Book Talk: Freida McFadden, ‘Ward D’

Amy Brenner is a second-year medical student whose ultimate goals in terms of specialization are not clear, except that she knows that she does not want to be a psychiatrist.Eight years ago, when she was 16, her best friend Jade Carpenter had been confined to a mental hospital, and Amy visited her.It was an experience that left a lasting scar on her memory.

However, Pauline Walter, Administrative Assistant to the Chief of Psychiatry has assigned Amy to an overnight rotation in Ward D, a locked and secure psychiatric unit at the hospital.Amy dreads the assignment but knows that she must complete it to maintain her standing in her class.

In Ward D (2023, 337 pages in soft-cover format), Ms. McFadden takes us, step-by-step through Amy’s evening of anxiety, fear, and bone-chilling horror.The anxiety is evident when Amy enters the ward and the steel door with a coded electronic lock slams shut behind her. She’s there until morning, with no way out.To make things worse, her ex-boyfriend Cameron who dropped her because he had to study for a board exam, is on the same rotation, having swapped shifts with another student.