Thank you Berkley Publishing for the gifted e-copy of this book.

Um, well...I'm honestly not sure how to review this book. If we weren't in the middle of a real life pandemic, I probably would have liked it more, although it would have gifted me major anxiety. According to the author's note at the end of the book, she wrote this, minus a few tweaks, before COVID was a part of our lives. The parallels are uncanny - the spread, the masking, isolation, quarantining, how the hospitals had to make temporary units outside because they were over capacity...it just hit way too close to home for me. That being said, it was fairly impressive how the author pretty much hit the nail on the head with how we, as a country and even world, would handle a pandemic. When she mentioned island countries (eg; Australia, New Zealand) closing borders, I was blown away at the accuracy of that detail. Also, how the teenagers were more reluctant to follow rules, met up anyway, and ended up passing the virus and infecting others.

The virus in this book is NOT COVID, but the similarities are there. I just don't think this was the right time for me to read this, and I do know that there are many readers that would turn away from this book due to the subject matter/personal triggers. That being said, it's unfortunate, because it was well done and engaging - and I did finish the book to find out what happened in the end.

This was heavy…and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to read it. I am thankful I read it prior to my husband becoming so sick, or I might have had to step away from this novel for a while.

Well done, well written, deeply diving into the lives of two doctors that are friends.

Interestingly written prior to Covid-19 beginning, so I am sure this will be a hard to read/reach for novel for many of us as we are still in the throws of Covid and certainly have varying degrees of PTSD from our experiences.

Be gentle with yourself if you can’t read this one- no judgements from anyone. If you can read it, then do so. You will most likely enjoy it.

Wow this was an interesting read. It is my first Kimmery Martin one. I can't believe this was written before COVID-19 pandemic. It felt so realistic and like it was a "torn from the headlines" book but the author explains in her author's note that she wrote it pre-pandemic and then they made a few edits to it during the pandemic before it got published. It is interesting to see all the different perspectives and experiences of this group of friends/doctors but I didn't really connect with any of the characters and felt the ending was pretty rushed. It was a good read overall and kept my attention though.

Thank you Berkley Publishing for giving me a chance to read a digital copy of Doctors and Friends by Kimmery Martin. This is the second book by Martin that I have read, and wow, she really knocks it out of the park every time. It is evident that Martin used to be a doctor because her books are very heavy with medical knowledge. This is also the second book I have read about a pandemic/virus; the first being Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult. It is hard to believe that Martin began writing this book before COVID- it almost makes this book like a prophetic telling of what is to come. There were parts of this book that were, no doubt, difficult to read, and the fact that this deals with something almost like COVID is a trigger warning readers should be aware of when picking up this book. It definitely brings up a lot of feelings, especially about life pre-covid and post covid- 2019 versus the end of 2021, where we are now. If I had read this book in 2019, I think I would have even been more terrified of a global pandemic, and although there is still fear in the uncertainty of what's to come, I think a lot of people, including myself, have adjusted to this new normal the best that we can. Martin also does an excellent job of incorporating ethical and moral dilemmas into her stories that really make readers think what they would do in the same situations. Finally, I loved that the main character/characters in Doctors and Friends were a group of women, and even the president was a black woman.

I just finished reading Doctors and Friends, which is a novel Kimmery Martin wrote before the COVID-19 pandemic. The timeliness of the story in this fictional world Martin has created and eerily forecasted what has been my life for over a year and a half.

Though foreboding this read was hopeful and focused on the healthcare heroes that were not much more different than the healthcare providers I work with side by side - the true heroes who are also mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, friends and colleagues, and each with their own stories and lives beyond their capes of scrubs and gowns saving people’s lives.

I loved this book! Reading this novel was heartwarming, cathartic, truly immersive, and one that brought tears to my eyes. Fantastic read I highly recommend!!

