Stephen P. Kiernan

Deborah Birch is a seasoned hospice nurse whose daily work requires courage and compassion. But her skills and experience are tested in new and dramatic ways when her easygoing husband, Michael, returns from his third deployment to Iraq haunted by nightmares, anxiety, and rage. She is determined to help him heal, and to restore the tender, loving marriage they once had. At the same time, Deborah's primary patient is Barclay Reed, a retired history...

One month after the end of World War II, amid the jubilation in the streets of France, there are throngs of people stunned by the recovery work ahead. Every bridge, road, and rail line, every church and school and hospital, has been destroyed. Disparate factions--from Communists, to Resistance fighters, to federalists, to those who supported appeasement of the Nazis--must somehow unite and rebuild their devastated country. Asher lost his family during...

Up to the 1970s, most Americans died swiftly: of heart attacks, strokes, cancer, or in accidents. But in the past three decades, medical advances have extended our lives and changed the way we die. Journalist Kiernan reveals the disconnect between how patients want to live the end of life--pain-free, functioning mentally and physically, surrounded by family and friends--and how the medical system continues to treat the dying--with extreme interventions,...