As a newly minted family medicine doctor, Aubrey Lane can’t wait to leave the toughest days of her training behind her. She’s worked nights, weekends, and holidays, only to watch her twenties go by in a blur. She’s ready for a vacation.
But just as she’s about to walk out of the hospital for the last time, she receives some devastating news: her father is dead. The circumstances are mysterious, the cause unknown. Was it a heart attack? A strange illness? Her mother won’t give her any details, but her message is clear: You need to come home.
Something strange is happening in the Great North Woods of Maine. But even as Aubrey tries to cope with her own grief and confusion, she knows that her tiny village has just lost its only doctor. And she may be their only hope.
Thanks to Reedsy Discovery for this review copy!
The Doctor of the Great North Woods by Sawyer Hall is a fast-paced medical thriller that takes place in the eerie, sparsely occupied town of Callihax, Maine. Dr. Aubrey Lane, who lives in California, has just finished her residency when she receives word that her father, who was the town’s only physician, has died. She flies back to her hometown and quickly discovers that her father’s death may have been the result of foul play. She is forced to confront her demons: the relationship between her and the town’s 431 tight-knit residents, as well as her relationship with her long-ago first love, Luke Ainsley. Aubrey is unsure who she can trust and she soon finds herself in mortal danger as she delves deeper into the circumstances of her father’s death.
I would consider this a medical thriller “light”, that is, very minimal gore and medical talk and heavy on the personal relationships between Aubrey and her mother, Luke, Sheriff Jim Ranson, replacement doctor Sheldon Kline, and other colorful town characters. There is also a curious relationship between Aubrey and the Great North Woods themselves, which adds another layer of suspense to the story. Here’s a paragraph describing Aubrey’s drive to Callihax:
An hour outside of Bangor, the signs of suburbia began to fade. ….Then came the perverse sense of abandonment: rusted signs and toppled garbage cans. Mailboxes with chipped paint, no numbers. Side roads that deteriorated into gravel, then dirt, then shadows. I passed campsites with weeded parking lots and hotels with punched-out windows. And woods. Millions upon millions of woods. There was something terrifyingly claustrophobic about all those woods.
Aubrey’s reluctance to trust others is a main plot point. She comes across as a sympathetic character, lacking in self-esteem, with no choice but to defer to the overbearing personality of the experienced Dr Kline. His character is arrogant, pompous, and thoroughly unlikeable. Every time he treated Aubrey like a lackey, I cringed and wished she had more of a backbone.
Aubrey is also reluctant to explore the emotions she feels whenever she is around ex-love Luke, not wanting to revisit the reasons behind their breakup 12 years ago. The tension between them is obvious from the start and the author develops this plot point well, not making it overly sexual or saccharine.
I vacillated between trusting/not trusting Luke, as I was not sure what his motives were. He seemed to be a one-dimensional character for part of the book, then as the story progressed he developed more into a multi-layered person.
The author’s writing style is easy to fall into, and the plot grabbed me right away and kept me interested all throughout. As Aubrey is learning more about her father’s medical practice, she discovers that last summer four boys died of a mysterious disease. Her father worked intently to save the boys and learn more about the disease but was constrained by the town’s remoteness and lack of emergency services. Aubrey’s amateur detective work puts her in the crosshairs of a mysterious person who is intent on stopping her before she finds out the truth.
Towards the end of the book, there are a few plot twists that I didn’t see coming. This ramped up my already piqued interest and kept me racing through the book, as I was quite eager to see how things would all turn out. The ending was easily believed and I felt there were no loose ends.
Aubrey is quite an interesting character, and I would love to see this turn into a series. I can picture her bonding with the town’s residents, trying to come to terms with the Great North Woods, and perhaps solving another mystery or two.
This story reminded me of the Timber Creek series written by Margaret Mizushima. Her stories take place in the Colorado high country, and the setting really adds to the plot. The author brings Timber Creek to the forefront of the stories using picturesque language and thorough descriptions of the rugged land. In each book, Deputy Mattie Cobb and her K-9 partner, Robo are called upon to solve mysteries and keep the townsfolk safe. Mizushima works at her husband’s veterinary clinic when not writing, and she truly brings the K-9 Robo to life, describing each nose twitch and growl realistically. If you have not read any of her books, I highly recommend you check them out.
I give this book 4 stars, as I felt a real connection to the characters and was invested in how the author would bring this story to a close. I was left both satisfied with the ending yet wanting to read more, hence my thoughts about a series. Sawyer Hall has written other books, and I headed over to Amazon to grab a copy of Playing God. Hopefully it will be as good as this one!
You can pick up your copy here.
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