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A Perfect Patient: A Dark Psychological Novel of Obsession and Desire
HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO BECOME THE PERFECT PATIENT?
Kessa Hartman’s life is narrowed by poverty, chronic pain, a dying hometown, and the quiet burden of caring for her ailing mother. Relief feels impossible—until she meets Dr. Cyrus Ashford.
Cyrus is everything Kessa believes a doctor should be: brilliant, controlled, authoritative. To her, he represents escape, safety, and meaning. To him, she is not a whole person, but a subject. A case. An opportunity.
As care slips into control, and clinical distance gives way to fixation, the boundaries between treatment, consent, and desire begin to erode. What follows is a pathological dance of dependence and domination that drives both doctor and patient toward irrevocable ruin.
Told with piercing clarity and psychological realism through dual POV, A Perfect Patient is a slow-burn character study of obsession, delusion, and the catastrophic consequences of power misused. Refusing comfort or easy answers, the novel leaves readers unsettled, mesmerized, and haunted long after the final page.
A HYPNOTIC, RELENTLESS, SLOW-BURN DESCENT INTO CONTROL AND THE DARKEST CORNERS OF DESIRE.
READER ADVISORY
This novel is not a romance. At its core, this novel is a transgressive, psychosexual character study that contains complex and disturbing elements,
Power Imbalance & Coercive Control
Medical Ethics Violations & Abuse of Authority
Explicit/Eroticized Clinical Examinations
Addiction, Mental Illness, and Eating Disorders
Class Disparity Themes
Women’s Healthcare Themes
Kessa Hartman’s life is narrowed by poverty, chronic pain, a dying hometown, and the quiet burden of caring for her ailing mother. Relief feels impossible—until she meets Dr. Cyrus Ashford.
Cyrus is everything Kessa believes a doctor should be: brilliant, controlled, authoritative. To her, he represents escape, safety, and meaning. To him, she is not a whole person, but a subject. A case. An opportunity.
As care slips into control, and clinical distance gives way to fixation, the boundaries between treatment, consent, and desire begin to erode. What follows is a pathological dance of dependence and domination that drives both doctor and patient toward irrevocable ruin.
Told with piercing clarity and psychological realism through dual POV, A Perfect Patient is a slow-burn character study of obsession, delusion, and the catastrophic consequences of power misused. Refusing comfort or easy answers, the novel leaves readers unsettled, mesmerized, and haunted long after the final page.
A HYPNOTIC, RELENTLESS, SLOW-BURN DESCENT INTO CONTROL AND THE DARKEST CORNERS OF DESIRE.
READER ADVISORY
This novel is not a romance. At its core, this novel is a transgressive, psychosexual character study that contains complex and disturbing elements,
Power Imbalance & Coercive Control
Medical Ethics Violations & Abuse of Authority
Explicit/Eroticized Clinical Examinations
Addiction, Mental Illness, and Eating Disorders
Class Disparity Themes
Women’s Healthcare Themes
298 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 18, 2026
11 people want to read
About the author
Charli J. Connolly
1 book2 followersFlint, Michigan native. Currently Atlanta based Indie Author. I love Classic films, music, and books of all genres that explore the depths of the human experience in all of its complexity.
My debut novel arrives on KINDLE UNLIMITED and eBook February 18th, 2026.
My Amazon Page: https://a.co/d/bN9wbRR
My debut novel arrives on KINDLE UNLIMITED and eBook February 18th, 2026.
My Amazon Page: https://a.co/d/bN9wbRR
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
January 22, 2026
ARC REVIEW
This book was mind-blowing. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Initially, I thought it would focus on drugs, but it took a dark and toxic turn that captivated me. Most characters in the book are unlikable, with the exception of Kessa, whom I found relatable. I was so invested that I wished I could intervene, particularly with regards to Cyrus. I highly recommend this book. Keep an eye out for the release date!
Thanks to Book Sirens for sending me an advanced copy to read and review
January 18, 2026
✨ARC REVIEW✨
Ooooff. If you’re looking for a lighthearted, "flowers and sunshine" love story then move along. This story was like a spider’s web—intricate, fascinating, and designed to trap you. I haven’t read a book that kept me so completely entranced in a while.
