Don't Go

( 32 )

Overview


Bestselling author Lisa Scottoline has thrilled millions with her emotionally-charged novels that feature strong women exploring the boundaries of family, justice, and love.   In Don’t Go, she breaks new ground and delivers the story of a soldier who discovers what it means to be a man, a father, and ultimately, a hero.

When Dr. Mike Scanlon is called to serve as an army doctor in Afghanistan, he’s acutely aware of the dangers he’ll face and the hardships it will ...

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More About This Book

Overview


Bestselling author Lisa Scottoline has thrilled millions with her emotionally-charged novels that feature strong women exploring the boundaries of family, justice, and love.   In Don’t Go, she breaks new ground and delivers the story of a soldier who discovers what it means to be a man, a father, and ultimately, a hero.

When Dr. Mike Scanlon is called to serve as an army doctor in Afghanistan, he’s acutely aware of the dangers he’ll face and the hardships it will cause his wife Chloe and newborn baby.  And deep inside, he doesn’t think of himself as a warrior, but a healer.

However, in an ironic turn of events, as Mike operates on a wounded soldier in a war-torn country, Chloe dies at home in the suburbs, in an apparent household accident.  Devastated, he returns home to bury her, only to discover that the life he left behind has fallen apart.  His medical practice is in jeopardy, and he is a complete stranger to the only family he has left - his precious baby girl.  Worse, he learns a shocking secret that sends him into a downward spiral.

Ultimately, Mike realizes that the most important battle of his life faces him on the home front and he’ll have to put it all on the line to save what’s dearest to him – his family.  Gripping, thrilling, and profoundly emotional, Don’t Go is Lisa Scottoline at her finest.

 

 

 

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
This stand-alone from Scottoline (Come Home) effectively tugs at the emotions even as it verges on the melodramatic. Mike Scanlon, a reservist in the Army Medical Corps serving in Afghanistan, is allowed to return for one week to his suburban Philadelphia home to bury his wife, Chloe, who apparently died in an odd household accident. Overcome with grief, Mike realizes that he’s a stranger to his seven-month-old daughter—and that Chloe was hiding a shocking secret. After a horrific war injury brings him home for good, Mike begins an out-of-control campaign to uncover Chloe’s secret life, risking the loss of custody of his daughter, his health, and his own freedom. When Chloe’s best friend is murdered, Mike suspects that his wife’s death was no accident. Mike’s Job-like trials push the boundaries of believability, but his journey to make peace with himself and be a father to his daughter will resonate with many readers. 300,000-copy first printing; author tour. Agent: Molly Friedrich, Friedrich Literary Agency. (Apr.)
Library Journal
When he deployed to Afghanistan for the Army Medical Corps, Mike Scanlon left behind an enviable life, with a beautiful wife, an infant daughter, and a prospering practice as a podiatrist/orthopedic surgeon. Six months later, a freak accident changes Mike’s world forever. As Mike struggles with the aftermath and searches for answers, he soon learns that his bad luck has only just begun. Despite an overwhelming share of tragedy, betrayal, and rejection, Mike maintains his unwavering love for his daughter, Emily. After a series of bad choices, Mike finds his life spiraling deeper into a hopeless quagmire of despair, eventually learning what it’s like to lose everything.

Verdict This is not your typical Scottoline novel…it is Scottoline on steroids. In her first book featuring a male protagonist, Scottoline spins a compelling drama that reads like the literary lovechild of Jodi Picoult and Nicholas Sparks. Readers will fall in love with this war vet father who fights seemingly insurmountable odds, and his powerfully addictive story will haunt them long after the final page.—Mary Todd Chesnut, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights

