The title and concept of "Moral Injuries" were promising, set in the medical field. I expected a thriller version of Greys Anatomy. However, the execution fell short as the story became monotonous and the characters felt cliché. The repetitive nature made it challenging to stay engaged, ultimately leading to a lack of interest. Towards the end, I didn’t really care what happened to the characters.

I just couldn't get into this.
I was far too slow in pace - other reviews have said it was a slow burn, but for me it didn't actually burn!
I found the plot to be super dense, and the characters were unlikeable.
I really really did not like this one.

I hadn't read anything about Christie Watson but as a retired Intensive Care Sister I recognised straight away that Christie hadn't just researched, she had lived medicine.
This amazing story is about three ambitious girls. ambitious to be doctors, Firstly controlling, ruthless, Olivia with her snobbish, standoffish parents, secondly Dartford Comprehensive schoolgirl Laura, studious, gentle Laura who loved her parents and wanted to make them proud, and lastly, hot headed, zany, untidy, Anjali who drank too much, slept around too much and experimented with drugs, three totally different girls who gelled from the start and swore always to be together.
This story follows the girls through medical school and reaching their ambition, Olivia became an eminent cardiovascular surgeon, Laura was to work in A&E and on air ambulance and Anjali became a GP.
I don't normally like stories that jump timelines but this one actually works and the story flows.
Following a drug fuelled student party the girls carried a dreadful secret and twenty years later was history about to be repeated ?
This is a story of love, of betrayal, of revenge, of subterfuge and of secrets, the author has put so much detail into this book that I was totally gripped from the start.
I receive a free copy of this book and my review is voluntary

liked a language of kindness, Christie Watson's non fiction memoir. However, I wasn't so taken with this one. You can always tell when someone is an expert in their field as it shows in their writing and I felt this was overly done. We had lots of descriptions of daily duties, principles and ethics within medicine. The story wasn't bad...it reminded me a bit of a lianne moriarty book. We follow three friends Laura, Olivia and Anjali. They all met at med school and have been firm friends for the past 20 years when the past.comes back to haunt them when it involves their children at a party. Will their friendship survive a second time?

3 Women, friends since middle school tied together by old secrets, but it will be new secrets that change their lives and not necessarily in the way you imagine.The book is told in the voices of these three women and through events both past and present. At the same time it is something of the layman's guide to medicine in several of it's forms.
I was well over 35% into this book before I really got a handle on the narrative perhaps because of the inter-weaving of past / present/ mystery and medical fact. I was tempted to put it down more than once. However, I am glad i persevered because when the threads began to pull together it was a fascinating mix of intrigue and a fly on the wall look into the medical world. The characters were complex and interesting. The moral lives of these charcters was at times blameless and at others questionable.
I enjoyed the medical parts as an ex IICU nurse they really appealed and for the most part were reflective of the real situation
Overall it was a great read although I wanted a little more from the ending.

Moral Injuries by Christie Watson was a really interesting read and very different to my usual novels.

We meet three very close best friends, Olivia, Laura and Anjali, all very different but very close. They met whilst training to become doctors and have remained firm friends ever since.

Having basically grown up together, learnt and then be mothers together they have a super tight bond. Their teenagers attend a party one evening and accident occurs. This in turn sets the women off and memories are re-surfaced as they have a secret that has bound them for the last many years.

The chapters are told through the women's perspectives in dual timelines and the reader is taken on a journey of what occurred and that resonates with the current situation they find themselves in.

A good and interesting read, thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publishers.

This was a cracking read and completely exceeded my expectations.

This is an intensely readable psychological drama set in the world of medicine where moral decisions have lasting impacts. 

Three women, Olivia, Laura and Anjali meet at the beginning of University where all three are studying medicine. They become close friends through training and beyond as they choose different routes as doctors, their lives remain intertwined. This is a  well written literary thriller with three realistic authentic and flawed characters at its core. I couldn't put this one down, the book opens with the introduction of the suspense of this story and while it's lurking throughout, the suspense element is only brought into the light in the final third. 
These women's friendships , careers, families, relationships, secrets, deceptions and hopes hooked me from the off . I enjoyed watching how their lives progressed and almost forgot about the darker element until I was well into the book. It's well crafted and  well paced, told from multiple perspectives with a dual timeline, as the friendship between these women is stretched to its limits by their actions, both 25 years ago and in the present day. 

A sharp, interesting page turner. I really enjoyed this one. Recommend.
* Moral Injuries is out now. I received an advance reader copy with thanks to  and the publishers As always, this is an honest review.


A great read, wishing the author every success with it. I hope this book is widely read.

4-4.5 stars.

Complex and intriguing. A novel that mixes women's fiction and thriller making it work.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Olivia, Laura and Anjali first met at university where they were all studying medicine and formed such a tight bond that nothing was going to break them apart...ever! Fast forward 25 years and they are all qualified doctors in their own fields of medicine, both Olivia and Laura are mothers to teenagers but something from the past lies beneath the surface, an incident at a party that they swore never to talk of again, until something similar happens which involves their children, is history repeating itself or is this just a tragic coincidence, and is their friendship still strong enough to withstand what's happened both now and in the past or, could the secrets they are hiding be what finally breaks them?

Moral Injuries is a fast paced domestic/medical drama set around the lives of these three women, it's a multi perspective, dual timeline story told alternately by the three main characters and jumps back and forth between 1999 and 2024 and highlights the choices, both ethically and morally, made by these women and also their children, and the consequences they are faced with because of these choices. This is a well crafted novel, written by an author that clearly has in-depth medical knowledge from their own earlier career, with authentic characters and enough suspense to keep me intrigued throughout.

