Madi Sinha Interview - At Least You Have Your Health

Photo Credit: Ashley Walsh Photography

Madi Sinha is a writer and practicing physician who loves the nervous system, bookshops, tea with milk and snarky conversation (but not necessarily in that order). She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two children.

        

  

Tell us about AT LEAST YOU HAVE YOUR HEALTH! 

A gynecologist takes a job with a chic wellness company, making house calls for its clientele of wealthy women. As she’s drawn into their world of privilege, she finds herself grappling with her own ambition while racing to uncover the truth behind a deadly secret.

What was the single worst distraction that kept you from writing this book? 

The pandemic. My kids were downstairs doing online school while I tried to write and also deal with my low-key existential dread. 2020 was good times, as you know.

What are some of your current and future projects that you can share with us? 

I’m currently working on my third book, but I can’t say much about it yet. That’s not because I’m being secretive, but because I invent the story as I go along. I’m never really sure what the book is about until I’ve finished it. So far all I have is that it’s a story about two sisters who don’t really get along.

What do you hope for readers to be thinking when they read your novel? 

I hope AT LEAST YOU HAVE YOUR HEALTH starts people thinking about, among other things, the dangers of an unregulated wellness industry, the failings of modern medicine (because, honestly, if we were doing a better job as doctors communicating with and caring for patients, people wouldn’t feel the need to look to the wellness industry for answers), and health equity and access to healthcare. I hope it makes the case that South Asians unequivocally deserve a seat at the table when we’re talking about race in America. For my fellow South Asian Americans, I hope it gets us talking about white adjacency and racial triangulation. And of course I hope people also enjoy the ride. It’s a fun story about some outrageous characters. I hope readers will laugh along the way too.

If you could introduce Maya to any character from another book, who would it be and why? 

I think Maya and Bernadette (of Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple) would be good friends. They’re both complicated and ambitious women, both mothers, who aren’t always likeable, but whose hearts are in the right place.

Why is storytelling so important for all of us? 

I read somewhere that the only thing that humans do that no other species on the planet can is tell stories. That has always stuck with me.

TEN REASONS TO READ AT LEAST YOU HAVE YOUR HEALTH

• 1) You enjoy rich people behaving badly
• 2) You liked the school-mom drama of Big Little Lies
• 3) You like reading about adorable and precocious children
• 4) You believe in science
• 5) You like descriptions of well-appointed mansions with extensive and well-kept grounds
• 6) You enjoy suspense and being on the edge of your seat
• 7) You could use a laugh
• 8) Social justice, feminism and health equity are your jam
• 9) You like medical mysteries like House
• 10)You want to read a story unlike any story you’ve ever read before

Your journey to publication
I grew up in a family of non-readers and non-writers. My family is a math and numbers family, and I was most definitely the odd one out. The only books we owned, and there weren’t many because money was tight, were non-fiction ones. No one in my family has any patience for fiction. Why make things up? What a waste of time, that’s the attitude. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family and wouldn’t trade them for anything, but they just don’t like stories the way I do. My teachers encouraged me to write. I am so grateful for my public school education because every English teacher I ever had encouraged me and believed I could get better. And because they believed, I believed. Thank goodness for teachers.

Behind the wholesome veneer of a wellness clinic lies a dangerous secret in this compelling women's fiction novel from the author of The White Coat Diaries.

Dr. Maya Rao is a gynecologist trying to balance a busy life. With three young children, a career, and a happy marriage, she should be grateful--on paper, she has it all. But after a disastrous encounter with a patient, Maya is forced to walk away from the city hospital where she's spent her entire career.

A new opportunity arises when Maya enrolls her daughter at an exclusive private school and crosses paths with Amelia DeGilles. Amelia is the owner and entrepreneur behind Eunoia Women's Health, a concierge wellness clinic that specializes in house calls for its clientele of wealthy women for whom no vitamin infusion or healing crystal is too expensive. All Eunoia needs is a gynecologist to join its ranks.

Amid visits to her clients' homes to educate and empower, and occasionally to remove crystals from bodily orifices, Maya comes to idolize the beautiful, successful Amelia. But Amelia's life isn't as perfect as it seems, and when Amelia's teenaged daughter is struck with a mysterious ailment, Maya must race to uncover the reason before it's too late. In the process, she risks losing what's most important to her and bringing to light a secret of her own that she's been desperately trying to keep hidden.

You can purchase At Least You Have Your Health at the following Retailers:

        

And now, The Giveaways.

Thank you MADI SINHA for making this giveaway possible.

1 Winner will receive a Copy of At Least You Have Your Health by Madi Sinha.

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