Author Kimmery Martin is a former emergency medicine physician, Readers may be surprised to learn that Doctors and Friends was not inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic. Martin actually studied the 1918 influenza epidemic and 2014 Ebola outbreak in Western Africa, and drafted an essay outlining her planned story in 2018. When her editor liked the idea, Martin proceeded with further research. In the process, she discovered Crisis in the Red Zone, a nonfictional account by Richard Preston of two physicians who contracted a strain of Ebola in 2014. The medical director was in possession of an untested, experimental drug -- but only enough of the medicine to treat one patient. That physician faced an ethical conundrum: whether to treat either of two colleagues and, if so, which one. That incident compelled Martin to have one of her characters face a similar ethical quagmire and the consequences of her decision in Doctors and Friends. But she upped the ante by contemplating what would transpire if those two people had been the doctor's children. Martin completed an initial rough draft of the book in January 2020, ironically, just as COVID-19 was on the horizon.

The fictional virus she devised bears no resemblance to COVID. Rather, she made up its virological characteristics and transmissibility long before the real pandemic took hold of the world. Martin's virus is even more terrifyingly deadly -- and strikes without warning. As the story opens, physicians Kira, Compton, Hannah, Vani, and Georgia, Martin's protagonist in The Antidote for Everything, are vacationing in Spain when news of a potentially deadly new virus begins filtering in. They first encounter and attempt to aid a little girl who is inexplicably burning up with fever and struggling to breathe. With the World Health Organization gets involved, they debate whether to continue their journey. Kira has no choice but to proceed to Seville where her fourteen-year-old daughter, Rorie, and son, Beau, age six, are staying. They decide to forge ahead and while sailing the Strait of Gibralter, a young woman suddenly falls to her knees, gasping for air. Sweaty, coughing, her gaze unfocused, and in obvious respiratory distress, the woman's nailbeds are bright blue, an unusual and telltale symptom. Kira springs toward the woman without thinking. She is seconds away from death and begins seizing. Compton urges Kira to step aside because it was Compton who held the little girl in an effort to stabilize her breathing and if the little girl had the virus, Compton has surely been exposed to it. Compton is unable to save her, and Kira knows what she has risked by not canceling the trip.

At the center of the story, Kira relates, via a first-person narrative, that she began her career in internal medicine with an aid organization. After her husband died suddenly of an undiagnosed illness, she then returned to the United States and completed a fellowship in infectious disease and specialized training in battling pandemics. She is a single mother in a relationship with Declan, whose biopharmaceutical laboratory is targeting the same virus that Kira studied at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). For him, everything is riding on the lab's upcoming request for a clinical trial.

Kira is the subject matter expert on artioviruses in the Viral Infections branch of the CDC and it is that type of virus that is fast spreading around the world. After quarantining, the women barely make it back to their respective homes and medical practices before travel is restricted. Martin's depiction of the impact of the disease is uncannily and eerily akin to what actually transpired in 2020. New York City becomes a ghost town and tragedy strikes more than one of her characters. Martin devotes successive chapters to each of them, relating, from their perspectives, their feelings, struggles, and the gut-wrenchingly heartbreaking decisions some of them must make as the pandemic sweeps the world and the number of fatalities climbs. The virus leaves few survivors and within a few months many of those who manage to survive their initial bought with the disease meet a horrific fate: rapid-onset dementia. Scientists scramble to develop and distribute an effective vaccine.

Through it all, the women keep in touch with and support each other, as some of them continue practicing medicine and some are forced by their circumstances to pivot. Hannah, who specializes in obstetrics/gynecology in San Diego, has been unable to conceive her own child. She must care for her patients while the virus rages with no knowledge of its long-term impact, if any, upon a pregnant woman who contracts the disease . . . or the unborn child. Hannah's previous efforts to become pregnant via invitro fertilization have failed, and she ponders the wisdom of one more attempt. Georgia revealed her own pregnancy while the women were in Spain and must take steps to protect herself and her baby. Meanwhile, Compton, who practices emergency medicine, is overwhelmed by the number of patients she treats and her inability to save them. She must carry on in spite of tremendous personal loss for the sake of her three children, but is profoundly and irrevocably changed by what she and her family go through. And Kira faces the aforementioned ethical conundrum, despite her vigilant efforts to keep her children safe.

Hindsight demonstrates that Martin's portrayal of the pandemic is starkly accurate and chilling, particularly her descriptions of a world in lockdown and the toll the disease takes on medical personnel. And the fast-paced story is riveting, keeping readers engaged to see who will survive and whether Declan's company will conduct a successful clinical trial. Likewise, Kira's plight is emotionally gripping and suspenseful. It is one of the most effective aspects of the story, told with just the right tone by capitalizing on but not unnecessarily enhancing the plot twist's inherent drama.

