And for someone like Willow, the toll it can take is hundred times worse in comparison to someone who does not suffer from a mental illness. Trying to hide all of that, putting all of her effort into being “normal”, or acting as such takes its toll. Willow had always known that there was something different about her, something a little bit off. Willow’s story is just as tragic, having being diagnosed with clinical depression at the age of fourteen. However, life has a way of throwing one for a loop, and that is exactly what happens when Simon, against all his misgivings, against all reason and rhyme, takes that plunge into the unknown. Simon has no intention of being roped into the same situation, which is where he would end up if he were to give into his feelings for Willow. Simon carries a lot of pent of up emotions within him, anger too if you ask me, mostly owing to his childhood and the trauma of having watched his mother struggle with mental illness all her life. No one else notices just how much you too are in need of reciprocation of the TLC you give out in abundance.

Perhaps that is one of the residual effects of being one.

Simon is the proverbial definition of a fixer and a lonely one at that. The connection that is between Simon and Willow is almost a physically palpable one, and it is hard not to be affected by everything, and I mean, every single thing that happens between the two. The taboo factor alone is enough to drive up the reader’s emotions, and the artful way in which Saffron brings in the heat is enough to take the reader from zero to hundred in just the blink of an eye. Simon might act like he does not care, but as the story delves deeper into the lives of Simon and Willow, the picture that emerges is one that is as heady as it is angst-ridden. From the moment Willow meets the 33 year old Simon, who should rightfully be a man out of bounds for a patient at the facility, not to mention the 15 year age gap, there is no denying the way she yearns and wishes to make him take notice of her existence. Simon Blackwood, the son of the founder of the hospital. Medicine Man begins with 18 year old Willow Audrey Taylor, institutionalized at the Heartstone Psychiatric Hospital for four weeks, where she meets Dr. Can you hear my soul weeping because there are no more books I can get my hands on when it comes to her?

It is classic Saffron Kent, as I have come to find, having gone through her entire back-list of books available. It is unique in the way it is told, the way the story unfolds, and the way that the characters demand nothing less, but all that you have to give. Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Medicine man by saffron a kent