Review: Broken

By CJ Lyons
Available now from Sourcebooks Fire
Review copy
Read my interviews (old) and (new) with CJ and my review of Lifelines

Sheltered Scarlet Killian wants a chance at the life of a normal high-school girl.  But she's barely convinced her overprotective parents that she'll be alright, especially her nurse stepmom.  But Scarlet has spent her life in the hospital due to a rare heart disease, and she wants to live.


I loved the depiction of Scarlet's high-school life.  It was a nice balance of the better parts of high school and the bad parts.  She gets bullied by some jocks due to her portable defibrillator, which she carries in a wheelie backpack, and her mother frequently popping in to make sure she's taking her vitamins.  (Did I mention her mom is the school nurse?)  At the same time, she makes some friends in her support group and biology class.  Two of them are cute boys, of course.  But Scarlet talks about her attractions to a friend and decides to pursue only one of the boys.

My main complaint is that the thriller elements take a bit too long to come into play.  It makes since on a character level, since Scarlet is quite naive.  But when the tension ratchets up in the last quarter, any less naive reader already has a good idea about what's going on.  Most of the actual suspense comes from whether Scarlet will reach the police in time.

I enjoyed BROKEN quite a bit, and didn't mind the shift in tone to a thriller too much because I knew it was coming.  Just go into the book aware that much of it reads like a straight contemporary.  And that's fine, because Scarlet's journey to independence is a good story.

Interview with CJ Lyons

I'd like to welcome author CJ Lyons back to the blog!  This New York Times bestselling author is making her YA debut with BROKEN, about a young girl with a heart condition beginning to attend high school after years in hospitals.  Stay tuned for my review later today.

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1. Hi CJ!  You were the first author I interviewed for my blog, about your first book.  What has changed for you as an author since then?

CJ: I remember, hi again! LIFELINES was such a fun book to chat about. Hmm…what’s changed since that first book? I’ve written over twenty more (in fact, book #21, AFTER SHOCK, is being released January 7th), won a bunch of awards, hit #2 on the NYT Bestseller list, and am having the time of my life!

Perhaps most importantly was finding my YA voice—so much fun! I’m so looking forward to adding YA to my repertoire of Thrillers with Heart.

2. BROKEN is your first YA novel.  Did you know you were writing for a YA audience when you started writing, in the middle, or after you finished?

CJ: I’ve always loved reading YA and everyone kept telling me that as a pediatrician, I should write it. But honestly, I never found a story that I thought was worthy of my kids—my patients—until BROKEN, so I knew it was YA as soon as I began.


Writing for kids is tons tougher than writing for adults. Most grownups read for entertainment, but kids read for so much more. They want to vicariously experience the world and the choices they’ll be expected to make as adults as well as learn who they are and how they can fit into that larger universe once they’re the ones in charge.

3. Do you think you'll write more YA novels now that you've dipped your toes in the pool?

CJ: I just turned in my second YA Thriller and this one was so hard to write! It deals with two kids, Jesse and Miranda, being black mailed by a cyber-predator using capping (screen capture images) and how they find the courage to stand up to him (with the help of their parents). They go through hell and some of the things that happen to them were so painful to write that I was weeping as I typed—but then I was crying again when I wrote the ending as they rose above it all and triumphed.

Despite how difficult that book was to write, I loved it! Unlike my adult thrillers, I actually find that I can go deeper and darker emotionally with YA, which is a lot of fun—just goes to show that you can still have the thriller pacing and adrenalin rush without it all being car chases and explosions.

4. You have personal experience with Scarlet's rare disease, Long QT, through your niece.  Was it more difficult to write about a tough subject you're so close to?

CJ: Not the medical aspects, no. But waiting for my niece’s seal of approval before sending it to my editor—that was murder! Thankfully, she loved the book and really felt I’d nailed that whole first week of a new school vibe. Of course, she made me promise to tell everyone that she’s nothing like Scarlet, the main character of BROKEN. Scarlet is very sheltered and naïve, while the best adjectives to describe my niece are “fiercely independent.”

5. Now that you have a number of books available, do you have a favorite?

CJ: Actually, it’s DAMAGED, the second YA I mentioned above.  It’s honestly the best book I’ve ever written and as a pediatrician, the one I’m most proud of as I think it might actually save lives.

I thought it would be a stand alone, but after I finished it I realized there aren’t many books out there that tell you the rest of the story, the price to be paid for defeating the bad guys, so I’d love to tackle another book with Jesse and Miranda and show how their courage, strength, and relationship continue to evolve.

About CJ:
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twenty-one novels, former pediatric ER doctor CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge Thrillers with Heart.

Winner of the International Thriller Writers’ coveted Thriller Award, 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).

Learn more about CJ's Thrillers with Heart at www.CJLyons.net.




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I don't know about ya'll, but I'm already excited about DAMAGED and its sequel!  I love books that explore consequences.

INTERVIEW: CJ Lyons

CJ Lyons agreed to let me interview her, being a nice lady and all. I think it went pretty well, for my first interview. Enjoy!

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Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I'm trained in both pediatrics and pediatric emergency medicine, working everywhere from major inner city trauma centers to a rural community pediatric practice (we made housecalls!) to the Navajo Indian reservation.

