Sweeping us from plague-ravaged Europe to the terrifying near future, acclaimed author Ann Benson brings two eras brilliantly to life. The Physician’s Tale is a spellbinding saga of two healers separated by six centuries, both facing terror and trials, bound together by history, science, and destiny. In the near future, in the hills of the American Northeast, a group of men, women, and children band together for survival against nature and human enemies, huddling in the only corner of the world they know. Among these people is Janie Crowe, a physician whose son is her greatest hope and deepest secret. Etched into Janie’s memory is the ancient journal of a Jewish man of medicine–a man who fought for survival in his own age of plague. In Europe, in the age of the Black Death, Alejandro Canches must hide his identity–and break his oath as a physician for the sake of his and his loved ones’ lives. As France and England are locked in war, and disease lays waste to both, Alejandro’s daughter Kate is caught in the clutches of King Edward of England. Betrayed by a patient, hunted by the king, Alejandro makes a desperate journey to Windsor itself, where a clever scribe named Geoffrey Chaucer has hatched a fantastic plan for Kate’s escape.... As the story of Alejandro and his family builds to a gripping climax, and as Janie’s life is racked by trials and the dawning of a new age, The Physician’s Tale brings together a rich cast of friends and lovers, traitors and healers. Unraveling mysteries of science, history, and the human heart, Ann Benson has created a stunning chronicle of courage in the face of darkness–in a work of vibrant storytelling and unrelenting suspense.

“Part historical novel, part futuristic adventure . . . chock full of curious lore and considerable suspense.”—Entertainment Weekly It is history's most feared disease. It turned neighbor against neighbor, the civilized into the savage, and the living into the dead. Now, in a spellbinding novel of adventure and science, romance and terror, two eras are joined by a single trace of microscopic bacterium—the invisible seeds of a new bubonic plague. In the year 1348, a disgraced Spanish physician crosses a landscape of horrors to Avignon, France. There, he will be sent on an impossible mission to England, to save the royal family from the Black Death. . . . Nearly seven hundred years later, a woman scientist digs up a clod of earth in London. In a world where medicine is tightly controlled, she will unearth a terror lying dormant for centuries. From the primitive cures of the Middle Ages to the biological police state of our near future, The Plague Tales is a thrilling race against time and mass destruction. For in 2005, humankind's last hope for survival can come only from one place: out of a dark and tortured past. Praise for The Plague Tales “Benson reveals a formidable talent as she blends historical fiction with a near-future bio-thriller.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Harrowing . . . Will give readers both nightmares and thrills . . . A carefully woven page-turner from which . . . Robin Cook and Michael Crichton could learn.”—Library Journal “A hard-to-put-down thriller steeped in historical fiction and bio-tech sci-fi.”—Middlesex News (Mass.)

From the bestselling author of The Plague Tales comes a spellbinding new novel that sweeps from medieval France to America in the year 2007—interweaving two gripping stories and two extraordinary eras.... In fourteenth-century France, pockets of plague still bring death to peasants and noblemen alike. Amid the fury and the chaos, Dr. Alejandro Canches searches for a safe haven, accompanied by his foster child, Kate—the illegitimate daughter of Edward Plantagenet. But both disease and human enemies pursue them, and their only hope for survival is a rebel leader... and medical secrets that lie hidden in an ancient manuscript. Seven hundred years later, Dr. Janie Crowe is searching for the cure for a crippling disease in a world where genetic engineering has gone mad. A repressive government wants to stop her, unnamed benefactors want to help her, and time is running out to find answers linking two dark eras, two dedicated doctors, and one miraculous book....

An orphan leaves Dark Ages London to study medicine in Persia in this “rich” and “vivid” historical novel from a New York Times–bestselling author (The New York Times). A child holds the hand of his dying mother and is terrified, aware something is taking her. Orphaned and given to an itinerant barber-surgeon, Rob Cole becomes a fast-talking swindler, peddling a worthless medicine. But as he matures, his strange gift—an acute sensitivity to impending death—never leaves him, and he yearns to become a healer. Arab madrassas are the only authentic medical schools, and he makes his perilous way to Persia. Christians are barred from Muslim schools, but claiming he is a Jew, he studies under the world’s most renowned physician, Avicenna. How the woman who is his great love struggles against her only rival—medicine—makes a riveting modern classic. The Physician is the first book in New York Times–bestselling author Noah Gordon’s Dr. Robert Cole trilogy, which continues with Shaman and concludes with Matters of Choice.