(c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Reviews
A cascade of melodramatic reversals for a podiatric surgeon, who returns from Afghanistan to find even more trouble waiting at home. Dr. Mike Scanlon's wife, art teacher Chloe Voulette, begged him not to leave her and their new daughter, Emily, when his Army Medical Corps reserve unit was called up. Now it's too late for him to tell Chloe he's sorry. Tipsy from the vodka she's been hitting, she accidentally stabs her arm while she's loading the dishwasher and bleeds out on her kitchen floor. The 10-day emergency leave the Army allows Mike is just long enough for him to make arrangements for Chloe's funeral, satisfy himself that Emily is in the best of hands with Chloe's sister, Danielle, and her lawyer husband, Bob Ridgeway, and discover that Emily has no idea who he is and doesn't like him. Back in Helmand province, Mike endures a bone-jolting series of calamities that send him back stateside, this time for good. But his second homecoming is no happier than his first. The job he's been promised by his old partner is a far cry from his old job; Emily still cries whenever he picks her up; he realizes that Chloe had been having an affair; and her best friend, fellow teacher Sara Hambera, is murdered before she can tell him anything about who Chloe's lover might have been. Unfortunately, Mike reacts to all these shocks like a bull in a china shop. In a trice, he's been arrested for assault, sued by the man he thinks cuckolded him and threatened with the permanent loss of Emily to Danielle and Bob. In the hands of many another novelist, this nightmare would spiral further down to a grim conclusion, but Scottoline (Come Home, 2012, etc.) has a fairy-tale ending in reserve. The author's recent crossover novels have mostly featured imperiled or hard-used heroines like those of Mary Higgins Clark. This time Scottoline varies the pattern by making her heroine a hero. A surprisingly successful attempt to retool the damsel-in-distress formula.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781250010070
  • Publisher: St. Martin's Press
  • Publication date: 4/9/2013
  • Pages: 384
  • Sales rank: 264
  • Product dimensions: 6.20 (w) x 9.40 (h) x 1.40 (d)

Meet the Author

Lisa Scottoline

LISA SCOTTOLINE is a New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award–winning author of eighteen novels. A past president of the Mystery Writers of America, her recent novel Look Again has been optioned for a feature film. She is a weekly columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer and her columns have been collected into books and optioned for television. Published in thirty countries, she has 25 million copies of her books in print in the United States. She lives in the Philadelphia area with an array of disobedient pets.

Biography

Most authors admit that they need to work in silence in order to get into the creative process. For them, writing is serious work that requires the utmost peace and concentration. Of course, most authors are not writing the kind of whiz-bang, sharp, wild, and witty works that Lisa Scottoline is producing. Scottoline's unusual working methods and desire for all things pop culture have helped her to create some of the most unapologetically entertaining and compulsively page-turning novels in contemporary popular fiction.

Scottoline's initial impetus to become a novelist was not quite as joyful as her novels might suggest. She had recently given up her position as a litigator at a Philadelphia law firm to raise her newborn daughter at the same time as she was breaking up with her husband. While the birth of her daughter was an undoubtedly happy moment for Scottoline, she was also thrust into relative isolation in the wake of her separation and the end of her job. To keep herself busy (when not tending to her daughter, that is), she decided to write a novel, the provocative story of an ambitious young lawyer whose hectic life becomes even more manic when she learns she is being stalked. Three years after beginning the novel, Scottoline sold Everywhere That Mary Went to HarperCollins a mere week after taking a part-time job as a clerk for an appellate judge—her first job since beginning the book. While her transition from lawyer to novelist may seem abrupt to some, Scottoline asserts that it was law school that gave her the necessary tools to spin a compelling yarn. In a 2005 interview with Barnes & Noble.com, Scottoline asserted that the job of a lawyer is surprisingly similar to that of a good writer: "Take the facts that matter, throw out the ones that don't, order them in such a way in which a point of view is created so that by the time someone is finished listening to your argument or reading your book they see things completely in that point of view."

Scottoline's sure-handed way with an intriguing narrative has led to a string of bestselling thrillers and a popular series revolving around the women of Rosato & Associates, an all-female law firm in Philadelphia—the author's own beloved hometown. Jam-packed with humor, mystery, eroticism, and smarts, her novels are published worldwide and have been translated into twenty-five different languages.

Good To Know

Lisa Scottoline is definitely no TV snob. She feels no shame when revealing her love of everything from Court TV to Oprah to The Apprentice to I Love Lucy.

One of the reasons that Scottoline is such a fabulous writer may have something to do with having a particularly fabulous teacher. While studying English at the University of Pennsylvania she was instructed by National Book Award Winner Philip Roth.

