Book Review and Giveaway: Side Effects are Minimal, by Laura Essay {ends 12/26}

Guest review by: Becki Bayley

“This is not everything.” Landon Sims slapped the test results onto the high lab table in front of Phil.

“What do you mean it’s not everything? Do you realize who I am?” Phil gazed over the rim of his readers. 

“We all do, Dr. Westcott. That’s why I expected a hell of a lot more.”

“I began this research when you were still in diapers.” Phil jumped from the chair as his cheeks flushed. “I traveled to the poppy farms of Turkey and blistered my hands so that others might know the pain relief of morphine. I made sacrifices of biblical nature.”

Phil held out the palms of his hands in the same manner as seen in depictions of Jesus Christ. Landon threw his sport coat on the chair in response to the absurd display. Phil’s vanity had risen to a new height.

Claire Hewitt is determined to prove that a teen’s opioid overdose death is not because of choices made by the teen or her family. Her passion to prove her point is driven by more than her client’s story.

Official synopsis:

When ambitious attorney Claire Hewitt is asked to represent the Satoris, one of Philadelphia’s most prominent families, in a lawsuit over the death of their daughter, she is thrust into an opioid nightmare with deadly impact—and not for the first time. Claire’s guilt for not saving her sister, Molly, has not subsided in the twenty years since Molly’s almost certainly opioid-related death. Now, with this new assignment, her guilt comes full circle. Who was really at fault in Molly’s death? And who is at fault now?

What begins as a quest for truth becomes infinitely more complicated as Claire struggles to balance her desire for justice with the Satoris’ thirst for revenge. She knows she needs to expose the greed that transforms legal opioid production into illicit fabrications and the neglect that is the breaking point between physicians and their patients. But there are powerful people who will seemingly stop at nothing to prevent these truths from seeing the light of day, and she is sabotaged at every turn. Can she push past the obstacles in her way to build a winning case?

As the newest partner—and a woman—at the law firm, Claire needs to win a major case for a prominent Philadelphia family. What no one else knows is that Claire has essentially been in their shoes. Claire and the attorney assisting her, Alex, need to prove that the death of the Satoris’ daughter is caused by the pharmaceutical company and doctors prescribing opioids to win the case, and maybe help to finally ease some of Claire’s guilt over her sister’s death decades earlier.

The case seems obvious to Claire and the newer attorney assisting her, but soon adjacent crimes begin occurring that warn Claire and Alex that there may be parties with a lot at stake who need their case to lose, or not even make it to court.

The author’s notes at the end of the book about their research regarding the opioid epidemic also contributed to the impact of the story. While the characters were fictional, the drug and court parts of the book could very well be real. The novel earned 5 out of 5 stars and gave an excellent depiction of full-bodied characters and a real crisis. The book could be easily recommended to those who enjoy contemporary fiction and hard-hitting medical stories about realistic situations. 

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Becki Bayley is a wife and mother to two theatre kids. She enjoys hanging out with friends and family, and learning about the experiences of others. See more of what she’s up to on Instagram, where she posts as SweetlyBSquared.

GIVEAWAY:

One of my lucky readers will win a copy of Side Effects are Minimal!

Enter via the widget below. Giveaway will end on Thursday, December 26th, at 11:59pm ET, and winner will be notified via email the next day and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner will be chosen.

U.S. residents only, please.

Good luck!

Side Effects are Minimal, by Laura Essay