

However, bad news from her employer isn't the only thing on Tori's mind when she awakens from her surgery. She know has memories from a horrible fire, a young women with green eyes and a heart tattoo telling her to remember the numbers 316 as they will be required to punish the men who did this to her. She must remember. Tori wonders just where the memories are coming from and begins to notice more changes in her own life as well. She is now more emotionally connected than ever before, she cries where she didn't feel any emotion to anything before, she is also acutely aware of peoples lives and can sense trouble in their lives without them telling her anything. Is it possible that the person who donated their heart to save hers, has some how transferred their memories along with their heart?

In the novel, A Heartbeat Away by Harry Kraus, MD, the reader is taken into a medical suspense thriller that begins to slow unwind over the course of the novel. Since Harry Kraus is a doctor, his attention to detail allows to reader to immediately get a feel for all the medical procedures that Tori is experiencing without going over the readers head. This makes the novel all the more enjoyable to experience while dealing with cellular memory, the hearts ability to capture memories and retain them, thus transferring a portion of their lives into the heart transplant recipient. But apparently it now puts Tori's life into danger as she works with Phin MacGrath, her counselor to discover who her donor was and what really happened to them.

I received A Heartbeat Away compliments of Christian Fiction Blog Alliance, David C Cook, and Net Galley for my honest review and have to say, I really enjoyed this one. I didn't quite know where it was headed but I was committed for the entire ride. I rate this one a 4.5 out of 5 stars and this is my second book from Harry Kraus that I have completely enjoyed and recommend to those of you looking for a great medical suspense thriller with a twist!

For more information on A Heartbeat Away, Harry Kraus MD, and where to pick up a copy of this book today, please click on the links below:

A Heartbeat Away by Harry Kraus, MD

You can also read more reviews from this book tour by clicking here.

You can find more outstanding books at David C. Cook publishers by clicking here.

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: David C. Cook (September 1, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 143470257X
• ISBN-13: 978-1434702579

The Six Liter Club

Camille Weller has arrived as the first African-American attending in the trauma service of the Medical College of Virginia. Never mind that the locker rooms are labeled "doctors" and "nurses" rather than "men" and "women" or that her dark skin communicates "incapable" to many of her white male colleagues in the OR. Camille has battled prejudices her entire career, but those battles were small spats compared to what she faces now.

When a colleague discovers a lump in her breast, she believes Dr. Camille Weller is the best doctor for her. Together, they decide on a course of treatment that bucks the established medical system, keeping Camille firmly in the crosshairs of male surgeons already riddled with skepticism and suspicion.

Her success as a surgeon is jeopardized further when dark whispers from her childhood in Africa plague Camille's thoughts. Bewildering panic attacks instill fear in a surgeon bent on maintaining the control, pace, and direction of her own life. Unable to shake the flashes of memory, Camille is forced to face a past she has not acknowledged since the death of her father on an African mission field. Who was he? Who was she? And why would either of those answers affect her present? (excerpt from back cover).

My Review:

In the book, the Six Liter Club, by Harry Kraus, MD, I absolutely loved the story from page one. It's a story similar to an episode of your favorite medical show with more drama and intensity than I have seen in a medical fiction novel in quite some time. It holds your interest in every single page!

The Six Liter Club is a prestigious club on men who have saved the lives of patients that have lost six liters of blood and still lived. Today, Camille becomes not only the first woman, but also the first African American surgeon as well to join the "boy's club". She finally thinks this is what it will take for the men in the hospital to finally see the potential she brings as a trauma surgeon at the Medical College of Virginia.

However during one private conversation, Camille learns the real reason behind her being hired and it doesn't have to do with her medical qualifications. Just how long will she last here? Odds are exactly in her favor. So does she have what it takes to outlast and prove her worth here or will she simply pack her bags and become a resident instead? Will the God she met on the missions field with her father, help her during this time of indecision?

This book was amazing and I read it in one sitting. I wasn't able to predict my way through this book and found the ending humorous, tearful, and surprising uplifting. I only hope that Harry Kraus, MD, the author decides to create a sequel for this novel.

I received this book, compliments of Glass Roads Public Relations for my review and this is a must have for anyone's permanent library. I again rate this book 10 out of 10!

For more information on this book, the author and where to get your very own copy, click on the link below:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Six-Liter-Club/Harry-Kraus/e/9781416577973/?itm=2&USRI=the+six+liter+club

This book is available in paperback and eBook formats for your reading pleasure.

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UPDATE:

Due to the overwhelming responses on how much you all loved this book, Glass Roads is offering a giveaway copy to one lucky winner. Please NO P.O. Boxes and US or Canada residents only. Just be a follower of mine and post about this giveaway on your blog. That's all there is too it. The more people you tell, the more chances you have of winning this book.