Told from 3 perspectives over 2 timelines makes this be of those books you just cannot put down. I’m sad I read it so fast! I loved the story and the characters and how they all became very real as the book went along. Set in the medical world it was really interesting too. Moral is the buzz word in this book!

Thank you Orion Publishing Group and Netgalley.
I loved this book.
A really well written book with so many twists and turns and a brilliant storyline at the centre of everything.
I didn't want to put this down.
More please.

A very interesting medical thriller, masterfully executed by somebody from the inside of the medical profession.
The blend of genres and diverse characters keeps you reading.
It's drama mixed with trauma at its best.
Really enjoyed this book and will read more from this author.

Olivia, Laura and Anjali have been best friends since medical school. They supported each other through years of gruelling training, qualified together and raised their children from babies to teenagers in one big extended family. The three women can't imagine their lives ever not being intertwined. But there's another reason they've clung so fast together for twenty-five years - a secret which could destroy everything they've worked for if it got out.

Author Christie Watson is a former nurse and she writes a world of surgeries, clinics, intensive care wards and medi-vacs with an authority and conviction that comes from years of working in different specialisms. Her prose brings the various hospital departments to life with a plethora of minute but specific details, and she deftly handles medical jargon in a way that feels organic and easy to follow for the lay reader.

However, the author's voice at times feels condescending - quick to sneer at patients and their family members (worried mothers pushing prams with overdressed babies with inevitable fevers, for example, along with heart surgery patients whose lifestyle has caused their illness) and some scenes are akin to body horror in their graphic descriptions of operations and field medicine. I can stomach one description of a patient's ribs cracking during chest compressions, but by the third time it just felt gratuitous. Other scenes meander into irrelevant or overly detailed descriptions of equipment which seem to be included solely to show off the author's first hand knowledge; did it really serve the plot to spend a paragraph comparing the pros and cons of different methods of measuring blood pressure?

The author enjoys a grand proclamation about the nature of medicine, at one point comparing nurses to both artists and scientists, and even the title is a reference to what she feels is a central conflict for healthcare professionals. At times though, her sweeping observations contradict itself, such as when she seems to oscillates between the conviction that it is better to think of patients as a collection of body parts and the equally fervent assertion that one should never lose sight of patients' humanity.

The writing is underwhelming generally, often resorting to clichés (I counted at least three uses of putting two and two together and getting a number that wasn't four, and two of them were in the same paragraph!) and riddled with continuity errors (such as Olivia's drink switching from coffee to tea and back again within a brief conversation with Anjali) and incorrectly used words ('embellished' instead of 'embezzled' for example). I was also troubled by the author's parent-centric portrayal of adoption in Anjali's storyline; the thought of two characters gleefully celebrating a toddler whose life has deteriorated so much that she has to be removed from her biological parents left a really sour taste.

I found the discourse on the ethics of medicine, particularly in an age where knowledge, techniques and equipment have been developed to a point where it is possible to sustain life indefinitely in many cases, very interesting: the conflict for doctors between knowing that you could do something for a patient and whether you should. This thread elevated the plot about the young boy in intensive care beyond the main purpose it served in the story, and also tied the medical and non-medical narratives together nicely with discussion about when it is better to lie than to tell the truth. Laura's storyline was by far the most compelling for me, as she grapples with choosing between what is medically ethical and what will protect her friends and family.

The main characters are clearly defined and nuanced, their distinct back stories woven in to allow us to understand what motivates them, and I found their friendships enjoyable and engaging from the moment of their utterly bizarre medical school meet-cute. The minor characters of Donna, Anjali's partner, and Dele, Olivia's husband, feel comparatively thin and frustrating; I kept expecting more from them which never materialised.

The plot has potential but it is hard to follow. While the 1999 timeline is linear, the present day narrative jumps back and forth with no indication, leaving it to the reader to infer whether they are reading about new events or something that has already happened; early on, we see Laura and Olivia acting suspiciously during Sunday lunch at Olivia's house, a subsequent chapter jumps back to a conversation that reveals the reason for their behaviour, and we then jump forward in time again, but with all the chapters simply labelled '2024' time feels confusingly fluid. I finished the book with no clear sense of how much time was supposed to have passed in the present day between the party which is the catalyst for the plot and the story's denouement. The ending, when it comes, lacks the impact one might expect from the build-up which preceeds it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this book.

