The Queen of Hearts(103)

To put this in context, I am a huge book nerd: I read in the bathtub, in bed, while eating, and instead of cleaning the house. (If you’re looking for a great read, check out kimmerymartin.com, which is chock-full of book recommendations). Sometimes I read instead of remembering meetings and carpools, which means I’m constantly yelping in dismay as I rush out the door with my clothes on inside out. A lifelong information junkie, I read all genres, from women’s fiction to thrillers to biographies to dense science texts. But I’d never written anything, aside from the occasional medical research paper. It turns out that authoring a book is just as consuming as medicine. Sometimes I’d have to screech over to the side of the road to write something down before I forgot it, or I’d solve (or create) problems for Zadie and Emma in my dreams. They never left me alone. And as my characters became more real and more compelling to me, I began to realize how incredibly lucky I am to have stumbled into the two fields—literature and medicine—that perhaps more than any others bear witness to life in all its anguish and glory.

Kimmery





Acknowledgments


To address the most urgent question of my early readers: nobody in this book is real. Well, maybe one character was a tiny bit inspired by a real person but, as of today, this person is a forty-pound illiterate, so any fallout should be in the distant future. Along the same lines, if you are one of those people who insist all fiction is autobiographical, please skip chapters nine, fourteen, and eighteen. Also skip these chapters if you are my mother.

The publication of this book is a testament to many supportive friends, especially Jodi Frazier, Sameena Evers, and Nicole Carrig; thanks also to Billy Cohen, who is a living confirmation of the powers of CPR. My earliest beta readers displayed grace beyond all reason in making it through to the end, especially Katherine Vest, Melanie Piasecki, Rawles Kelly, Ainslie Wall, RaeAnn Doran, and Beverly Edens. The same goes for Jennifer Freno and Heather Burkhart—my beloveds—upon whom the burden of listening to me babble about my book fell most heavily. And no acknowledgment in a book about med school friends would be complete without loving on these people: Jill Howell Berg, Christina Terrell, Whitney Arnette Jamie, Kelli Miller, Kristin Rager, and Casey Dutton-Triplett. I will cherish you for all eternity.

To the trauma surgeons and cardiologists of the world, especially Jamie Coleman, Jennifer Co-Vu, Cindy Wright, Amanda Cook, and the incomparable Will Miles: the rest of us owe you our fervent gratitude. I took some creative license with medical facts here and there; beyond that, any mistakes are my own. Also, of course, physicians in real life are not quite as dramatic and amorous as I’ve portrayed them, but that would have made for a boring book. Apologies to all my doctor friends.

I’m indebted to many literary people: the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation, WFWA, PMG Writers, Kim Wright, Marybeth Whalen, my dazzling online writer group (Lisa Duffy, Lisa Roe, Kristin Contino, and Leah Collum), and my equally dazzling in-person writer group (Lisa Kline, Emily Pearce, and Betsy Thorpe), and all my marvelous author friends. A million thanks to Betsy for being the finest independent editor ever. And as for my third writing group—Trish Rohr, Bess Kercher, Tracy Curtis—words can’t express what you mean to me.

Thanks so much to Miriam Goderich for fishing me out of the slush pile, and to my fascinating, feisty, brilliant agent, Jane Dystel. And to Kerry Donovan, my editor at Berkley, who is both excellent and endearing. Thank you to the entire team at Berkley, especially Colleen Reinhart for her stunning cover art and Lauren Burnstein and Tara O’Connor in publicity and Fareeda Bullert in marketing.

I enjoyed the immeasurable blessing of a childhood home infused with love, integrity, and a staggering number of books, and for this, I thank my mom and dad. To my sister, Shannan Rome, I’m grateful for your sharp but delightfully uncritical eye. To my children, Katie, Alex, and Annie: you motivate me daily with your irrepressible joie de vivre. Both my book and my life would be bleak without you.

And finally, I should amend the disclaimer I made earlier to acknowledge my real-life chief resident—my husband—who might have been the inspiration for the desirable features of a certain character. Jim, I love you.