Pediatric ER medicine combined the best of all worlds for me. It gave me the skills I needed to stabilize and keep critically ill patients alive when I worked in a rural setting and there were no children's hospitals close by. It also gave me an appreciation for life in the big city—I dealt with a lot of violence, even partnered with a SWAT lieutenant to prepare a presentation to first responders on how to stay safe in the midst of gang wars.

I've also flown with LifeFlight and Stat Medevac, including two "hard landings". I've worked with police and prosecutors, testifying as an expert witness in child abuse, sexual assaults, homicide, and Munchausen's by Proxy cases.

Despite witnessing all this pain and suffering, what constantly amazes me are the children and their families who rise above, finding the strength to get involved and make a difference helping others. I guess that's what has colored my writing the most, the idea that heroes are indeed born everyday….

When did you know you wanted to be an author as well as a pediatric ER doctor?

The writing came first—I've been writing and telling stories all my life, would honestly need a 12 step program to stop. Writing sustained me through all the chaos and stress of becoming a doctor.

A few years ago, while practicing community pediatrics, I decided to pursue publication. When it became clear that my writing was good enough to sell, I made the leap of faith and left my practice to pursue this second dream come true of becoming an author.

It was quite scary—the first time I'd been unemployed since I was 15—but well worth it. And hey, if you're gonna dream, you gotta dream big!

Were any of the emergencies in LIFELINES based on personal experience?

Most of LIFELINES comes from experiences that occurred in medical school, before I was a full-fledged physician. Although I did draw on a lot of the Pittsburgh atmosphere since I lived there as an intern and resident.

All the medicine is real—but of course none of the patients are.

LIFELINES begins on July 1st, "the most dangerous day of the year" because newly graduated medical students begin their internships on this day. Is this true? Is there a safest day of the year?

LOL! If there is, I don't know what day it is!

In shows such as ER and Grey's Anatomy, which mistakes annoy you most? Which do you not mind?

I don't mind the technical mistakes—medicine changes so quickly that it's natural for a script or novel to lag behind.

What I do mind are the mistakes with the characters and who they are. For instance, in Grey's Anatomy, Addison's character is portrayed as being in her 30's (I guess to make her seduction of a 25 year old intern seem less yucky) yet she's supposed to be a "world renown" OB-Gyn surgeon, perinatologist, neonatologist, pediatric surgeon, genetic specialist, and infertility expert. Oh yeah, and in one show they mentioned she has a PhD in something.

Well, to do all that training she'd be in her late fifties at the very least—and then it would take decades to become "world renown."

I understand their interest in wanting their docs to be jacks of all trades so they can have a variety of cases, but hey, if they want that, they should just add an Emergency Medicine doc to the mix! It could a resident, they do surgery rotations all the time—and think what a wise-ass ER guy or gal could add to the sexual tension!

I haven't watched ER since George Clooney left, but those early years really got the characters and their emotions spot-on. Which is why I think it captivated so many. Seeing doctors on an emotional roller-coaster as they deal with the reality of an urban trauma center is very dramatic!

With which medical or legal procedure did you take the greatest liberty?

Just like on the TV shows and movies, my biggest liberty was in time compression. If I portrayed a real resuscitation the way it draws out in real life, readers would fall asleep.

And, if it were a resuscitation run by any doc worth their salt, there'd be little drama. Instead it would be low-key, no shouting, everyone knowing their jobs and getting it done.

In other words, boring….

LIFELINES has a large cast. Was it difficult to make each character distinct?

No, because they're all reflections of myself. Like Amanda, I was the outsider in med school, only a Yankee down South. Like Gina, I was seen as a rebel during residency and my fellowship. I once thought following the rules was the best way to save lives, like Nora, and I now, like Lydia, have learned to live by a different set of my own "rules."

Which of the characters do you sympathize with the most? the least?

Wow, that's so hard to answer! I enjoy writing Lydia, the main character in LIFELINES, because she's who I want to be when I grow up *g*

But I also love writing Gina, the emergency medicine resident, because I share so many of her insecurities and I love working through her issues and watching her grow and change. She's going to go through hell before she gets her happy-ever-after, but it will be well deserved!

How did you manage to get a cover where the models look reasonably like the characters?

Doesn't that cover rock? Thank the art director at Berkley. She asked me to supply descriptions of the characters and she hired models to match them.

Of course, it now freaks me out when I look at the cover because those are the people inside my head come to life!

Please tell me you're contracted for sequels to LIFELINES. If you are, will the next one continue to have Lydia as the lead, or will it focus on one of the other women?

Yes, there are more! The next one, due out early 2009, will focus on Amanda's story as she investigates the mysterious illness that is killing her patients—the same illness she has symptoms of.

Hopefully, Nora's story will follow. All the women will have significant roles in each book, but will take turns being in the spotlight.

My concept was an ensemble cast with new people coming on board as needed—a lot like a TV show, with the emphasis on different stories along the way, but with inter-connecting story threads as well.

For updates on new books, be sure to sign up for my quarterly newsletter or check in at http://www.cjlyons.net.

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Don't forget to leave a comment to thank CJ for stopping by!

EDIT: CJ's flying to Pittsburg today, but she may stop by and answer any comments/questions. In other words . . . leave some for her!