This is a really good book. The main characters are all really relatable women and I enjoyed it immensley. Highly recommended.

Moral Injuries is a thrilling adventure featuring three compelling, well-rounded protagonists with a medical background who are facing secrets that could end their relationships and their lives. The prose is exceptional, very real, very pragmatic, very raw but conveying a well of emotion. The relationship between the three protagonists in particular was very enjoyable to read; it felt tense and intense, and it means all the more that it was written by the author who has a medical background, given their ability to mirror these kinds of relationships in the real world! Will definitely look out for more books by this author!

I enjoyed it to an extent...the opening paragraph wasn't dated, although I took it as the chronological first incident....nothing about this incident, apart from vague details, was more fully explained until much later in the book. The fact that another tragic accident happened in between didn't help matters. Wasn't my favourite read...I felt the ending was confused and unresolved in areas....but that might be just me...

This is a story of tight female friendships growing and evolving, heartbreaking betrayals, loyalty being tested, all against an intensely challenging medical background.

I know they were all in med school but honestly this book was veryyyyyy heavy on the scientific terminology. Which can be grating for the reader as it can bring you out of the story when you feel a little lost. Anyway in terms of mystery, I think it was very obvious right from the beginning what way this plot was going to go - which I usually feel but am not usually right, except in this case I was. So it was a little hard to get through it.

The premise for this sounds really interesting, but unfortunately it didn't land for me. The pacing was really off, it seemed really long for such a short book. In addition to this, we know the main issue pretty early on in the book, it's just the details left to find out which are constantly teased and ended up feeling more annoying than suspenseful. I did find the medical side of it really interesting, as well as the morality of events. I wonder if this is an error in marketing/book synopsis, as I was expecting more suspense and drama than I got.

I thought the voices of the three point-of-view characters (Anjali, Laura, and Olivia) were easily distinguishable across the timelines of 1999 and 2024. The background medical settings were believable. The ending was not neatly tied up in a bow but it was still believable and fitting.

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me this book for a fair and honest review.

I loved this book and the characters felt like I knew them. The fact the main character is an actual doctor made it all the more enjoyable. I would recommend this book to anyone.

Very well written. A great story that keeps you interested right to the end. It was a gripping story and very different. Really enjoyed it.

What a page turner this was, I could not put it down.
Brilliantly written with many twist and turns & so much tension.
A thoroughly enjoyable read.

Complex and very well written, with a lot of interesting turns and twists!

Overall, very much enjoyed this and would recommend!

I absolutely devoured this book. I was hooked from page one!

Can’t wait to read more from this author.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Christie Watson uses her hospital experience to good effect in ‘Moral Injuries’, exploring the world of cardiothoracic surgery and Intensive Care. Three women forge an unbreakable bond as medical students, and we meet them as successful doctors in their respective fields of surgery, emergency response and general practice. A tragedy involving the children of two of the women has echoes of the past, and we discover that their bond is made by more than friendship.

I was really looking forward to reading this based on the description however I struggled to get into it.

I usually like a dual timeline however this was just too much of a slow burn for me, I kept going in the hope it would pick up and then it ended, it just didn’t grip me at all

Utterly unputdownable
In 1999, Laura, Olivia and Anjali meet on the first day of medical school and become best friends. 25 years later, their decades long loyal friendship is in jeopardy when their respective teenagers are involved in a tragic fatal event that threatens to destroy the families and livelyhoods of the three women.
Having been a nurse prior to become a prolific novelist, authoress Christie Watson succeeds in combining a clever fast-paced plot and likeable characters with brutal insights into the challenges today‘s doctors are facing in their jobs. Brilliant and unputdownable!

Well I would never have guessed where that book was going to go. Brilliantly written. Based ion the friendship of the girls entering medical school. How the friendship holds as they each persevere own lives. One incident in the present holds the power to change things for the women. A story of friendship, deceit and cover up.

Definitely one to read