Not Quite Dead is the first book I read by this author.

In this story we find Doctor Autumn convinced someone wants Jay, a promising young researcher and her dead. It's a race against time to find out what is really going on and this book delivers exactly what you expected. It's an emotional page-turner that will keep you interested until the very end.

This book is one I hope to come back and read sometime but right now I am very deep into fantasy and romance and this is a book that is just not captivating me at the time.

Interesting medical mystery - should appeal to medical and non-medical readers. A great look at the many aspects of residency... both the good and bad. The setting takes place in the hospital exploring the world of residency with details that were true to life medically and also fascinating if you’re not familiar with the inner workings of residency. Not exactly my kind of read even though I'm an emergency room nurse working on getting my masters! Still a good book I just maybe needed to be in the mood for this one??

Thank you Netgalley! I finally finished my first book I requested and never got to!

My first medical thriller and, quite honestly, possibly my last. I really struggled to get through this one and I'm not entirely sure why. There was a lot of medical/technical speak and some of it went on forever.
Sadly this one was not for me.

This year, I have read quite a few mysteries and thrillers, but I think it’s my first time to explore a medical one. I didn’t have any expectations, I just hoped that it would be action packed.

Not Quite Dead called on me from the title alone. I was expected to explore a medical mystery. However, this book did not manage to pique my interest that long.

The premise of the book is intriguing. There’s this drug trial and clinical research gone wrong. One of the main researchers is now indisposed and the intern sent to treat him is the girl he’s dating. Aside from Autumn, that said intern, we also have a few other POVs to help this mystery unfold.

This book shed light on how doctors are treated in reality and how undead intern’s lives are, just as expressed in medical dramas like Grey’s Anatomy, which I live for.

However, the writing style was too boring for my liking. I wasn’t in tune with the story’s flow. I felt like there was so much medical jargon for the ordinary reader and the pacing was off, at times.
All in all, I still liked the plot. The extremely detailed medical part just dragged the story and made reading, at least for me, feel like a chore.

I started reading this a while ago, but couldn’t get into it so left it. I’ve picked it up again but have still found it difficult to get into. Unfortunately I did not finish it.

Sherling has written a book with one primary plot and several nicely-intertwined subplots. It feels as if she planned it out exquisitely, or at least mapped it out really well when revising! Seemingly unrelated facts are brought into play as the story progresses, until it winds up neatly at the end. There is a clear story arc, which I love in a book like this, and although the book comes to a clear finish, Sherling leaves a little bit of the ending ragged, letting the readers wonder exactly what happens next. This will be a little frustrating for readers seeking a big bow tying things up, or a clear HEA, but for those who can tolerate a little uncertainty, it leaves a little up to the reader's imagination.

This is a quick and diverting read, and a strong first novel from Sherling

I really like medical thrillers and this story was good. Sometimes there was a bit too much technical jargon, which bogged down the story though.

I found this to be a very interesting read and thoroughly enjoyed the medical aspect to the plot.
The story kept me on my toes and kept me guessing, however, I would have liked to learn more about the characters.
All in all an enjoyable read.

This book was a very suspenseful and engaging story. It kept me on my toes, awaiting what round happen next. If you enjoy medical thrillers, you’ll enjoy this!

NOt QUITE DEAD
BY DAWN HARRIS SHERLING

"NOT QUITE DEAD," written by Dawn Harris Sherling was a medical mystery that is fast paced and I also liked the character's also. This is her debut novel which exciting for me takes place in Boston in a fictional teaching hospital in Boston is just a 45 minute car ride from my house. I gave birth to my second son, Liam in one of Boston's prestigious hospitals because of almost dying giving birth to my first son locally. So I was quite excited and thrilled at giving a chance to read and review this title from Net Galley, Dawn Harris Sherling and Crooked Lane Book Publishing in exchange for a fair and honest review. Ms. Sherling is a real medical doctor who after spending 10 years of cold New England winters freezing here moved back to Southern Florida. She quite possibly could have received her medical training in Boston since she places the setting of this novel in one of Boston's fictional teaching hospitals as there are many.

As a new physician/intern, Autumn Johnson finds it hard not to faint in the ICU, getting her 30 hour work days in with little time to eat or sleep must less have a relationship with medical doctor/PhD research scientist Jay. When Jay is brought in to the ICU for an irregular heartbeat with cardiac irregularities which are unexplained and he ends up in a coma there is no explanation. Could getting his MD/PhD have been too much for him? He was doing clinical research for diabetes before his unexplained illness. Cassie who is the resident physician who oversees Autumn the intern physician finds a toxin in his blood Autumn thinks after heading to the lab where Jay was conducting his research, Autumn is given Jay's notebook by another lab researcher who worked in close proximity to Jay, she thinks not only is someone out to kill Jay but maybe her as well. With little help other than another intern friend and Cassie whose perfectionism borders on self defeating patterns will the killer have a chance to kill Autumn too?

