A Perfect Patient: A Dark Psychological Novel of Obsession and Desire

A confronting transgressive novel where obsession becomes dependency, intimacy turns corrosive, and every form of care exacts a cost. 

IN A SYSTEM OF DECAY, THE ONLY TRADE IS AUTONOMY

Kessa Hartman’s life is narrowed by poverty, chronic pain, a dying hometown, and the burden of caring for her ailing mother. Relief feels impossible—until she meets Dr. Cyrus Ashford.

Cyrus is everything Kessa believes a doctor should be. To her, he represents escape, safety, and meaning. To him, she is not a whole person, but a subject and an opportunity. As care slips into control, and clinical distance gives way to fixation, the boundaries between treatment, consent, and ethics erode. What follows is a pathological entanglement that drives both doctor and patient toward irrevocable ruin.

Told with gritty, atmospheric realism through dual POV, A Perfect Patient is a study of compulsion, delusion, and the catastrophic consequences of power misused. Refusing comfort, the novel leaves readers unsettled, mesmerized, and haunted long after the final page.

Early readers said: 

"I haven’t read a book that kept me so completely entranced in a while... Don’t expect to feel 'good' when you finish it—expect to feel haunted."

"Absolutely lands if you like your fiction to stare right back at you."

"A Perfect Patient is dark, twisted, and beautifully unhinged... the plot had me in a chokehold from start to finish—no slow moments, no mercy..."

READER ADVISORY:
This novel contains mature, complex, and disturbing elements. For a list of potentially distressing themes, please see the preface in the front matter of the novel.