Equally credible is Martin's portrayal of the friendships that were forged years ago in medical school and have endured. Can they withstand the challenges each character faces? Their interactions are believable and endearing, imbued with familiarity, empathy, compassion, and stubbornness. They support each other even when they must do so from afar, and Martin's dialogue is crisp and witty.

Unfortunately, Martin contracted COVID in 2020 and suffered long-term symptoms, including parosmia, low blood pressure, and fatigue. Perhaps life imitated art a bit too perfectly because she says, "For my next novel, I think I will write about world peace."

Whatever topic she decides to tackle, if her next effort is as compelling and emotionally resonant as Doctors and Friends, it will also be well worth reading.

I feel like there is a lot to unpack here. We travel the world with a group of women who became friends during med school as they navigate a pandemic (eerily similar to COVID, although written before our pandemic), love, loss, death and life. An intriguing, engaging novel that gripped me from the start.

**I received an electronic ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review of this book.

I was a little worried about reading a “pandemic” story when we are still
dealing with a real life one. I must say that Martin did an excellent job
of balancing the medical story with the the personal side.

I loved that the the story centered around a close knit group of girlfriends that are also doctors.
It begins as they are meeting for a girls trip,
Things get “real” when there is a breakout of a deadly virus, which also sounds way too familiar.

Martin did a great job of balancing the devastation of the virus with the personal lives of Hannah, Compton, and Kira.
I was totally invested in their lives. Kira is a infectious disease specialist, Compton an ER doctor and Hannah, an Ob-gyn struggling to have a child. Get ready to laugh, cry and root for them and their families.

Although this book is not based on covid, it got close and personal about sacrifice, suffering and loss, especially for medical professionals on the front line. If it’s just to soon, put this one on your future TBR !

Doctors and Friends by Kimmery Martin is a contemporary story that follows a group of female doctors as they navigate life during a pandemic. Now the pandemic inside of this story is a fictional one that the author created prior to the Covid outbreak in real life but this one may be a tough read now that Covid has become real around the world.

Hannah, Compton, and Kira met while they were all in medical school together and have stayed friends since. Each of the women have gone onto different careers in the medical field but made a pact to always stay in touch and spend time together once a year on a vacation.

Compton is a ER doctor in New York while Hannah became an ob-gyn in San Diego and Kira took a job as an infectious disease doctor at the CDC in Atlanta. The three are scheduled for their annual trip and heading to Spain when they get word that a fast spreading disease has been discovered.

I’ve read a lot of apocalyptic type of books with pandemics the being the cause but Doctors and Friends by Kimmery Martin is definitely a contemporary fiction title. While details of the disease in here vary from what we have in real life with Covid the feel of the characters dealing with it felt all too real and parallel to the times of Covid. I couldn’t help but to get caught up in their world and feel the tension as the story developed. My only thought was perhaps at times it went a little too much into the medical terminology but the author does admit to that herself. Overall though this one was certainly an emotional ride.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

It's incredible how much of this work of fiction about a pandemic, written before COVID-19, could be so true to life. It's almost as if people have been studying pandemics and know how they work and try to protect the masses by giving advice acquired from years of research... If only we would listen to those people...

The author did add a note at the end to say she added in Zoom meetings and some other minor changes to make it feel more real. One change made was to add rotating POVs with her characters. Now as a fan of the author's previous novels, I was thrilled to find out that they were all both friends and would all be together (somewhat) in this book. I did feel that sometimes I wanted more from some characters, but it seems like she will continue writing about this group of friends and I'm all for it.

Wow, this one was intense. I started out reading the eARC and ended up switching to the audiobook because it was stressing me out.

I really loved the scenes when all the friends interacted with each other. How they supported each other through the horrors they were dealing with.

This is a challenging book to read given the pandemic but it gives a good glimpse into the ways different people were impacted including an ER doctor and a CDC employee.

I ultimately enjoyed this one and look forward to the stories featuring the other doctors mentioned.

Doctors and Friends is a medical fiction novel centering around a group of friends (who happen to be doctors) amidst a new global pandemic (nope, not that one!). Written prior to 2020, Doctors and Friends is eerily similar to the last year and a half of our lives, so if that's not for you at this time I understand. However, it is a heartbreaking story of love, friendship and family that left me hopeful (though teary).

