Book Review-Never Too Late (Briar Hospital)-Lawrence W Gold

It is NEVER too late to realize your dream as this novel illustrates. Of course training for and running the Boston Marathon is no easy walk in the park as Isabel Kramer, a 60 year old psychiatrist, finds out. She had wanted to be a runner back when she was 17 but as often happened back then her Mom put a stop to it-even though her then high school coach tried to explain just how good Izzy was. At any rate when her daughter convinced her to run a marathon for fun (with her daughter)-she again realized how much she missed running. She had to prove herself to the coach she chose who thought she was too old for the rigors of the training or to run! Well, she dared him--and guess who won!

Her young training mate was a rich spoiled brat who Izzy was able to see through. This girl's story is typical and luckily was able to over come her upbringing to become a worthy human being. What she does at the end of the Boston Marathon will bring tears of happiness to your eyes. Sabotage abounded throughout--once again I read this book from front to cover in one sitting. Lawrence Gold can truly write a book to keep your interest. He is definitely one of my favorite authors and I don't think I have missed any of his books yet (well one-but that is on my Kindle ready to be read!)

About the Book: (from Amazon)

Isabel Kramer’s dream of running competitively, frustrated since age seventeen, reveals itself when, on a lark, she joins her daughter in the Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco. Now age sixty, Izzy challenges her misgivings, the sage and well-intentioned advice of family and friends, and prepares for long-distance running.

Izzy, a psychiatrist and professor of psychology at UC Berkeley has no illusions about the likelihood of success and the possibility of injury, but amazingly, she outperforms the running world’s and her own expectations and trains for the Boston Marathon.

Barriers of every type obstruct Izzy’s path to Boston. Can they stop her? Supporters of every age see in her the will and the talent to win, and they joyfully join her in the realization of a destiny too long delayed.

Read a chapter or two here

Purchase the Book Here

About the Author: (from author's website)

I was born in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, moved to Queens, and then, as New Yorkers say, my family ascended to the Island. After graduating from Valley Stream Central High School, I went to Adelphi, a college then, a university now, and then to medical school in Chicago. The war in Vietnam interrupted my postgraduate medical training with a year in Colorado Springs and another as a Battalion Surgeon in Vietnam. I spent seven months in the Central Highlands with the 4th Infantry and five months in an evacuation hospital in Long Binh outside Saigon where I ran the emergency room. I returned intact in 1968 to complete my training in internal medicine and diseases of the kidney, nephrology. I worked for twenty-three years in Berkeley, California in a hospital-based practice caring for patients with complicated illnesses often in ICU, and served as Chief of Internal Medicine and Family Practice. For many years, I was an active member of the quality assurance committee. Circumstances permitted my wife, Dorlis, and me to retire in October 1995. Before fate could intervene, we tossed off the dock lines, and sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge for a life at sea in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. Four years later, exhausted from repairing everything on board, (often many times) we sold the sailboat and within a year took the lazy man’s out; we bought a Nordic Tug trawler. We motored around Florida, the Bahamas, and the entire East Coast and completed two ‘circle trips’ to Canada and back, eight months, the first time, five months, the second. I’ve written eight novels, five in he Brier Hospital Series, and one non-fiction book, I Love My Doctor, But…, a lighthearted look at the patient/doctor relationship. I recently published my ninth novel, A Simple Cure, about the search for the cure of the most deadly skin cancer, malignant melanoma. I write primarily to entertain, but I can’t help but pass on to readers observations and beliefs culled from years of practice, and yes, my biases, too. I strive for realism in portraying the medical scene which is gripping enough without melodrama or gimmicks. With even a minor degree of success in writing novels, comes responsibility to readers. I attempt to produce honest material that reflects my beliefs. Exposing these beliefs to the public through my writing requires courage, stupidity, or both. My fans have been generous, and although nobody enjoys criticism, I’ve learned much from that, too. The novel that expresses most clearly my candor, and my bias, is For the Love of God. The novel reflects my attitudes toward those who are willing to sacrifice the lives of their children for their personal religious beliefs.

We live in beautiful Grass Valley with 15 1/2 year old Mike, a terrier mix and Bennie, an 8 year old Yorkie who just looks like he’s on steroids.

Author's Website
Dr. Gold's Fiction and Medical News (this is very interesting)
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