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Inspired by the life of Doctor Maude Elizabeth Seymour Abbott, The Heart Specialist is the story of a woman pursuing her dream at the dawn of the twentieth century. Stripped of a regular childhood when her father is accused of a horrific crime and abandons the family, Agnes was never considered ladylike. She is drawn to the wrong things, such as anatomy and dissection, which lead to her calling as a doctor. Yet despite a rapid rise to stardom in the medical community, she finds herself up against the same glass ceiling faced by women in her field.
Set against the backdrop of conflict and upheaval permeating the early 1900s, The Heart Specialist is the story of one woman's triumph in the face of adversity.
About this Author
Claire Holden Rothman is a writer and translator. Her work on Le chercheur de trsors won her the 1994 John Glassco Translation Award. She has a BA in philosophy from McGill and a MA in English Literature from Concordia University, and has taught English at Marianoplis College and creative writing at McGill University. Claire lives in Montreal.
Reviews
"The novel is ably researched and written, with never an ungraceful sentence."
"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."
"A wonderfully captivating novel."
"The Heart Specialist offers something for nearly everyone. Students of Canadian history, particularly Canadian medical history, will enjoy the work's careful and lifelike detail. Montrealers will delight in the atmosphere of turn-of-the-century Montreal, which is a palpable presence throughout the book. Yet others will be drawn to the depiction of a pioneering woman's struggle. Mystery lovers will revel in the slowly unveiled secrets, and romantics will discover at least a little of the stuff of dreams. Some will find the best thing of all: a book we look forward to turning the pages of, remembering where we last left off."
"The Heart Specialist is a fascinating novel that conveys both a sense of history and of the timelessness of human emotions. That Rothman also demonstrates the damage that prejudice can do, and the power of the human spirit in overcoming it, is simply an added bonus."
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