The incredible thing about Doctors and Friends is that it is a book about a global pandemic was written in 2018, before COVID took over our lives. It is the story of a group of women who are all doctors navigating life during a global pandemic. Their stories are all gut wrenching and raw, without holding anything back in the emotions and heartbreaks. The parallels to what we are living through now are eerily similar and the insights into the horrors and stresses that healthcare professionals have lived through for the last 2 years is so timely. At times it was hard to read because it felt all too real and heavy. But I loved the interaction and relationships among these incredibly successful women all trying to juggle their careers during the such horrific times while still taking care their families. I think pre-COVID the medical jargon about the virus would have been a bit tedious but so much of the terms and concepts are in our vernacular and conversations these days that it was interesting and didn’t feel overly academic. I just think this author should buy a lottery ticket or do some sports betting given her premonitions.

I couldn’t get into this one_ it felt too wordy and I was struggling to connect with all the different characters. The plague part didn’t bother me but I just wasn’t invested in what was happening.

I loved Kimmery Martin's earlier books so was looking forward to Doctors and Friends. It's a book about a pandemic and a group of doctors (it was written pre-covid) so it's eerily fascinating and felt so real after the last year and a half. Kimmery is a former ER doctor and the author's note at the end of the book is fabulous where she talks about her inspiration and what edits she made as the pandemic struck.

This book is about friendship and the bonds that six doctors have had since they met in need Med School. It focuses on 3 of them and is told in 3 parts pre artiovirus, during artiovirus and post artiovirus and the impacts of their jobs and personal lives during this time.

I absolutely loved this book. I couldn't put it down and honestly I'm in the I don't really in the want to read books about the pandemic side but this was different since it wasn't really about the current pandemic but it did bring back some of the feelings.

I highly recommend reading this book! I laughed, I cried and it made me think about a few things.

This book was written prior to Covid-19, in an imaginary world, but poses interesting parallels to what we’re living through today. In Doctors and Friends, the artiovirus pandemic swept through the population even quicker than Covid did in real life. Even more terrifying, the virus causes a delayed complication in which it attacks the brain a year or two after recovery from the visible symptoms.

The characters wear pins that display a color indicating their infection status, and apps on their phones alert them when an infected or nonimmune person is nearby. Those who don’t want to submit to testing and vaccines aren’t permitted on airlines or in other public spaces. The main character notes that most people try to comply with the testing and vaccines.

This book was so beautifully emotional. The main theme is female friendship, as Doctors and Friends centers around a group of women who were best friends in medical school. They have stayed in touch and vacation together regularly, which is where they are when the book (and the virus) starts. There’s a lot of grief within the story, so much that I found myself crying at multiple passages. It is very well written, though--I always wanted more.

I thought all the characters were extremely likeable, and I would’ve liked to see more of Compton’s story. The use of multiple POVs worked really well in this case.

Some readers may not be ready for a book about a pandemic, but I loved this parallel to what we’re living through now. I can’t wait to talk to the author to see what it was like for her to write this book just prior to Covid.

Warning, this medical fiction book is about a pandemic- no, not our pandemic but one Kimmery Martin invented and wrote BEFORE we started dealing with COVID! It was so amazing to see some on the things this author wrote about parallel what we are seeing today. She does have a background as an emergency physician so she does have some legitimate knowledge of the subject.
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Reading the author’s notes (fast becoming one of my favorite parts of any book) Martin remarks that with our current worldwide pandemic happening on the heels of her writing about a pandemic, she is going to write about world peace next. Great plan.
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I am a medical drama junkie. I love the television shows and books like the ones Martin writes. Queen of Hearts and The Antidote For Everything are her previous books I read and enjoyed. I really enjoyed this one too.
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If you read the previous two, you will recognize some of the characters in this book, but they are definitely stand alone novels.
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This is so intelligently written with tons of compassion, lots of real and deep feelings from characters that embody what heroes medical professionals are while showing how human they are as well.
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The relationships between the women in this book rings true and is what we all strive for in our lives. They aren’t perfect and their vulnerabilities make them very relatable to a variety of readers.
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I admit it is a bit hard to read about a pandemic right now, even if it is a different virus. The good thing is that, since this is a book, it comes to an end. Hopefully real life will follow suit.
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Infectious disease specialist Kira Marchand and her children are holidaying in southern Spain with her medical school girlfriends as a deadly new illness appears in the region. Crossing on a ferry to Tangier, Morocco, they witness the effects firsthand when a ferry employee starts seizing in front of them. Little do they know they are witnessing the initial outbreak of the artiovirus pandemic.