This was like a top shelf psychological romance(?) complete with power imbalance and calculated manipulation of emotions. The classic strong, powerful man—only he’s not the protective hero you’re used to. He’s a sophisticated predator in an expensive suit weaving circles around a naive, compliant patient.
The dynamic between these characters was magnetic and horrifying alike. Seeing the FMC’s "compliance" being chipped away and reconstructed to fit his desires was enough to make my skin crawl, yet I couldn't stop turning the pages. It’s a dark, psychological dive into what happens when one person holds all the cards—the medical authority and mental leverage—while the other is just trying to survive the "treatment."
It’s dark, it’s twisted, and it’s brilliantly written. Blurred lines between devotion and obsession. Don’t expect to feel "good" when you finish it—expect to feel haunted.
Ooooff. If you’re looking for a lighthearted, "flowers and sunshine" love story then move along. This story was like a spider’s web—intricate, fascinating, and designed to trap you. I haven’t read a book that kept me so completely entranced in a while.
This was like a top shelf psychological romance(?) complete with power imbalance and calculated manipulation of emotions. The classic strong, powerful man—only he’s not the protective hero you’re used to. He’s a sophisticated predator in an expensive suit weaving circles around a naive, compliant patient.
The dynamic between these characters was magnetic and horrifying alike. Seeing the FMC’s "compliance" being chipped away and reconstructed to fit his desires was enough to make my skin crawl, yet I couldn't stop turning the pages. It’s a dark, psychological dive into what happens when one person holds all the cards—the medical authority and mental leverage—while the other is just trying to survive the "treatment."
It’s dark, it’s twisted, and it’s brilliantly written. Blurred lines between devotion and obsession. Don’t expect to feel "good" when you finish it—expect to feel haunted.
March 4, 2026
Side effects may include “fucking yikes”
BWAF Score: 5/10
TL;DR: A fucked up, compulsive psychological spiral about pain, pills, and a doctor who knows exactly how to turn “care” into control, then calls it destiny. It’s sharp, grimy, and disturbingly readable, and while it does not offer comfort or moral guardrails, it absolutely lands if you like your fiction to stare right back at you.
There’s a particular kind of dread that doesn’t wear a mask or carry a knife. It carries a clipboard. It smiles like a professional. It asks if you “trust” it while your stomach turns and your body betrays you. A Perfect Patient knows exactly how to press on that bruise. It also can’t always decide what it wants to be while it’s pressing, and that wobble is basically the story here.
This book works best when you read it through two lenses at once. Lens one is the clinical horror: the exam room as a stage for control, manipulation, and plausible deniability. Lens two is the dark-erotic obsession narrative: a mutually toxic orbit where need, shame, and arousal tangle until nobody can tell which thread started the knot. When those lenses align, the novel gets uncomfortably sticky. When they slip out of alignment, scenes start to feel like they’re chasing heat instead of sharpening terror, and the tension leaks.
Kessa is a young woman boxed in by chronic pain, a draining home life, and a dead-end town, trying to survive day to day while still being “good” for everyone else. Cyrus Ashford is her physician, and the book alternates between their perspectives as a medical relationship curdles into obsession, secrecy, and boundary-erasing intimacy. Early on, the story makes it clear that what’s happening isn’t safe, isn’t romantic in any restorative sense, and isn’t headed toward comfort.
Chapters are labeled by character name, and the narration stays close, first-person, and confessional, with both Kessa and Cyrus constantly justifying themselves in real time. That closeness creates a grimy intimacy, like you’re stuck inside two skulls that are each trying to talk you into something you shouldn’t accept. Cyrus’s sections, in particular, lean into self-serving rationalization and possessiveness, including the kind of “I alone understand her” mindset that reads like a horror-monster monologue precisely because it’s delivered in calm, self-flattering prose. Kessa’s sections, meanwhile, capture the push-pull of wanting relief and wanting to be seen, with desire and dependency getting braided together until “help” and “harm” share a zip code.
