I read this book before it came out last year and then gave birth to my baby girl! I am still thinking of this book and really enojoyed it.

I teach microbiology and like to incorporate fictional and non fiction accounts of viruses. This was one I added to my list.

This was a fast paced read that had an interesting story line. It was an easy read but it didn't quite grip me as I expected it to.

When a category five hurricane threatens a Galveston hospital, patients and nonessential personnel are required to evacuate.

Doctors Danica Diza and Shaka Sen, a chief family medicine resident and a surgical attending respectively, are tapped, along with a skeleton crew, to stay during the storm and care for remaining patients. Their facade of confidence is shattered, however, when the hospital's inhabitants are exposed to a weaponized strain of a virus with a forty percent death rate. Forced into quarantine, they must struggle to survive the ravages of the hurricane, a shortage of supplies, and the virus that threatens them all.
This book was so intense and full of secrets!
I loved how this book captured my attention in the first chapter, the author went right in and grabbed my attention

When people are dying, it's easier sometimes. You can be all-powerful-even heroic. You don't have to think about how much courage it takes to dwell among the living, to fight for your own life. Lots of caregivers get addicted that way.

When a category five hurricane threatens a Galveston hospital, patients and nonessential personnel are required to evacuate.
Doctors Danica Diza and Shaka Sen, a chief family medicine resident and a surgical attending respectively, are tapped, along with a skeleton crew, to stay during the storm and care for remaining patients. Their facade of confidence is shattered, however, when the hospital's inhabitants are exposed to a weaponized strain of a virus with a forty percent death rate. Forced into quarantine, they must struggle to survive the ravages of the hurricane, a shortage of supplies, and the virus that threatens them all.

This is an excellent read.
Wonderful well written plot and story line that had me engaged from the start.
Love the well fleshed out characters and found them believable.
Great suspense and found myself second guessing every thought I had continuously.
Can't wait to read what the author brings out next.
Recommend reading.

I was provided an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher. This is my own honest voluntary review.

LOVED this one!

This book was written in such a compelling way and was so vividly constructed that I constantly found myself wondering if the author is a screen writer. The way it bounces back and fourth between the hospital and the outside world, interspersed with little bits of scenes from the CDC and the team monitoring the hurricane from inside of it was brilliant! It's beautifully positioned for a Netflix adaptation and I would be so happy to see one! I just can't rave enough! Hope there's more from this author soon!

This is a book reflective of a new author still finding their feet. The premise of the book is great - a highly infectious and deadly virus takes hold in a hospital just as a Cat 5 hurricane bears down on them. However, the execution was lacking.

The characters swing from being very authentic - as you would expect for the doctors born of immigrant parents, which matches the author's profile - through to those that are caricatures, albeit entertaining ones - e.g. the veteran turned con with a heart of gold. Likewise the storytelling itself leaves more to be desired. The timeline is a bit confused and the story drags on longer than realistic and some of the scenes conclude without a clear understanding of what happened or how it relates to the plot. One of the key examples of this are an injury that befalls the main protagonist, which isn't well narrated and doesn't add to the story - in fact it puts a hole in the timeline right where some of the most exciting action could have been. Also of note were two chapters featuring a hurricane chasing plane that gets into trouble but does nothing for the story and whose subplot isn't concluded. It's hard to see how this one got through the editor. The final failing in the storytelling is an excess of very obvious exposition in the dialogue - the book is very heavy in medical jargon, which is not a flaw in itself but would have been better explained in third-person narrative rather than having two doctors explaining things to each other they already know .

The ending was a cliche but satisfactory overall. I cannot grasp why the book is called the Lambda Factor though even having read cover-to-cover.

Do I regret reading this book? No. Am I eagerly awaiting Desai's next book? Equally, no, but I would give them another shot.

I actually felt a bit nervous when I requested this. I slept on it. I thought about it and I asked myself "do I want a book about a virus given the situation the world is in?" I couldn't stop thinking about this book. Curiosity got the better of me and I requested it.

Doctor Danica Diza, Shaka Sen and various medical staff are trying to relocate patients and treat others when there's a sudden hurricane warning. What will happen when the hurricane hits? Will they get out alive?

Danica is professional and I loved the mention of how she applied lipgloss to show she is image-conscious even during a long shift.

The hurricane is not the only problem. There's a virus too...

Brilliant novel and great attention to detail. Great visuals and the writing flows wonderfully well. I was hooked from the first page until the last. For me, a great novel is one that literally makes me go "wow." I did that and I held my breath in some parts wondering what was going to happen.

I flew through this and loved every page. The short chapters compliment the pace. The authenticity of the novel is helped a lot by the fact that the author, Dimple Patel, is a doctor. There's so much medical jargon but as I am curious and love to learn, I Googled this and learned so much.

I went through so many emotions while my Kindle app was reading this out to me. I was fighting tears with what some patients went through and genuinely concerned for people's lives. The medical scenes in ICU and other parts of the hospital were so richly created and I was reminded of ER, one of my favourite TV shows of all time. If you like any kind of weather-related book or movie you will love this.

A very current and riveting medical thriller.