Don't try this at home! Scottoline completed her first novel, Everywhere That Mary Went, while she and her newborn daughter lived solely on $35,000 worth of credit from five Visa cards, which she'd completely maxed out by the time she completed the book three years later.

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    1. Hometown:
      Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    1. Date of Birth:
      Fri Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 1955
    2. Place of Birth:
      Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    1. Education:
      B.A., University of Pennsylvania, 1976; J.D., University of Pennsylvania Law School, 1981
    2. Website:
      http://www.scottoline.com

Read an Excerpt


Chapter One
 
 
Chloe woke up on the floor, her thoughts foggy. She must have fallen and knocked herself out when she hit the hardwood. She started to get up, but felt dizzy and eased back down. The kitchen was dark except for pinpoints of light on the coffeemaker, TV, and cable box, like a suburban constellation.
She tried to understand how long she’d been lying here. The last thing she remembered, she was rinsing the dishes after lunch, eyeing the sun through the window, like a big, fresh shiny yolk in the sky. Yellow was her favorite color, and she always tried to get it into her painting. Chloe used to teach art in middle school, but now she was a new mom with no time to shower, much less paint.
She heard a mechanical ca-thunk, and the Christmas lights went on outside. Red, green, and blue glimmered on the wetness underneath her, which seemed to be spreading. Her gaze traveled to its edge, where her Maine Coon, Jake, sat in silhouette under the table, his ears translucent triangles, backlit by the multicolored lights.
Chloe reached for a chair to pull herself up, but was oddly weak and slumped to the floor. She felt cold, though the kitchen had a southern exposure and stayed warm, even in winter. She needed help, but was alone. Her sister Danielle and her brother-in-law Bob had come over for lunch, then Danielle had taken the baby Christmas shopping and Bob had gone to work. They didn’t have children, and Danielle had been happy to take Emily to the mall by herself.
We can pick out Christmas presents for you and Mike!
Chloe closed her eyes, wishing her husband Mike were here, but he was a reservist in the Army Medical Corps, serving in Afghanistan. He’d be home in a month, and she was counting the days. She’d prayed he wouldn’t be called up because he was thirty-six years old, and when the deployment orders came, she’d taken it badly. She’d simply dissolved into tears, whether from sleep deprivation, crazed hormones, or worry.
Mike, please, I’m begging you. Don’t go.
Suddenly Chloe realized something. The Christmas lights were controlled by a timer that turned them on at five o’clock, which meant Bob and Danielle would be back at any minute. She had to hide the vodka she’d left out on the counter. Nobody could know about her drinking, especially not Danielle. Chloe should have been more careful, but she was a beginner alcoholic.
She reached for the chair and hoisted herself up partway. The kitchen whirled, a mad blur of Christmas lights. She clung to the chair, feeling dizzy, cold, and spacey, as if she were floating on a frigid river. Her hand slipped, and the chair wobbled. Jake sprang backwards, then resettled into a crouch.
She put her hands on the floor to lift her chest up, like a push-up, but the wetness was everywhere. Under her hands, between her fingers, soaking her shirt. It didn’t smell like vodka. The fog in her brain cleared, and Chloe remembered she’d been loading the dishwasher, and the chef’s knife had slipped, slicing the underside of her arm. Bright red blood had spurted from the wound, and she’d fainted. She always fainted at the sight of blood, and Mike used to kid her.
The doctor’s wife, who’s afraid of blood.
Chloe looked at her left arm in horror. It was covered with blood, reflecting the holiday lights. Blood. Her mouth went dry. She’d been bleeding all afternoon. She could bleed to death.
“Help!” she called out, but her voice sounded far away. She had to get to her cell phone and call 911. She dragged herself through the slippery blood to the base cabinet, clawed the door for the handle, and grabbed it on the second try. She tried to pull herself up but had no strength left. She clung to the handle.
Chloe spotted her laptop to her right, on its side. She must have knocked it off the counter when she fell. Her best friend Sara was always online, and Chloe could g-chat her for help. She slid the laptop toward her and hit the keys with a slick palm, but the monitor didn’t light up. She didn’t know if it was off or broken.
She shoved it aside, getting a better idea. She would crawl to the front door and out to the sidewalk. The neighbors or someone driving by would see her. She started crawling, her breath ragged. The front door lay directly down the hall, behind a solid expanse of hardwood and an area rug. She dragged herself toward it, smearing blood across the kitchen threshold.
Hope surged in her chest. Her arms ached but they kept churning. She pulled herself into the hallway. She kept her eye on the front door. It had a window on the top half, and she could see the Christmas lights on the porch. She had put them up herself, for Emily’s first Christmas.
The door lay thirty feet ahead, but Chloe felt her legs begin to weaken. Her arms were failing, but she couldn’t give up. She was a mother. She had a precious baby, only seven months old.
Chloe moved forward on her elbows, but more slowly, like a car running out of gas. Still she kept going. The front door was only fifteen feet away. Then thirteen, then ten. She had to make it.
Go, go, go. Nine, eight, seven feet left.
Chloe reached the edge of the area rug, but couldn’t go another inch. Her forehead dropped to the soft wool. Her body flattened. Her eyes closed as if they were sealed. She felt her life ebb away, borne off in a sea of her own blood. Suddenly she heard a noise, outside the house. A car was pulling into the driveway, its engine thrumming.
Thank God!
She heard the sound of a car door opening and closing, then footsteps on the driveway. They were slow because the driveway was icy in patches, the rock salt melting it unevenly.
Hurry, hurry, hurry.
Chloe remembered the front door was unlocked, a lucky break. She was supposed to lock it behind Danielle, who had been carrying Emily, the diaper bag, and her purse, but she had forgotten. It would serve her well, now. Whoever was coming could see her through the window, rush in, and call 911.
The footsteps drew closer to the door, but Chloe didn’t recognize them. She didn’t know Bob or Danielle by their footstep. It could be anybody.
Please God hurry
The footsteps reached the front door, and Chloe heard the mechanical turning of the doorknob. The door unlatched, and she felt a vacuum as it swung open. Frigid air blasted her from the open doorway. Her hair blew into her face, but she couldn’t even open her eyes.
Help me help me call 911
She heard the footsteps walk to her, then stop near her head. But whoever it was didn’t call her name, rush to her side, or cry out in alarm.
What is going on why aren’t you calling 911
She heard the footsteps walk back to the door.
Wait don’t go please help me
She heard the sound of the front door closing.
No come back please help I’m—
The latch engaged with a quiet click.