I'd like to thank Orion Publishing Group and Netgalley for the auto approval, I will post my review on Amazon and Goodreads.

Medical ethics clash with family ties.
Author Christie Watson has chosen a very interesting premise for this book. It involves three young women from very different backgrounds who become form friends at Medical School. They move in together and stay closely involved in each other's lives for 25 years. During that period various things happen between and to them that are excused and forgiven. There are ethical and moral issues involved and eventually cracks appear in the relationships.
Each Chapter is told through the eyes of one the three and this brings out a lot about their individual underlying characters. However the story also continually switches from 1999 to 2024 which could confuse some readers who might find this an over complication and might put them off getting to the surprising conclusion. Despite that it's a thought provoking book that I recommend.

Really enjoyed this medical thriller about 3 best friends and the dark secrets they covered up for each other.
This felt super realistic, the South London setting and the different class structures brought to life beautifully. I found the constant teeing up of the fact that 'life was repeating itself' got a little tiresome, but the central idea and following the twists and turns was definitely compelling and page-turning. It was a great, painful insight into the different sides of really working in medicine and all the difficulties and implications, brought it to life in a really raw way. Exciting and readable. Thanks to Netgalley & the publishers for the opportunity to read.

Wow! This is a fantastic story of the complexities of friendship, the difficult lives of doctors, and the lengths people will go to to protect their lives. Long buried secrets and lies originally keep Laura, Anjali and Olivia together. The closest of friends. But eventually the truth starts to come out and things start to unravel. There are twists and turns, and secrets I thought would be there, were not.

This book is so well written. Christie Watson is a trained nurse, and it shows in the flawless and realistic medical setting.

The characters really show the complexities of human nature. They are all messy and flawed, but also life saving heroes.

Fantastically accurate medical thriller which had all the twists and turns needed for this genre. Loved the female trio and thought the author told their story well. I don't want to embellish too much as I don't want to spoil but I really enjoyed this one.

Having eagerly devoured the author’s nonfiction books, I had high hopes this novel would be equally captivating. Though it took me a while to engage with the storyline at first and become accustomed to the timeline flashbacks.

The novel centres around a pivotal incident at a party in 1999 when Olivia, Anjali and Laura are medical students hoping to pass their final exams. It adversely impacts them all even as it cements their friendship because they share a painful secret.

In 2024, securely entrenched in their chosen specialities, the trio are faced with an almost mirror experience happening to their offspring. The shock of it propels Olivia and Laura to act unwisely in a bid to keep their careers and ensure a better outcome for their teenagers.

Once their protective mothering instinct kicks in, they respond in panic mode to the situation confronting their teens. I found the main characters largely unlikeable, and their behaviour unrelatable for senior doctors who’d most likely faced medical moral dilemmas before to help guide them in how to respond.

I loved the numerous medical descriptions which took me nostalgically back to my career as a nurse. They were the main strength of the book to me but I appreciate they might be a turn off for some.

I really wanted to love this book in the same way I loved the author’s earlier work. Sadly, Moral Injuries, ably written as it is, didn’t quite hit the spot for me. Grateful thanks to Orion Publishing Group and NetGalley for the eARC.

I was intrigued by the premise but for some reason this book just didn't work for me. It was an ok read but I wasn't gripped.

I enjoyed this book by Christie Watson, about a group of women who meet as medical students and are bound together by their friendship, and by something terrible which happens to them at a party. When a similar tragedy strikes, involving the children of two of the friends, events start to unravel, threatening secrets they have kept for years.
There is a lot of details in this book about medical events, which seem very realistic, as you might expect from an author who was a nurse. I’m impressed that the social work details are pretty accurate to, as social work is often a very sketchy concept in novels.
I liked all three women, but as the novel developed I did think that there was far too much they had kept from each other given how tight-knit the group was. However, ethical questions and the concept of moral injury are really good themes for this very modern domestic thriller.
Very enjoyable read. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Three rather self-obsessed friends are all in training to become doctors - Anjali is the party girl, Olivia the superior one and Laura the one who has to work hard. The book jumps back and forth between their time as med students and much later when they have families.

The jumping around isn't really handled well, and as a reader I was often left wondering what had happened as hints and clues were spread about as to what was going on. I didn't identify with any characters, they all seemed pretty one dimensional to me. There are some good descriptions of medical practices, but the real meat of the tale, involving people being wrongly accused of crimes, even if they were guilty of other crimes, and the same events being repeated by their children, just left me cold.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

An enjoyable and interesting thriller about friendship and the secrets that a group of friends have over a 25 year friendship.

What happened in the past stays in the past or does it?
Three girlfreinds at University formed a close connection back in the 90's. They all had different personalities.
The book has been told between 1999 and 2024 and the three women's differing opinions.
There is a secret they share back from their early uni days that begins to leave its mark on their current lives.
How far will one go to keep a secret and protect your families?
The medical details in this book are good, the storyline strong, the women likeable.
Definitely worth a read!
Thank you to Netgalley and to Orion Publishing Group for allowing me early access to this book!

I liked this book.
I learnt about many aspects of medicine, and recreational drugs.
I learnt a lot about very close relationships between women, and women's relationships generally.
The story was intense but varied.
There was a lot of involvement with hearts, and it seemed to me that the author put her whole heart into this one.
My thanks to the author for an enjoyable read,
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.