25 Years Ago Today: Bestselling Medical Suspense Author CJ Lyons

I’d like to welcome my guest CJ Lyons. I’ve had the pleasure of reading some of CJ’s books and highly recommend them. Warning – you won’t be able to put them down! Her new book CRITICAL CONDITION, the finale of the Angels of Mercy medical suspense series, can best be described as Die Hard in a hospital. It’s due out Dec. 7th.

As a pediatric ER doctor, CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about. In addition to being an award-winning medical suspense author, CJ is a nationally known presenter and keynote speaker. Her first novel, LIFELINES (Berkley, March 2008), received praise as a “breathtakingly fast-paced medical thriller” from Publishers Weekly, was reviewed favorably by the Baltimore Sun and Newsday, named a Top Pick by Romantic Times Book Review Magazine, and became a National Bestseller. Her award-winning, critically acclaimed Angels of Mercy series (LIFELINES, WARNING SIGNS, and URGENT CARE) is available now and the series finale, CRITICAL CONDITION, hits stores November, 2010. Her newest project is as co-author of a new suspense series with Erin Brockovich.

Here is what CJ was doing 25 years ago…

CJ: Most of the characters I write about are in their late teens, so they wouldn’t remember what they were doing 25 years ago, but I do.

25 years ago I was making the most important decision of my life.

Now, I’ve made plenty of tough decisions since them–many of them truly life and death decisions. But this was the one that would lead me to the place where I could handle holding someone else’s life in my hands.

You see, I was never meant to go to college–none of my siblings did and my parents weren’t especially supportive or encouraging. But I was a good student and earned three scholarships that paid my way, so I left home at 17 to follow my dream of becoming a theatre major, imagining that I’d someday be working on Broadway or maybe as a theatrical or motion picture director.

Then, one day, a biology prof invited a few of us to witness an autopsy on a homeless person. Suddenly my life of theatrical melo-drama was replaced by the real-life drama of a real-life person.

I changed my major, took the MCATs, and applied to medical school. Then came the waiting….not one of my strong suits.

Impatient to start my new life and needing to earn money to put myself through medical school, I graduated from college early to work. So that spring there were no distractions from my waiting, just mindless drudgery earning a paycheck alternating with anxiously pacing until the mailman arrived.

Because of my financial situation I had to turn down two prestigious but frightfully expensive schools–but that was okay, because they weren’t my first choice anyway. I thought if I got into them, I was a sure-in with my chosen school.

I got in…kinda. I was on the waiting list.

Unless some kids turned them down, I wasn’t going to med school after all. What to do? I could go back to the theatre, a lot of my friends were working now and would give me a job, but my heart wasn’t in it anymore. So I decided to join the Peace Corps–satisfying both my need for excitement and adventure as well as my desire to help people, make a difference (a theme you might have noticed in my books, lol!)

Joining the Peace Corps isn’t as easy as it sounds. Just like applying to med school, it’s a rigorous process with no guarantees.

Which translates to more waiting….but then one day I received not one but TWO envelopes in the mail. The big, thick kind that mean paperwork inside.

One from the Peace Corps. One from the University of Florida College of Medicine.

They both wanted me. I wanted both of them. So I had to decide….and that’s what I was doing 25 years ago.

I’m sure you’ve guessed how it all worked out….but if you want to learn more about what I did with my choice, feel free to check out my full bio on my website, http://www.cjlyons.net for the rest of the story.

Check out CRITICAL CONDITION on Amazon. In the middle of a New Year’s Eve blizzard, the staff and patients of Angels of Mercy Hospital are held hostage by armed gunmen. Their target is Dr. Gina Freeman, who is holding vigil over her wounded fiancé, Detective Jerry Boyle. Stranded outside the hospital is ER physician Linda Fiore, whose past holds the secret the hitmen are willing to kill for. With the cold-blooded killers in control, no one may live to see the New Year.