Weeks later they return to a changed United States where scores have already died.

Hannah Geier, beloved ob-gyn in San Diego, desperate to be a mother herself, has one last chance for IVF while trying to shepherd patients through the virus and its unknown effects on pregnancy.

Facing an onslaught of infected at the same time the virus has decimated staff, ER doctor Compton Winfield struggles to deal with the overwhelming losses at work while drowning in her own personal grief and the demands of motherhood.

Kira, one of the world’s foremost experts on the virus, becomes a trusted advisor to the President and face of the government’s response, leaving her teen daughter, Rorie, in charge of six-year-old Beau. After both children are infected, Kira must negotiate an ethics minefield while determining if they will receive an experimental treatment.

Herself a former doctor of emergency medicine, Kimmery Martin wrote DOCTORS AND FRIENDS before Covid-19. Her imagined post-virus world closely mirrors life after Covid with shutdowns, mask requirements, and virtual schools. The story is so emotional an intense—one of those novels that so effectively creates a setting, it’s hard to escape when you put the book down.

I particularly valued it for how well it conveyed the impact of the pandemic on the doctors, particularly Kira, focused on managing containment and finding a cure, and Compton, on the front-lines with patients. The ethical situation Kira faces is high-stakes and thought-provoking.

Because I love reading about pandemics and infectious diseases (except Covid!), I can’t help but focus on that in my review, but the heart of the book is the friend group, how they support each other, even geographically separated, professionally and personally. This book will resonate with anyone who is a friend, wife, or mother.

Slight spoiler:






The book was certainly wrenching, and I found myself crying at times, but ultimately I thought the ending was too happily resolved for the primary characters given the subject matter. Everything felt so realistic or possible until the HEAs.

My emotions were at an all-time high while reading this. Although this was written in 2019 and prior to covid, to read about a deadly disease, how and who it affected and the connection the characters in the book had to it, was chilling while we are still in a pandemic.

At the heart of the storyline, are the lives of a group of women whom are friends from medical school and on vacation together when the outbreak hits. There is a heartwarming theme of friendship but also one of gut wrenching loss. I braced myself while reading multiple times - as a mother while impossible decisions were being made and as a wife and friend as the unimaginable was portrayed. It was an emotional read and I was on the edge of my seat. And I say this as a warning before reading but not as a deterrent. I read to get lost, to feel, to learn, to be moved. It’s why I love reading so much. So while emotional, I still can say I enjoyed it. The characters, all so different, were so likeable and I enjoyed the multiple POVs and the three time periods from which the story is told.

First let me start with a disclaimer. If you are looking for a book to escape the chaotic world climate, specifically how it relates to Covid-19, then this is not the book for you. That being said, this is a gripping story that ironically predates the pandemic conditions we currently live in. However, the parallels between the two are striking.

In Martin’s fictional pandemic world, we meet Hannah, Compton, and Kira. Friends since medical school, the women are reuniting for a vacation. Unbeknownst to them, the world is on the verge of being turned upside down by the spread of a new virus. As the events unfold in past, present, and future timelines, we see not only how it impacts these women personally, but how it effects world at large.

Origin stories have always fascinated me. Prior to COVID, I was engrossed in the origins of the AIDS epidemic as it was laid out in And The Band Played On. Despite its disturbingly generic title, Doctors and Friends is an engrossing contemporary fiction novel that reads like a horror story on multiple levels. There’s no doubt that Martin, who is known for writing medical fiction, is haunted by the uncanny similarities and timing of this release with present day conditions.

The fictional pandemic set forth in the book also offers some long term rollouts that I could see happening in the real world. Had I known what this story was truly about before reading it, would I have chosen it to read right now? Probably not. However, I’m glad I pushed through as it was interesting to compare and contrast how life imitates art with this captivating release.