The Fragile Breath - A Novel

Based on a true story, this heartwarming and often humorous story follows a fortysomething New Yorker as she uproots her entire life in pursuit of a cure after developing a terminal disease—and ends up finding much more than a new set of lungs.

When Fiona Copeland is diagnosed with terminal lung disease, she risks everything on the chance of a few more years of life.

Far from New York is a lung transplant center that can procure lungs for transplant within a month. But the center requires each patient to bring their own full-time, in-house caregiver with them—and Fiona’s husband, Dane, cannot leave town. So, in breach of the center’s strict rules, Fiona hires a caregiver and she and her fake husband, Mason, head to Tennessee.

The Johnson’s River center is a grueling rehab program where patients exercise for three hours daily to prepare for surgery. Over the course of her first weeks there, Fiona discovers the close bonding that develops among people fighting at high risk—and is devastated when one of the cohort dies. Meanwhile, weeks turn into months without Fiona getting transplant matches. Her marriage suffers from the long distance, and the realization she might actually die threatens to unravel her. But she is thrown a shocking life buoy when Mason’s young daughter comes to join them at the center. Captivated by the girl and growing increasingly closer to Mason, Fiona finds herself with compelling new reasons to fight—not least of which is this unexpected found family.