The book generates tension through escalation of secrecy. Little choices compound. A note in a chart becomes a loaded gun on the counter. One appointment becomes many. The “private” thing becomes institutional. There’s a genuinely strong sequence where Kessa glimpses documentation that reframes how the practice sees her and what they’re prepared to do about it, and the language is blunt enough to make your throat tighten. The horror is not supernatural. It’s bureaucratic. It’s reputational. It’s the sense that the room has witnesses even when the door is closed.
Where the pacing and structure start to sag is in the mid-book churn. The chapter momentum is readable, and the alternating POV keeps the pages moving, but the reveal timing can feel lopsided: we get repeated variations on the same dynamic (arousal, denial, bargaining, control, shame) without always deepening the dread in new ways. When the book pivots outward into other social spaces, it can be sharp and alive, like Kessa at a concert trying to claw back a version of herself that isn’t defined by pain meds and obligation. But other stretches feel like the narrative is looping because it likes the loop, not because the loop is tightening into a noose.
Character work is credible in motive, if not always in texture. Kessa’s contradictions ring true: wanting care, wanting control, wanting escape, and being too exhausted to reach for any of it cleanly. Cyrus is drawn as the worst kind of dangerous. Not a cartoon villain, but a man who believes his own story about himself, and whose dialogue can flip from “trusted counsel” to coercive framing without changing tone, which is exactly how manipulation often sounds. Where it occasionally falters is in relationship realism outside the core obsession: side interactions can read functional rather than vivid, like they exist to move Kessa between states rather than to complicate her in surprising ways. There’s a later dynamic with a different man that hints at a healthier alternate path, but it’s sketched more than inhabited.
The themes are the obvious ones, but the book doesn’t run from them: how “care” can be weaponized, how institutions can harm without ever raising their voice, how shame can become an identity, and how obsession loves to cosplay as destiny. There’s also a generational echo running underneath, a suggestion that certain kinds of romantic suffering get normalized, handed down, and reenacted with new costumes. The novel’s boldest thematic choice is refusing to cushion the reader with moral reassurance, and it explicitly tells you it’s doing that. I respected that even when I didn’t always enjoy the ride.
If you love dark medical obsession stories that are intentionally upsetting, heavy on interior justification, and unafraid of making everyone look complicit or warped, you may rate this higher than I did. If you want romance-shaped catharsis, or even a moral handrail, this will feel like being locked in a room with someone who keeps saying “trust me” while you look for the door. The book’s problem is not that it’s dark. It’s that it sometimes confuses repetition for escalation. Still, there’s real bite here, and I’d rather read an ambitious mess than a polite nothing.
Read if “romance” is actually a slow-motion ethics violation and you’re here for the squirm.
Skip if medical settings already spike your anxiety and you don’t want power-imbalance tension front and center.
BWAF Score: 5/10
TL;DR: A fucked up, compulsive psychological spiral about pain, pills, and a doctor who knows exactly how to turn “care” into control, then calls it destiny. It’s sharp, grimy, and disturbingly readable, and while it does not offer comfort or moral guardrails, it absolutely lands if you like your fiction to stare right back at you.
There’s a particular kind of dread that doesn’t wear a mask or carry a knife. It carries a clipboard. It smiles like a professional. It asks if you “trust” it while your stomach turns and your body betrays you. A Perfect Patient knows exactly how to press on that bruise. It also can’t always decide what it wants to be while it’s pressing, and that wobble is basically the story here.
This book works best when you read it through two lenses at once. Lens one is the clinical horror: the exam room as a stage for control, manipulation, and plausible deniability. Lens two is the dark-erotic obsession narrative: a mutually toxic orbit where need, shame, and arousal tangle until nobody can tell which thread started the knot. When those lenses align, the novel gets uncomfortably sticky. When they slip out of alignment, scenes start to feel like they’re chasing heat instead of sharpening terror, and the tension leaks.