This is where for me to continue with the novel I had to suspend belief about the research getting done so quickly at the hospital. Before any new medication gets approved by the FDA it has to go through many experimental treatments and at many different locations with the results replicated over and over for several and many repeated trials at many different research facilities with positive repeated results.
There are also blind and not blind studies with a potentially recognizable result before it is ever given to a human in an experimental study in an experimental medical study. It is never given to the white lab rat and then directly to a human patient.

What did ring true for me was the point interns and residents are pushed to the point of exhaustion once they begin working in a rotation of usually 72 hours not 30 hours during which time they are caring for sick patients. Which in this novel the interns did 30 hour rotations not 72.

I did find this medical thriller had less to do with being a medical murder and more to do with the murderer and thriller taking place in a hospital setting. I was highly entertained and would highly recommend.

In my year of mystery, I was certainly excited about reading a few medical mysteries. The medical field is great for mystery. Doctors must make decisions based on any number of clues and red herrings and that alone can make for interesting reading. A victim could just as easily be felled by a fellow human as he (or she) could be felled by a strange disease/bacteria/infection. While this looked like medical mystery, it was more of a murder mystery set in a hospital.

The focus of this book did not feel like the solving of a potential murder; rather it was the life of an intern and a resident and how hard their work is. There were many references to 30-hour on call shifts, little time for rest, no time to eat, and demands on new doctors's time. I get that it's hard to be a doctor (thank goodness), but I felt like these ladies may have been too focused on what they were missing (i.e. sleep, food, social life). Much of this information became repetitve throughout the book.

One of the other things I struggled with in this book was the medical jargon. I don't have a lot of medical experience (like none?), but I do recognize some medical names and some diagnoses from life experience. Early in the book there was talk of patients who could not survive without pressors, I did not know what those were and it took me out of the story. That was an example that stuck with me, but there were several others littered around in this book.

I did not think the multiple POVs were necessary, not particularly distinct. It was a way to give the reader as much information as was available, but without chapter headings, I would not have easily recognized whose story I was reading.

I may be at a point where I have read and paid close enough attention to a variety of mysteries this year, the guilty party was not a surprise to me. I did not question it for a moment.

This was not my favorite book of the year, and it could use a little more editing, but it was a fine read for a couple hours of entertainment.


Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Since I have been in the medical field since I was 15 I love reading medical related books. This one sure was interesting. Thanks NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review!

All round a very good read. I found this book to be very interesting from the medical aspect and sympathetic to the hours the medical staff put in.

I feel that the author could have gone further with the main characters into their private lives. I would have liked to know more about Autumn and Cassidy's backgrounds and go deeper into each character.. But saying that, the story had me reading until the early hours to find out "Who Dunnit".

I really liked this book. It was interesting to see the other side of interns and residents. The plot line is definitely something that could happen. Pharmaceutical companies want to make their meds street legal asap for their continued wealth. I liked that Dr Johnson followed her gut instinct to find out what happened to the guy she was seeing. The characters were well written in this book and would love to read more from this author. Thanks for the ARC, Net Galley.

Not Quite Dead was a throwback to the novels of Robin Cook. It's a pretty standard medical thriller set in a Boston Hospital. The star of the novel is Autumn, an intern whose boyfriend, Jay, lands in the ICU with an unexpected toxin in his blood. She thinks that there might be something shady happening with the drug trial on which Jay has been working, and she sets out to learn the truth.

The novel was well written and the suspense was solid, but personally, I got bored by the overwhelming amount of medical minutiae. For readers who enjoy medical thrillers, Not Quite Dead is well worth your time. It just wasn't for me.

My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

It has been awhile since I read a medical mystery. Now I wonder what other gems I have missed. This is a mystery that feels more like a caring friend that wonders why Jay ends up in ICU. The story flows nicely with plenty of medical details on others in the hospital and the staff. So it doesn't seem at all intrusive when the intern pokes around. I thought the story was well done with a good ending. enjoyed the book.

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for this ARC

I like a medical thriller so thought this would be up my street so to speak and it was.

The storyline was interesting and really well paced but there was a lot of medical jargon, some I understood and some I didn't. The intrigue and suspense were good and kept me interested. Overall I would recommend this book.

This was the first book I have read by Dawn Sherling so I await others.

Reviewed on Amazon

I haven't read a huge amount of medical thrillers and I was so excited to get my hands on this book and dive into a genre I wasn't that familiar with. I hit a few problems, although the book was interesting and fast paced... my main issue was the fact that I didn't understand more than half of the medical jargon used. I seriously couldn't keep up with it and found it difficult to focus because I wasn't always sure what was going on.

I would recommend this book, but unless you are a medical thriller veteran, some of the language might be tough to get through.

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley.

Not Quite Dead is a medical thriller book. There is a lot of medical terminology in this book which may be confusing or difficult to keep up with for some people. I personally love medical themed books, so this was a hit for me!