“CJ Lyons delivers a breathtakingly, fast-paced medical thriller.”—Publishers Weekly

MEDICAL DRAMA FROM CJ LYONS, MD

Success Follows Former ER Doctor-Turned-Mystery Author

“CJ Lyons knows her medicine–and she knows how to bring it to vivid life on the page.” That’s how best-selling author Tess Gerritsen describes the work of CJ Lyons, MD, and her break-through debut medical drama, LIFELINES (Penguin/Berkley, $7.99 mass paperback) to be released in early March.

A resident of Hilton Head, South Carolina Lyons is an experienced pediatric emergency room doctor who boldly traded her stethoscope for a writing career. She successfully delivers with a gripping, behind-scenes-drama of four women–an ER nurse, emergency medicine resident, medical student, and attending physician–dealing with life and death situations in Pittsburgh’s Angel of Mercy Medical Center. In this page-turning novel they will learn to depend on each other.

Lyons’ gift as a wordsmith is in writing a medical drama with the authenticity of a doctor while maintaining an emergency room pace. LIFELINES will attract readers of drama, women’s fiction, medical suspense and romance with a strong blend of tension, death and love interests.

“The bonds these women form surpass mere friendships,” said Lyons. “These people intersect as they meet challenges of saving lives, finding love and, regardless of their differences, develop friendships–meanwhile they also have secrets to protect. They become Lifelines to each other.

“I do use real cases, some are mine and some from colleagues,” explained Lyons. “I actually have had to dilute the real life cases in order to make them believable.”

Raised in State College, PA., Lyons did her undergraduate at University of North Carolina-Greensboro and attended medical school at the University of Florida. She did her internship and residency at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

Unofficially Lyons was earning a degree in writing medical drama. “Penguin Berkley told me they wanted something new that they weren’t seeing in current books–a series that focused on the behind-the-scenes life of a medical center,” Lyons recalled. “Having worked at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, I decided to make the city and a fictitious hospital the backdrop for the book.”

Best-selling author Lisa Gardner says LIFELINES “reminds me of ER back in the days of George Clooney and Julianna Margulies.” Noted author David Morrell added: “It takes a real emergency physician to write this excitingly about an emergency ward.”

Lyons has heard it called “ER meets Grey’s Anatomy.”
“Hopefully all this flattering praise means I touch readers in some way through the range of characters I’ve developed,” said Lyons. “I want readers to identify with someone or some issue in the book. To understand that it’s not medicine that saves lives but people.”

Media contact:
Tom Robinson
Tcr811@aol.com
615-794-2998