Kessa is a young woman boxed in by chronic pain, a draining home life, and a dead-end town, trying to survive day to day while still being “good” for everyone else. Cyrus Ashford is her physician, and the book alternates between their perspectives as a medical relationship curdles into obsession, secrecy, and boundary-erasing intimacy. Early on, the story makes it clear that what’s happening isn’t safe, isn’t romantic in any restorative sense, and isn’t headed toward comfort.
Chapters are labeled by character name, and the narration stays close, first-person, and confessional, with both Kessa and Cyrus constantly justifying themselves in real time. That closeness creates a grimy intimacy, like you’re stuck inside two skulls that are each trying to talk you into something you shouldn’t accept. Cyrus’s sections, in particular, lean into self-serving rationalization and possessiveness, including the kind of “I alone understand her” mindset that reads like a horror-monster monologue precisely because it’s delivered in calm, self-flattering prose. Kessa’s sections, meanwhile, capture the push-pull of wanting relief and wanting to be seen, with desire and dependency getting braided together until “help” and “harm” share a zip code.
The book generates tension through escalation of secrecy. Little choices compound. A note in a chart becomes a loaded gun on the counter. One appointment becomes many. The “private” thing becomes institutional. There’s a genuinely strong sequence where Kessa glimpses documentation that reframes how the practice sees her and what they’re prepared to do about it, and the language is blunt enough to make your throat tighten. The horror is not supernatural. It’s bureaucratic. It’s reputational. It’s the sense that the room has witnesses even when the door is closed.
Where the pacing and structure start to sag is in the mid-book churn. The chapter momentum is readable, and the alternating POV keeps the pages moving, but the reveal timing can feel lopsided: we get repeated variations on the same dynamic (arousal, denial, bargaining, control, shame) without always deepening the dread in new ways. When the book pivots outward into other social spaces, it can be sharp and alive, like Kessa at a concert trying to claw back a version of herself that isn’t defined by pain meds and obligation. But other stretches feel like the narrative is looping because it likes the loop, not because the loop is tightening into a noose.
Character work is credible in motive, if not always in texture. Kessa’s contradictions ring true: wanting care, wanting control, wanting escape, and being too exhausted to reach for any of it cleanly. Cyrus is drawn as the worst kind of dangerous. Not a cartoon villain, but a man who believes his own story about himself, and whose dialogue can flip from “trusted counsel” to coercive framing without changing tone, which is exactly how manipulation often sounds. Where it occasionally falters is in relationship realism outside the core obsession: side interactions can read functional rather than vivid, like they exist to move Kessa between states rather than to complicate her in surprising ways. There’s a later dynamic with a different man that hints at a healthier alternate path, but it’s sketched more than inhabited.
The themes are the obvious ones, but the book doesn’t run from them: how “care” can be weaponized, how institutions can harm without ever raising their voice, how shame can become an identity, and how obsession loves to cosplay as destiny. There’s also a generational echo running underneath, a suggestion that certain kinds of romantic suffering get normalized, handed down, and reenacted with new costumes. The novel’s boldest thematic choice is refusing to cushion the reader with moral reassurance, and it explicitly tells you it’s doing that. I respected that even when I didn’t always enjoy the ride.
If you love dark medical obsession stories that are intentionally upsetting, heavy on interior justification, and unafraid of making everyone look complicit or warped, you may rate this higher than I did. If you want romance-shaped catharsis, or even a moral handrail, this will feel like being locked in a room with someone who keeps saying “trust me” while you look for the door. The book’s problem is not that it’s dark. It’s that it sometimes confuses repetition for escalation. Still, there’s real bite here, and I’d rather read an ambitious mess than a polite nothing.
Read if “romance” is actually a slow-motion ethics violation and you’re here for the squirm.
Skip if medical settings already spike your anxiety and you don’t want power-imbalance tension front and center.