Abraham Nevski is a dedicated and eccentric professor of medicine at the Royal Prince John Hospital. He prides himself on his diagnostic skills and powers of reasoning. On returning to work after a break he becomes aware of disturbing changes taking place in the hospital. A series of suspicious deaths then throws his world into confusion. Nevski’s inner turmoil grows and he has to confront the dangers that close in around him. Riding a Crocodile is both an insider’s account of life in a major teaching hospital and a chilling detective story, exploring life and death issues of urgent contemporary relevance.

A searing, beautifully told memoir by a Native American doctor on the trials of being a doctor-soldier in the Iraq War, and then, after suffering a stroke that left his life irrevocably changed, his struggles to overcome the new limits of his body, mind, and identity. Every juncture in Jon Kerstetter’s life has been marked by a crossing from one world into another: from civilian to doctor to soldier; between healing and waging war; and between compassion and hatred of the enemy. When an injury led to a stroke that ended his careers as a doctor and a soldier, he faced the most difficult crossing of all, a recovery that proved as shattering as war itself. Crossings is a memoir of an improbable, powerfully drawn life, one that began in poverty on the Oneida Reservation in Wisconsin but grew by force of will to encompass a remarkable medical practice. Trained as an emergency physician, Kerstetter’s thirst for intensity led him to volunteer in war-torn Rwanda, Kosovo, and Bosnia, and to join the Army National Guard. His three tours in the Iraq War marked the height of the American struggle there. The story of his work in theater, which involved everything from saving soldiers’ lives to organizing the joint U.S.–Iraqi forensics team tasked with identifying the bodies of Saddam Hussein’s sons, is a bracing, unprecedented evocation of a doctor’s life at war. But war was only the start of Kerstetter’s struggle. The stroke he suffered upon returning from Iraq led to serious cognitive and physical disabilities. His years-long recovery, impeded by near-unbearable pain and complicated by PTSD, meant overcoming the perceived limits of his body and mind and reimagining his own capacity for renewal and change. It led him not only to writing as a vocation but to a deeper understanding of how healing means accepting a new identity, and how that acceptance must be fought for with as much tenacity as any battlefield victory.

"A fascinating and admirable history. The detailed and descriptive chapters in this book create entire cultural worlds for readers to learn from, enjoy, and remember." -Chitra Divakaruni, international award-winning and bestselling author, Houston, TX.*** “An inspiring story, a wonderful saga of a migrant in America.” —Tom Reid, Mayor of Pearland, TX.*** “An engaging memoir of a doctor, an Indian American.” —Aseem Chhabra, columnist for India Abroad, NY.*** “Provides an interesting reading of a diasporic longing for home.” —Professor Sanoo Master, writer, critic, humanist, Kerala, India.*** “Unbelievable…interesting and fascinating reading.” —Padma Shri Dr. Vyjayanthimala Bali, dancer, actress, former MP, Chennai, India.*** “Remarkable journey from his native land of India to America.” —John K. Graham, MD, D. Min, President/CEO, ISH., Houston, TX.*** “Enjoyable and authentic descriptions; touching; impressive.” —Padma Vibhushan, professor, physicist, Dr. E.C.G. Sudarshan, Austin, TX.***

Poet and diplomat Geoffrey Chaucer, newly returned from a delicate mission to Florence on behalf of Edward III, is despatched to sort out a home-grown problem in the Devon seaport of Dartmouth. Geoffrey must leave his family in London and travel west, expecting to solve the theft of the cargo of a Genoese ship with comparative ease. Chaucer and his companions are lodging with a wealthy doctor of physic in his fine house overlooking the water. But there is deep hostility in the port town between citizens and sailors -- accusations and daggers fly. There are tensions in the house as well, and murder occurs soon after their arrival when one of the occupants is done to death in the herb garden. Geoffrey investigates the death and its possible connection to the theft. Meanwhile, Philippa Chaucer, staying in the Palace of Savoy, is warned of a conspiracy against Katherine -- her sister and the mistress to John of Gaunt, now the most powerful man in England after the king. Philippa once saved Katherine's life during an outbreak of plague when they were children. Will she again be called on to protect her sister from her equally dangerous enemies at court?