This is a debut novel about the lives, past and present, of two women who have been friends since medical school. Now they are mothers with fulfilling careers. Then a former colleague of both, moves to Charlotte and the end result could prove the end of their friendship. The medical setting is well portrayed and the characters are believable. It was a one day read for me.

They say you should write what you know, and debut author Kimmery Martin has done that - in spades! She has crafted a wonderful debut, full of engaging characters, realistic dialogue, and a hint of mystery - plus interesting narrative on medical practices that is illuminating and educational. The book starts out in the present and introduces us to two friends who have known each other a long time, dating from medical school, and hints at a falling out with a third friend. Over the course of the book, we find out about an event that has far-reaching ramifications for the three friends. It's a story of friendship and families, secrets and redemption. I eagerly turned the pages to get to the end, and after reading the author's note, I sighed with the best kind of contented pleasure I get from reading a great book. It is hard to believe this is the writing of a debut author! Very well done!

This was a wonderful book about the power and strength of friendship. Zadie and Emma meet in medical school, and through the years their friendship grows. Secrecy and self-doubt are wound throughout the timeline, and in the end, will their long, tangled rich friendship be enough to overcome the terrible truth of past events?

I love the style of the story as it unfolds; present day and past are a fabulous way to tell this story. Emma's cool calm is admirable,, and Zadie's quirky antics and wit are a good contrast to each other. Both grow into well respected doctors; Emma renowned for trauma, Zadie for pediatric cardiology. The glance into the inner workings of doctors and the field of medicine casts a light on a professional field so many readers really know little of; doctors are human too, with many of the same fears as many of us, but also with an inner strength that few of us can deny.

I absolute commend this book for book groups, or readers of women's fiction, and even those who are interested in knowing more of what doctors have to go through. Great book!

***ARC received for an honest review***

I took a gamble, and it paid off. This is a debut novel so when I agreed to read the ARC I had no idea what lay ahead. But I read the blurb four times and stared at that gorgeous cover while my internal debate raged. And finally I thought "what the heck. If I hate it it'll be just another in my slew of hateful reviews." It turns out I needn't have worried.

First things first - Kimmery Martin is brilliant. Trying to avoid jumping to conclusions - but she must have a medical background. This is a realistic, educated, humorous, sweet and difficult novel about women - juggling their careers and their relationships and being just a little bit weird.

<b>"In theory, that didn't sound difficult, but in reality, each child added an exponential level of complexity, so that we'd had to plaster an entire wall of the playroom at home with a whiteboard covered in Venn diagrams and annotations about the logistics of everyone's soccer, ballet, field hockey and guitar lessons."</b>

Zadie and Emma meet at Brain Camp and click. We travel from the present to the past in revolving POVs exploring med school, motherhood, the pressures of being a surgeon, first love and, ultimately, the very core of Zadie and Emma's beautiful and complicated friendship. There's a perfect combination of realism (lots of medical vocabulary) without it becoming cumbersome. I felt Ms Martin struck a precarious balance and maintained it throughout the book. Erudite and clever without being dispassionate or smug - she found that place that pulls a reader in without smothering them.

All of that said - that ending. Guys, I need you to read this book when it's published and comment about the ending. I finished the book 12 hours ago, and I still don't know how I feel. Was it the right thing? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

<b>"At some point, the theoretical becomes the inevitable. You either cross the river or you don't. I'd known what I was doing, even if I buried the knowledge under a toxic mountain of denial."</b>

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Dramatic, funny, and hard-to-put-down amalgam of a well-written intern/residence/clinical rotations year memoir and a contemporary account of the challenges of friendship and marriage as middle age approaches, for fans of Jane Porter, Wendy Wax, and the already mentioned Liane Moriarty.

This is a story about two women, very different yet very close friends. It weaves between present day and medical training days with descriptive medical procedures in both. It's about the choices they make and the consequences they face. It's about friendship, how it can be tested and how strong those tie are. An absorbing read, I couldn't put it down. I really hope Ms Martin writes more.

Zadie and Emma have been best friends for years and weathered triumphs and tragedies as they completed medical school and created lives. But now a secret from the past is threatening to destroy them. Will their friendship? A story of friends and life and love that hooked me from the first page and made me feel like they were my friends.

Fans of medical dramas will enjoy this book, although the medical terminology might bog down the average reader. There were a lot of strong relationships in the book, both past and present day, but I found the high society/upper class Charlotte references a bit much and feel like it might have stood stronger without them. All in all an enjoyable read with interesting relationships.

Starts in summer - moves into fall

Love the talk of a mother's struggles

A LOT of medical situations w/medical jargon and medical words

too much past/present/past...
it was hard to follow but I did skim forward because I did want to know how it fared with best friend

This was a quick read and I enjoyed it but was left wanting more...I almost feel like it was over-edited; some characters were introduced at the beginning and had mostly disappeared by the end. Maybe there should be a sequel.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

I read THE QUEEN OF HEARTS with great enthusiasm, it starts as a lovely story about a beleaguered physician/parent and her travails in taking care of her delightful 3 year old, but soon morphs into many other stories, none nearly as enchanting. Martin has a terrific ear for mother child dialogue, as a physician she has encyclopedic knowledge of medicine, but this is the weakness of the story, Martin tries to pour everything into this book.

The book moves on to a friendship story, the enduring relationship between Zadie and Emma, then plunges toward the betrayal that takes years to reveal. The flashbacks to medical school and the tragedy they face is simply too full of names and secondary characters to be decipherable. But, if all this isn't enough for a reader, we are also treated to grueling details of medical procedures, often occurring to secondary characters, which are basically meaningless to those of us not in medicine.

I hope Martin uses her talent to pare down and write a novel about one of these topics or write a memoir of her years as a surgeon, blended together it is all too much.