The inspiration for The Next Widow came from what is any ER doctor’s worst nightmare: having absolutely no control over the fate of a loved one.

When my niece was born, I diagnosed her with a life-threatening heart condition, which enabled her to start treatment before she was even a few hours old. I watched her grow and thrive, refusing to allow her condition to hold her back, and she became a gorgeous young woman attending university.

Until the night when she died… for nine minutes. Thankfully, two nursing students began CPR immediately and the ER team who treated her refused to give up. Her parents and I rushed to the ICU where she was in a coma, unsure—if she ever woke up—how much of the “old” her would remain intact.

Those of us drawn to emergency medicine tend to be control freaks (and proud of it, LOL!) During those long, empty hours of not knowing my niece’s fate, standing helpless, powerless by her side, my imagination couldn’t help but travel down some dark and twisted paths, wondering… what if?

What if an ER doctor saved the wrong patient? What if this led to someone’s death? What if a loved one sought revenge by taking control in every possible way, body-mind-soul, orchestrating a living hell for the doctor and the patient she saved?

Thankfully, my niece not only recovered, she’s stronger and more fearless than ever before, back at her studies (and on the Dean’s list despite the time lost from her hospitalization and recovery!) and doing great.

And, of course, being a thriller writer, I used all those nightmare ideas conjured at her bedside to create The Next Widow. It’s one of the darkest, edgiest stories I’ve tackled, drawing from cutting-edge medical research and delving into the depths of the human soul.

Thanks for reading!

CJ Lyons has lived most of her life on the edge. New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over forty novels, former pediatric ER doctor CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge Thrillers with Heart. CJ has been called a “master within the genre” (Pittsburgh Magazine) and her work has been praised as “breathtakingly fast-paced” and “riveting” (Publishers Weekly) with “characters with beating hearts and three dimensions” (Newsday). She has assisted police and prosecutors with cases involving child abuse, rape, homicide and Munchausen by Proxy. She has worked in numerous trauma centers, on the Navajo reservation, as a crisis counselor, victim advocate, as well as a flight physician for Life Flight and Stat Medevac. A story-teller all her life, CJ has always created stories about people discovering the courage to make a difference. This led her to coin the term: Thrillers with Heart. CJ has taught numerous live and online workshops as well as given keynote speeches to audiences around the world, including: The London Book Fair, The Frankfurt Book Fair, Mystery Writers of America’s Sleuthfest, RWA, Romantic Times, Oklahoma Writer Federation, Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and PennWriters among others. She was also the conference chairperson for the highly successful inaugural ITW ThrillerFest. Her novels have twice won the International Thriller Writers prestigious Thriller Award, the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award, Golden Gateway, Readers’ Choice Award, the RT Seal of Excellence, and Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery and Suspense.