When Michael receives a friend's desperate plea to help at a pro-choice health center, he agrees to work there two days a week. His dedication to providing women's health care at the clinic starts a spiral of lies and danger. Annie's hostility toward her husband grows as his increasing absence further splits the family. Annie's attention shifts to a colleague, Simon Haas, who awakens the excitement and sexuality that she misses as a wife, mother, and teacher. A once-famous painter, Haas' attention grows to an obsession with her. Annie refuses to follow Simon down the path to infidelity. Yet how long can she resist Simon's attention when Michael's loyalty clearly lies with work? Simon's wife, Lydia, senses Annie as a threat to her marriage and devises her own plans to get rid of Annie. Simon's mysterious life with a much younger wife labels him "the bad boy genius of painting," but when bloody dolls, threatening phone calls, and guns become part of Annie's life, which is the avenging party? Are the threats caused by Annie's affair, or Michael's pro-choice work?

Brundage's debut novel, The Doctor's Wife, tells the story of passions and dedications which spiral into danger and death. Brundage does an exceptional job of allowing characters' choices to affect the others' lives. Secondary characters drive some of the choices and add to the mystery. She touches on controversial subjects such as abortion, mental illness, religion, sexual norms, and extra-marital affairs. I thoroughly enjoyed The Doctor's Wife. If you enjoy thrillers, then The Doctor's Wife is the right prescription. The story will stay with you long after the last page is turned.