The Healer: “Very Unforgettable Read” – “Multi-layered, multifaceted, expertly credible psychological thriller”

I’m thrilled to share the news that my psychological/ medical thriller THE HEALER has reached the benchmark of 50 Reviews on Amazon yesterday, and even more so, that it did so with two smashing ones:

Very Unforgettable Read, March 29, 2015

By

Dean

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This review is from: The Healer (Kindle Edition)

Because I’m a fairly prolific reader I stumble across quite a few gems on an annual basis. The Healer is among those fortunate finds and is on my shortlist of favorite books read over the last few years. Granted I’m a sucker for a tale that interweaves the spiritual and metaphysical with the earthly and mundane, but even if I weren’t, the excellent writing on display here would have sucked me in. Our heroine, suffering from Stage 4 cancer, having exhausted all that traditional medicine can do for her, finds herself at the mercy of a faith healer, a practitioner of alternative medicine, energy medicine and Qi Gong, Reiki, and much more. But his unique abilities go far beyond his adeptness with esoteric practices; he has the gift as it were. He presents as a guru type who is a lot more than mere hype, going from the well documented success stories working with people who were never suckers for New Age medicine. Quite the opposite. They were inclined like our heroine to be entirely skeptical and to have marched their way in and out of his care with an army of scientists to demonstrate that their incurable cancer had indeed been cured. Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, it kinda is.The mysterious figure who she entrusts her life to is a complex, not exactly trustworthy figure. He reminded me of the spiritual guide in the Carlos Castaneda books who can’t be taken at face value, and who may be willing to teach and heal as much through treachery, menace, misuse of power, and whatever other entirely Machiavellian measures he deems necessary. And he is a man of some ego, no shortage of moodiness. And if there is something larger than life about him, there’s also something all too painfully human about him, and not in a good way. In short, I wouldn’t want to have to trust my life to this guy. He’s quite scary. And his actual motivations for getting involved with her therapy are never entirely clear. Is he a noble ends-justifies-the-means kind of guy, capable of thus rationalizing his totally unsavory tactics? Or are his ends every bit as uninspiring as his means? Only through reading the book and taking the heroine’s journey with her can you come to truly know the answers to these questions. And as you do just that, you experience the terror along with her, the emotional doubts and insecurities, the ups and downs, the kaleidoscope of emotions on display that is dealing with death and dying in a truly self-transformative way; a way that forces self-transcendence to some degree, win, lose, or draw. You begin to wonder early on if her anxiety attacks, the parade of misgivings and paranoid ideation are part of the intense healing of mind, body and spirit that can only be accomplished with total surrender to a spiritual master—as legends tell us. Or if they’re simply entirely sane reactions to this bizarre healer and her fears are entirely justified.

I’ve read quite a few books penned by spiritual masters, including an unusual Russian figure by the name of Gurdjieff, and P. D. Ouspensky, one of his disciples who wrote heavily about him. Students’ accounts of Gurdjieff and what it was like to deal with the man and the healer were quite similar to what our heroine undergoes with her faith healer. Does that mark him as the genuine article? Or just another nut case, to whom she’s just signed over all of her wealth and belongings? Once again, you just have to take the journey to find out, and very possibly, in taking it with her, you’ll be more than just fascinated, you’ll undergo some healing, some transformation, and some self-transcendence yourself. Which I think is very much the point in a novel of this sort.

One of the best-in-class books I’ve ever read in this sub-genre of spiritual fiction. That also goes for books on people dealing with cancer and or some other terminal illness, and struggling with the self-transformative process that implies. So, needless to say, highly recommended.

5 Stars Multi-layered, multifaceted, expertly credible psychological thriller

By Lesley Hayes on March 27, 2015

Format: Kindle Edition

I recently read a quote that said a great writer should deliberately move the reader between stages of frustration and satisfaction, of tension and release, and Christoph Fischer has perfected the art of this.

In a cleverly executed, well-written novel that relies on an apparently small canvas, he paints a startlingly multi-layered, multifaceted, expertly credible psychological portrait of both Erica and Arpan, and the strangely complex dance of trust, mistrust, and understanding that plays out between them. I loved this novel from start to finish, and it held me in its thrall without ever once letting me fall by the wayside into temporary disinterest. I thoroughly recommend it, and I’m heading for Christoph Fischer’s Author page on Amazon to choose another one right now.

I began Christoph Fischer’s book The Healer with a sigh of quiet joy, knowing almost immediately that this was going to be one I really enjoyed. I finally read the last few words with a sigh of regret that it was over, then immediately went to see what other books I could find by this outstanding author. Fortunately, there are quite a few. The story of The Healer is deceptively simple. A woman with end-stage pancreatic cancer and only weeks to live arrives at the secret Welsh hide-out of a mysterious discredited healer, once popular 20 years ago. He is a typical new age hippie on the face of it, who meditates most of the day and practises Qui Gong in the grounds outside his simple living dome. She is a high-powered business woman who expects to get her own way, and makes no secret of the selfish lifestyle she has pursued all her adult life. Her PA has recommended Arpan as her last hope. In spite of his initial resistance Erica negotiates with him to heal her, and reluctantly he agrees, warning that she must totally commit to the arduous process. She then succumbs to the bizarre, deeply affecting treatments and the overwhelming, often agonising aftermath of each one… And there, dear reader,

I am going to leave you hanging, because you must find out for yourself whether Erica gets healed, and whether all the secrets that this book presents you with are ultimately answered. Be warned – no one is quite who they seem to be in this novel… as a psychological mystery par excellence it keeps you wondering, speculating, and at times fretting… You want to shout: “Look out behind you!” a number of times, and then you are lulled again into an awed belief that there really is unconditional love and healing is possible. But is this the case, or is Erica a mere pawn in the greatest con trick ever?

The Healer

When advertising executive Erica Whittaker is diagnosed with terminal cancer, western medicine fails her. The only hope left for her to survive is controversial healer Arpan. She locates the man whose touch could heal her but finds he has retired from the limelight and refuses to treat her.  Erica, consumed by stage four pancreatic cancer, is desperate and desperate people are no longer logical nor are they willing to take no for an answer. Arpan has retired for good reasons, casting more than the shadow of a doubt over his abilities. So begins a journey that will challenge them both as the past threatens to catch up with him as much as with her.  Can he really heal her? Can she trust him with her life? And will they both achieve what they set out to do before running out of time?

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Short Biography:

Christoph Fischer was born in Germany, near the Austrian border, as the son of a Sudeten-German father and a Bavarian mother. Not a full local in the eyes and ears of his peers he developed an ambiguous sense of belonging and home in Bavaria. He moved to Hamburg in pursuit of his studies and to lead a life of literary indulgence. After a few years he moved on to the UK where he now lives in a small hamlet, not far from Bath.  He and his partner have three Labradoodles to complete their family.

Christoph worked for the British Film Institute, in Libraries, Museums and for an airline. ‘The Luck of The Weissensteiners’ was published in November 2012; ‘Sebastian’ in May 2013 and The Black Eagle Inn in October 2013. “Time To Let Go” , his first contemporary work was published in May 2014, and “Conditions” in October 2014. His medical thriller “The Healer” was released in January 2015.

He has written several other novels which are in the later stages of editing and finalisation.

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