"A passionate cancer surgeon in training cares for her patients but struggles to save herself. I didn't want the book to end.

Shelley's journey shows that achieving poise comes from slamming into barriers, stumbling, and figuring out how to keep going. This novel will make you laugh then cry and then laugh some more,” -Anna Farro Henderson, author of the forthcoming Core Samples, October 2024In Poised, a debut novel by Cheryl Bailey, set in 1990s Kentucky, a naïve but spirited doctor, Shelly Riley, slogs through a two-year fellowship.

Continually hampered by chauvinist mentors and exhausting training, she battles for the lives of her cancer patients. Without the approval of her all-male mentors, she’ll never practice in her specialized field.

Readers will relish the book’s coming-of-age trope based on American society’s fascination with what really happens in hospitals and operating rooms. Like Bonnie Garmus’ Lessons in Chemistry, Bailey gives us a quirky, loveable scientist who shakes off dismissive societal assumptions so she can get down to work.

The book’s humor soothes the sting of difficult life circumstances encountered by Shelly, her medical peers in training, and her beloved patients. Cancer care isn't funny, but people are, and Shelly’s devotion to her patients makes Poised sing.

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