Over the Edge by Brandilyn Collins
Reviewed by Dale Lewis
"...a creatively penned, heartbreaking thriller ripped from the front lines of the intense medical debate and the author’s own personal battle with Lyme’s."
Janessa McNeil’s
perfect life is about to come to a crashing halt. An embittered man sets
out to make a dramatic point and disprove her husband’s
research, Dr. Brock McNeil, by giving him an up-close and personal view
of the very disease he claims can be quickly healed! In the dark of the
night, he infects McNeil’s wife, Janessa, with an extremely virulent
form of Lyme’s disease and then gives her an ultimatum: force her
husband to reverse his stand on Lyme’s publicly or their daughter
will soon be the next patient.
Janessa’s obstacles are plentiful: she is so sick that she has great
difficulty moving and thinking, her marriage is on sinking sand and Brock
is denying that she has the disease at all. She finds minimum support for
her claims because hints of insanity abound and a perceived attempt to
seek revenge on her husband by playing sick.
Over the Edge is a creatively penned, heartbreaking thriller ripped from
the
front lines of the intense medical debate and the author’s own personal
battle with Lyme’s. Both eye-opening and heart wrenching, Over the
Edge,
is an overwhelming affirmation to any who suffers from the long-term misdiagnosis,
ineffective treatment and lingering effects of Lyme’s disease.
Brandilyn Collins is a consummate storyteller and wordsmith. The unfathomable
journey of Jannie McNeil (in the first person) is contrasted with the third person
narrative of the tortured victim turned terrorist who is pursuing her with a
vengeance. The pain-filled struggle to live a normal life draws the reader into
her daily battles with this unexpected illness and her mindset of just one more
breath . . . one more step . . . or even one more word!
It should go without stating that Collin’s characters are richly, real-life
believable, but I will . . . for the record. Her stories are always more than
entertainment. You will not walk away from her stories without some redeeming
impact on your life. In the case of Over the Edge, you’ll develop an empathy
for those who suffer and a deeper knowledge of Lyme’s disease.
Once again, Collins has penned a frightening and disarming scenario within these
pages. She is indeed the queen of Seatbelt Suspense!