Thanks to Dimple Patel-Desai and for my ARC in exchange for an honest and voluntary review.

5 stars.

The Lambda Factor by Dimple Desai is a page turning medical thriller. Similar to the best books in the genre, it has characters whom you get to know and care about. Along with a plot that is timely--specifically, the idea that countries are working on viruses to be used as weapons.
As a physician myself, I found Dr. Desai handled the medical aspect flawlessly. Not just the technical aspects but the way providers think selflessly, so often to their own emotional detriment.
Set in Galveston, Texas in the middle of a hurricane, the author creates a story that is movie-material fun to read. And yet, there is a backdrop for book clubs that makes one think philosophically about how we would treat our own citizens in the midst of a horrifying pandemic.
I recommend this book heartily.

A ‘disaster’ story, set in Galveston before, during and after a hurricane in a hospital with lots of vulnerable patients, where people start dying because of some unknown virus. In the hands of a lesser author this book could have been a disaster in itself. Dimple Patel Desai weaves everything, the hospital, the people, the weather, the virus ánd the politics deftly into a smooth flowing story. In fact, it’s almost a film script. Not very original, with two doctors falling madly in love while outside the storm is brewing, the arrival of several unwanted persons, the whole story behind the virus and not to forget the military people with a whole different agenda. But although it my not be the most original plot, it was a very nice read.
I would have given this book four stars instead of three if the author would have found a more balanced way to deal with the medical information. I have enough medical training and interest to be able to enjoy all information in Latin but of course without an explanation the book would be unreadable for all non-medical schooled readers. So, the author provides explanations and translations, which is good but sometimes a bit too much. It works for the more difficult concepts, i.e. explaining how a virus works, but it’s not necessary to use Latin for simple things as the fact that people with severe burns have difficulties to manage their body temperature.
I liked most of the characters and their actions, although I found the developing romance described in a way better suited for a soap than a disaster story. The end of the book was nice with an extra surprise.

https://bonnevivantetr.wordpress.com/2021/07/19/book-review-the-lambda-factor-by-dimple-patel-desai/

“The Lambda Factor” tells the story of bunch of people as they’re stuck in a hospital through a contagion of the CCHF (Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever) and a hurricane. Naturally, it talks about medical issues: quarantines, vaccines, viruses and ICU but also about environmental issues of the present such as hurricanes, climate change and natural disasters. It also tries to challenge many ethical subjects as the characters face dilemmas throughout the book.

I would like to start by saying that as a medical student, this book captured my attention as soon as I read its description. While reading, I was especially attentive to how the medical matters were explained and was pleased to see that they were easy to understand, enjoyable to read and medically accurate. And I think it has to do with the fact that the author, Dimple Patel Desai, is a medical doctor. I also liked the fact that people of colour and immigrants were present and well represented in “The Lambda Factor”. It was very fast-paced thanks to the presence of many short chapters with well established POV switches through characters. Almost all chapters ended with twists or surprises but after reading for a while, these surprise endings became predictable and somewhat boring. However, I cannot deny that they made the book very easy to read: hence I finished the book in just 5 days despite its 350 paged length. I had never read a book consisting of this many short chapters (it had 56 chapters plus a prologue and an epilogue which leaves us at about 6 pages per chapter) but as you can understand, I quite liked it.

This fast pace also brought the book a certain quality of an action movie. And even if it was both an easy and fast read, I couldn’t like how it felt too Americanised at some parts and how some problems were solved way too conveniently. I also felt like some parts and emotions faced in the book were uncalled for or surfaced way too quickly. For example, the 2 main characters barely knew each other at the beginning of the book but had already fallen in love and fought for the first time by the first half without many dialogues and emotions shared between them.

Don’t get me wrong though, I’m keen on survival books, movies and TV shows. I also like to read and learn about natural disasters and this book fed me well about both of them (but I still would’ve liked it if the focus was a little bit more on the hurricane rather than the contagion since that’s all we’ve been talking about for the past 1,5 years anyways). There aren’t hurricanes in the part of the world where I’m living and I had the opportunity to learn a lot about them all thanks to “The Lambda Factor”. I also believe that the literature is all for learning about different lives and cultures and I’m very happy to say that this book gave me this chance (which is not the case for a lot of recent contagion / survival books). Survival + natural disaster + environmental and ethical issues combined with the recent interest in contagious disease subjects, this book just might be for you. And if you’re thinking about reading a contagion book, I suggest you read this one since it actually talks about a whole variety of issues in addition to the medical part and tries to pass a message.

3.5 rounding down.

Contagion books are becoming more and more popular (most likely due to COVID) and it's hard to stand out. Enter The Lambda Factor. When a nasty contagion breaks out due to a mishap with a weaponized strain on a small island during a category 5 hurricane, the government decides the island is pretty much on their own in hopes of preventing further spread.

This was a pretty easy and fast paced read, but I definitely found some bits eye roll worthy and just soooooooo convenient. It definitely stands out from the crowd though.

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

I found this book to be really interesting. I feel that someone without medical knowledge may be a little confused with parts of the book. I personally enjoyed that factor but understand some others may not.