 
Copyright © 2013 by Smart Blonde, LLC

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 3.5
( 32 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(13)

4 Star

(3)

3 Star

(5)

2 Star

(6)

1 Star

(5)
See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 32 Customer Reviews

  • Posted Tue Apr 09 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    I was truly disappointed -- I'd not read a Lisa Scottaline in a

    I was truly disappointed -- I'd not read a Lisa Scottaline in a while and was looking forward to getting back to her work since I've missed a few -- thought I'd start with this which I found unreadable, with an almost diadatic droaning-on tone. I thought it all very unlike what I'd read of Scottaline so am very disappointed. Perhaps it gets better later, but I put it away for now, not willing to finish. Maybe I'll try again later, but there's too many books out there and too little time!

    3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Sun Apr 14 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    Isabella pacelli

    I will have to give it a three. The book was ok but not my style im into the more better things i like supense and romance. This jst didnt give it to me. Im a 17year old girl looking for books with a rush that will make my body tingle because its that goodbut this didnt do the jobbbb..........

    2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted Tue Apr 09 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    Wow! What a thriller! I had no idea what to expect but this book

    Wow! What a thriller! I had no idea what to expect but this book got off to a chilling start and the suspense continued to build from there in Don’t Go, Lisa Scottoline’s latest. I listened to the audio version so I couldn’t go any faster than the reader but this quick paced story kept me enthralled the entire way through.




    Audio books usually take me a little while to get into because I have to get used to the different voices by the same reader. This one pulled me in a lot quicker than usual where I was able to get completely lost in the story and wasn’t distracted by the reader.




