Kightlinger, Rebecca: The Bury Down Chronicles

Before an accident to her wrist prevented Dr. Kightlinger from continuing her vocation as a surgeon, she spent 10 years in Guyana, bathing in rivers and operating on kitchen tables (performing colposcopies, a preventive for cancer of the uterus). To my good fortune, she subsequently became my student. It is perhaps not surprising that when she exchanged her stethoscope for a word processor she chose to write fiction about women healers. It was nevertheless an act of courage and faith that she chose to situate her healers in 13th Century Cornwall. It is perhaps even more to her credit that her pink and white shepherdesses reveal unexpectedly dark underbellies and her mad monks and abbots exhibit high and shining brows. Nothing is as it seems, but everything is as it should be. I was continually surprised, reading Megge of Bury Down and The Lady of the Cliffs (the first 2 books in The Bury Down Chronicles), to find I had taken so very much for granted so very erroneously. In brief, you can count on full transparency from Dr. Kightlinger as she pulls the rug out from under your feet and reassure yourself that surprised as you may feel you will never feel cheated.