March 3, 2026
Even before the slow rot set in, there was something disturbing in the way Cyrus handled Kessa. It wasn’t just the casual ease with which he handed her oxycodone like candy, it was the way he indulged her requests for repeated pelvic exams under the thin veil of clinical concern. The boundary wasn’t crossed so much as quietly dissolved. Then the obsession begins to bloom—thick, invasive, strangling. That’s when the narrative truly curdles. I’m relieved this was billed as psychological, because there is nothing remotely romantic here. No tragic love story. No star-crossed longing. Just two fractured people colliding in the dark. Both Cyrus and Kessa have deep seated issues that were just waiting to be triggered and it was as of fate handed them a match in a room full of gas. Kessa, at least, is easier to understand. She’s already drowning. Isolated and tethered to her dying mother after her father’s death, suffocating inside a life that feels less like devotion and more like a sentence. You get the sense she was starving for affection long before grief hollowed her out. So, when someone finally sees her, touches her life with attention, with kindness, with the illusion of safety, it isn’t love she feels. It’s intoxication. And like any addict, she chases the high. But there was always going to be a power imbalance. There had to be. Cyrus held the prescription pad, the authority, the language of diagnosis. Even if genuine feelings flickered somewhere in that murk, he abused his position from the start. He sensed her fragility and pressed on it, expertly, deliberately, until it yielded exactly what he wanted. Kessa was pliable, yes, but pliability in the hands of someone who knows how to bend it becomes something far more sinister. And though she isn’t blameless, it’s impossible to ignore who was steering the descent. What I loathed most was his volatility—the hot and cold cruelty, the way he twisted every thread until Kessa wore the blame. His superiority and disdain for Kessa’s poverty, chipping away at her psyche piece by piece. Yet when the entire structure collapsed, he seemed almost startled by the wreckage. If ever there was a character that truly hit rock bottom, this was it for Kessa. But watching her clawed her way back to herself was one of the most empowering aspects of this book. In a strange twist of fate, what Cyrus did after she broke down may be the only mercy he ever offered, though even that felt tarnished. This is not a love story. It’s a cautionary tale about power: what happens when one person holds it absolutely and another mistakes surrender for salvation. It lingers in the mind like a bruise. And that final note feels less like light and more like the false calm in the eye of a storm. Was it real? Or just another illusion in soft focus?
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Review of advance copy
Thanks to BookSirens for the opportunity to review this book. I discovered that I love stories centered on doctor/patient relationships after reading Miranda Grant’s Keeping Her Under, so when I read the blurb for this one, I immediately wanted to learn more about Cyrus and Kessa.
Like Miranda Grant’s book, this one is also dark and psychological, exploring the power of obsession, power dynamics, and especially blurred ethical boundaries. Here we have a young woman dealing with chronic pain while carrying the heavy responsibility of caring for her ailing mother. When she seeks treatment from the charming and confident Dr. Cyrus Ashford, she finds more than physical relief, she finds a dangerous focal point for her emotional and psychological needs.
What truly sets this book apart is its clear commitment to being a dark psychological novel rather than a romance. From the beginning, we are aware that the intimacy between Cyrus and Kessa is unhealthy and I loved the way it ended, because this is what made the book stand out for me.
Another important aspect of the book for me was the fact that both Kessa and Cyrus are intentionally unreliable, which creates a constant sense of tension and unease as you question motivations, perceptions, and the reality behind their connection.
Like Miranda Grant’s book, this one is also dark and psychological, exploring the power of obsession, power dynamics, and especially blurred ethical boundaries. Here we have a young woman dealing with chronic pain while carrying the heavy responsibility of caring for her ailing mother. When she seeks treatment from the charming and confident Dr. Cyrus Ashford, she finds more than physical relief, she finds a dangerous focal point for her emotional and psychological needs.
What truly sets this book apart is its clear commitment to being a dark psychological novel rather than a romance. From the beginning, we are aware that the intimacy between Cyrus and Kessa is unhealthy and I loved the way it ended, because this is what made the book stand out for me.
Another important aspect of the book for me was the fact that both Kessa and Cyrus are intentionally unreliable, which creates a constant sense of tension and unease as you question motivations, perceptions, and the reality behind their connection.
January 12, 2026
ARC Review: I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Oh my god. What. A. Book.
