The Graceview Patient

A hospital patient grows increasingly suspicious that the motives of her caretakers are far from benevolent in this suspenseful tale of medical horror from Starling (The Starving Saints). Twenty-six-year-old Meg Culpepper, who has a debilitating autoimmune disorder called Fayette-Gehret syndrome, agrees to a pharmaceutical company’s offer of an all-expenses-paid experimental treatment dubbed SWAIL that promises to “rebuild” her “confused immune system.” Isolated in a special ward at the hospital, Meg acquiesces to a protocol of restrictions and medicinal infusions that puzzle her but raise no alarms—until she discovers that the death of a fellow patient in the same treatment program has been kept from her by hospital personnel. Meg’s frustration at her bewildering circumstances quickly curdles into the paranoid suspicion that she is being held prisoner by sinister forces with malevolent intentions. Starling expertly immerses the reader in Meg’s anxiety, showing how even the most routine experiences during a hospital stay become cause for concern to her unsettled mind. The novel’s horrors are all the more palpable for tapping into the squeamishness that many feel toward medical care. Readers are sure to be frightened. (Oct.)