In Brain Damage by Freida McFadden (The Divorce; The Tenant), Charly McKenna is thriving professionally and personally. Rewarding work as a successful dermatologist, a luxury apartment overlooking Central Park, and a loving cat compose her picture-perfect life. When a handsome patient asks her on a date, Charly is wholly uninterested in adding something new to her hard-earned and well-curated lifestyle. But his undeniable charm, good looks, and persistence eventually win out, resulting in a whirlwind romance and marriage, and Charly's life appears to only get better. Then she is shot in the head. Unable to remember who tried to kill her and why, Charly's slow and unsteady rehabilitation holds the perfect amount of suspicion and suspense.
As Charly relearns who she is and how to function in her new, distorted reality, unsettling memories slowly return, forming a tension-filled psychological thriller. Her perfect-on-paper and out-of-her-league husband has a multitude of secrets; a patient is seemingly stalking her; and a former patient's ex-husband blames Charly for his divorce. McFadden skillfully builds anticipation while Charly recovers in a rehabilitation center with almost no visits from her husband and a growing conviction that someone close to her pulled the trigger.
McFadden also highlights Charly's genuine connections with the other patients at the center and how she finds humor and strength through them. McFadden's expertise as a physician specializing in brain injuries, well-known wit, and masterful grasp of heart-pounding twists are in full effect in the exhilarating Brain Damage. --Clara Newton, freelance reviewer