    Mike Scanlon has one misfortune after another beginning with his wife’s death. Things really fall apart when he comes home to bury his wife to a daughter who doesn’t know him and his practice falling apart. Things go from bad to worse when he discovers what his wife had been up to when he was gone. He questions everything he knows and loves.




    He returns to Afghanistan and tries to bury himself in his work. Catastrophe seems to follow him wherever he goes and when it strikes again in Afghanistan, he returns home for good. Trying to get his life back proves to be a bigger challenge then he could have dreamed. Things continue to go wrong in every possible way. Darkness is his constant companion as the life he once knew slips out of his grasp.




    Scottoline makes you feel empathy for Mike on the deepest level possible, despair for his predicaments and hope that he will be able to pull it together and get his life back. Life is hard to Mike and he has to fight for what he believes to be true and repair what has been broken in his life.




    Don’t Go is a suspenseful dramatic mystery that will keep you in the dark until the very end. It is a true testament to the human spirit and what one can accomplish if they set their mind to it and never give up.

    2 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Sun Apr 14 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    Jakefox123@hotmail.com

    Add me

    1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted Sun Apr 14 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    This novel is far from the usual which issues from this author:

    This novel is far from the usual which issues from this author: It is not a mystery. In fact it is closer to a soap opera which, if it were a pilot, would not see its option picked up by the network. It is the story of Dr. Mike Scanlon, successful podiatrist, surgeon, husband and a new father who gets called up from the reserves to serve in Afghanistan and the effects on him and the toll it takes on his life and his family.

    When his tour just about comes to an end, two surgeons are killed in an ambush and no replacements are available, so Mike is asked to re-up for a year. And toward the end of that period his wife accidentally stabs herself, bleeding to death, leaving a seven-month-old daughter whose care is taken over by her older sister, Danielle, and brother-in-law, Bob. To make matters worse, Mike loses his left arm during an ambushed convoy transporting his unit and he becomes addicted to an opiate pain So, when he returns home, what further calamities could befall him?

    Well, to top it off, the autopsy of his wife indicates she was one month pregnant when she died. Mike is determined to discover who her lover was, setting off further ramifications on his readjustment to civilian life. Obviously he can no longer perform surgery. And to make his life more complicated, his daughter cries every time he looks at or touches her. The pressures keep mounting and eventually he is asked to leave Bob and Danielle’s house and they enforce a previously effected custody agreement, forcing Mike to seek legal redress, setting the stage for a tear-jerker of an ending. Enough already.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Mon Apr 29 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    Wasn't sure what to expect after reading the reviews but the sto

    Wasn't sure what to expect after reading the reviews but the story line grabbed me from the beginning and didn't let go. Couldn't put it down.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Sat Apr 27 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    Great Read

    Absolutely loved this book! Enjoyed every page. Good job, Lisa!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Fri Apr 26 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    Netta

    It was a good book!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Fri Apr 26 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    Don't read!

    One of the worst books I have read in a long time. So predictable but when there was avrwist in the who dunnit story it made no sense....no support...horrible....cant believe B&N had this spotlighted in the bridgewater store

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Wed Apr 24 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    ¿.¿

    HIII

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Sat Apr 20 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    Sissy 4/2013 Great book Had a hard time putting it down

    Wow!!!!!!

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  • Posted Wed Apr 17 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    I enjoyed the action and mystery of this book.  Even though I th

    I enjoyed the action and mystery of this book.  Even though I thought much of it was predictable, I stayed up all night reading it!

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Wed Apr 17 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    Ccrazy S

    A

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Tue Apr 16 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    Never read it!

    I dont know but seems like a good book

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Tue Apr 16 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    Wow I really enjoyed this book. This was the type of book I coul

    Wow I really enjoyed this book. This was the type of book I couldn't put down

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Mon Apr 15 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    From the reviews I think I will enjoy it

    From the reviews I think I will enjoy it

    0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Sat Apr 13 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    Faq

    Cdfddggfxmgcgxomfdggjjkgttyyhu

    0 out of 11 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Sun Apr 14 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    N

    Yf
    E

    0 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Fri Mar 22 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted Sat Apr 13 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    No text was provided for this review.

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