In the times in which we live, life can change in a matter
of minutes. One minute you can be at the top of your game,
and the next, wiped out and starting over.
For Addison Boehning, a cancer research biochemist, and his
wife Claire, circumstances that seemed beyond their control
have caused their castle to come crumbling down. After
losing their comfortable palatial home in Seattle, Claire
and her teenage daughter, Jory, are forced to move to their
small ranch in Eastern Washington; while Addison scrambles
to resurrect his shattered career and reputation.
While Addison continues to try and find backers to finance
and restart the drug trials for a possible cure for
cancer, Claire and Jory struggle with the challenges of
surviving in a way they are not accustomed to.
With money tight, Claire attempts to restart her
medical career; a life she left behind fourteen years
earlier to stay at home with her prematurely born
daughter. After being turned away from every hospital and
clinic in the small town of Hallum, Claire is finally
offered a job at a public health clinic that caters to the
immigrant population who work the orchards around Hallum. As
she struggles to remember the skills that once came easily
to her, Claire meets Miguela, an immigrant from Nicaragua on
a mission to uncover a terrible secret; a secret that could
once again destroy Claire's family's hopes and dreams.
In her second novel, HEALER, Carol Cassella draws
upon her own medical background to lend credence to the
fast-paced, emotionally moving story of family
relationships and sacrifices. It is easy to admire
Cassella's depiction of the strength of her characters
Claire and Miguela, both mothers trying to do their best
for their daughters. It is equally easy to be
disgusted by the actions and selfishness of Addison and
Jory, who seem concerned only with getting their worldly
possessions back. Cassella's creative storytelling makes
HEALER a novel that is a pleasure to read.
From national bestselling author Carol Cassella comes the
story of one doctor’s struggle to hold her family together
through a storm of broken trust and questioned
ethics.
Claire is at the start of her medical career when
she falls in love with Addison Boehning, a biochemist with
blazing genius and big dreams. A complicated pregnancy
deflects Claire’s professional path, and she is forced to
drop out of her residency. Soon thereafter Addison invents a
simple blood test for ovarian cancer, and his biotech
start-up lands a fortune. Overnight the Boehnings are
catapulted into a financial and social tier they had never
anticipated or sought: they move into a gracious Seattle
home and buy an old ranch in the high desert mountains of
eastern Washington, and Claire drifts away from medicine to
become a full-time wife and mother. Then Addison gambles
everything on a cutting-edge cancer drug, and when the
studies go awry, their comfortable life is swept away.
Claire and her daughter, Jory, move to a dilapidated ranch
house in rural Hallum, where Claire has to find a job until
Addison can salvage his discredited lab. Her only offer for
employment comes from a struggling public health clinic, but
Claire gets more than a second chance at medicine when she
meets Miguela, a bright Nicaraguan immigrant and orphan of
the contra war who has come to the United States on a secret
quest to find the family she has lost. As their friendship
develops, a new mystery unfolds that threatens to destroy
Claire’s family and forces her to question what it truly
means to heal.
Healer exposes the
vulnerabilities of the American family, provoking questions
of choice versus fate, desire versus need, and the
duplicitous power of money.
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