The Heart Specialist

"Told with precision, grace, and passion, The Heart Specialist is a beautiful, moving, utterly captivating novel about a woman who becomes one of Montreal's first female doctors. The writing is striking, the emotion immediate, the medical detail fascinating and the story compelling from the first page to the last. Claire Holden Rothman deserves a wide audience for this astounding literary achievement."—Lawrence Hill, author of Someone Knows My Name

"I can pay a book no higher compliment than to say I didn't want it to end. With The Heart Specialist, I rationed my reading, permitting myself only a few chapters at a sitting so as to savour the writing and the story."—Montreal Gazette

"[A]bly researched and written, with never an ungraceful sentence."—TorontoGlobe and Mail

“Rothman has provided insight and perhaps gratitude in readers for those who paved the way.”—Cleveland Plain-Dealer

“Quietly captivating, the tone of The Heart Specialist is reminiscent of English classics like Jane Eyre ... a tale of persistence, of dreams realized and dashed—it delivers on soft cat feet, and leaves one feeling satisfied and contemplative.”—Missourian

“Brilliant first novel ... Rothman’s heartbreaking portrait of this trailblazer will long linger with the reader.”—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"Based on the life of one of Canada's pioneering female physicians, Rothman's novel paints an arresting portrait of an indomitable yet vulnerable young woman."—Booklist

“An epic that effortlessly navigates both complex medical concepts and the most basic human emotions…The Heart Specialist is a feminist-toned historical narrative that’s refreshingly unsentimental.”—BUSTMagazine

“Rothman clearly admires this early feminist pioneer, who overcomes tremendous male prejudice to establish a distinguished career in her own right.”—Kirkus Reviews



From the Hardcover edition.