Where No One Should Live

A fascinating well-written book with wonderful characters, great setting, and plenty of medical intrigue. This is one of those books that I enjoyed reading so much that I purposely slowed down because I did not want it to end. It's the kind of book that you can get totally immersed in and forget everything else. I'd love to read more from this author!

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.

Where No One Should Live follows Maya, a doctor at Arizona Public Health, as she works on a number of health issues affecting the local area, namely a new motorcycle helmet law. She often crosses paths with her coworker Alex, and the two quickly become partners when trouble starts to hit the facility. Angry bikers, a mysterious illness, and daily perils of living in a desert region all encompass the issues they face, and may end up drawing them closer in a number of ways.

Where No One Should Live is a refreshingly new story to me; I feel as though I have not read many books quite like it before. The style of the book is smart and well written, and it has a number of great storylines, plot twists, and some humorous moments as well. Both Maya and Alex are interesting characters with good depth, and I enjoyed reading all of the different events that they encounter in the book.....and there certainly are a lot of them. I feel like they were basically finding trouble around every corner! I enjoyed reading Where No One Should Live and would recommend it to anyone looking to get out of a reading rut.

Thanks to Netgalley and University of Nevada Press for this ARC; this is my honest and voluntary review.

Where No One Should Live is a fast-moving, compelling mystery that is almost impossible to put down. Miller, a retired family physician, skillfully describes everything necessary to keep the reader engaged: characters, plot, medical mysteries, graphic descriptions of Phoenix, the scorching and challenging place "where no one should live," and she includes plausible and enticing romance as well. A use of past perfect could often have helped the understanding of what happened when. However, there is something always luring the reader into wanting more of this writer's work; the author weaves the plot in a way that invites readers to determinedly and happily read to the end.

While there is a bit of a medical mystery at the heart of the book, what has more focus in the romantic interest of the main character, the doctor Maya. We see the lives of several doctors, but the main two are Maya and Alex. Maya works in the Arizona Public Health Department while seeing patients at the clinic on Thursdays. Alex works at the clinic, which also has a number of resident interns, and it seems that something odd is going on at the clinic.

This is not a fast-paced book, it is more of a day-to-day reveal, with the doctors going about their routine. Maya lives on her family ranch, with an elderly horse, visiting her folks on Sundays a few hours away.
The heat of the place is almost a character of itself, mentioned frequently. Along with other safety concerns that doctors, particularly those in public health try to protect the citizens. Some of Maya’s keen interests in trying to get a helmet law passed.

The book grew on me, although the writing style was one I had to get used to. This is not a particularly long novel, but it almost asks you to sit with it for a while, to embrace the slower pace.

Great book for anyone with an interest into doctor’s lives.