The Perfect Patient is dark, twisted, and beautifully unhinged—and I say that as the highest possible compliment. I inhaled this book in a single day like it was oxygen and I was emotionally dehydrated.
At various points, I wanted to hug Kessa, protect her at all costs, and also crawl into the book just to glare aggressively at Cyrus. (Sir. The audacity.) Kessa’s backstory hit painfully close to home for me, and because of that, she’s a character I’ll carry with me long after the final page. Her name is officially engraved on my reader’s heart.
The plot had me in a chokehold from start to finish—no slow moments, no mercy, just pure addiction. And the ending? Completely blindsided me. I closed the book, stared at the wall, and questioned my existence for a solid minute.
Dark, emotional, and impossible to put down—this book understood the assignment and then casually ruined me. Fantastic read. Highly recommend if you enjoy being emotionally attacked (in the best way).
Oh my god. What. A. Book.
The Perfect Patient is dark, twisted, and beautifully unhinged—and I say that as the highest possible compliment. I inhaled this book in a single day like it was oxygen and I was emotionally dehydrated.
At various points, I wanted to hug Kessa, protect her at all costs, and also crawl into the book just to glare aggressively at Cyrus. (Sir. The audacity.) Kessa’s backstory hit painfully close to home for me, and because of that, she’s a character I’ll carry with me long after the final page. Her name is officially engraved on my reader’s heart.
The plot had me in a chokehold from start to finish—no slow moments, no mercy, just pure addiction. And the ending? Completely blindsided me. I closed the book, stared at the wall, and questioned my existence for a solid minute.
Dark, emotional, and impossible to put down—this book understood the assignment and then casually ruined me. Fantastic read. Highly recommend if you enjoy being emotionally attacked (in the best way).
Review of advance copy
A Perfect Patient is a dark and disturbing read. There are no HEAs and you will hate most of the characters. With that being said, I loved this book. I couldn't put it down.
Kessa is a mess. She is her mother's care giver and works a dead end job in her small, run down town. After going to the Dr. with unbearable pain her life changes forever, and not for the better.
The emotions I had while reading this book were all over the place. I felt bad for Kessa having to deal with her awful mother. I was mad at her for letting herself get taken advantage of over and over again. I was proud of her for moving on. Then I was sickened by the way she broke her body and mind down to nothing. Then the joy started slowly returning to abruptly find myself disappointed again.
Charli J. Connolly did a great job making you feel everything.
This book is not something you read lightly. Was Kessa made this way by our FMC? Or would she have ended up down this path either way due to her "affliction"?
There are heavy themes in this book, so approach with caution.
Kessa is a mess. She is her mother's care giver and works a dead end job in her small, run down town. After going to the Dr. with unbearable pain her life changes forever, and not for the better.
The emotions I had while reading this book were all over the place. I felt bad for Kessa having to deal with her awful mother. I was mad at her for letting herself get taken advantage of over and over again. I was proud of her for moving on. Then I was sickened by the way she broke her body and mind down to nothing. Then the joy started slowly returning to abruptly find myself disappointed again.
Charli J. Connolly did a great job making you feel everything.
This book is not something you read lightly. Was Kessa made this way by our FMC? Or would she have ended up down this path either way due to her "affliction"?
There are heavy themes in this book, so approach with caution.
January 20, 2026
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Conolly constructs a character study surrounding obsession and desire in a unique way through the opposing forces of kink, power imbalance, and professionalism. Especially in this case, where outside typical genre conventions, it could be argued that neither person is considered 'good.' Although albeit Cyrus is obviously considerably worse, Kess has also wrestles with manipulation and a lot of internalized classism, misogyny, and fatphobia (something I wish was specified in the trigger warning, as this done outside the on-page eating disorder content with weight being used as a judgement of people's character).
My main critique is that the writing style was inconsistent, some parts written better than others in terms of mood and genre that led to me being yanked out of immersion. There were vivid detail of Kess' family home that relayed her surroundings but then the interactions between people would sometimes fall flat, tropey, over the top, or just confusing in motivation.
Conolly constructs a character study surrounding obsession and desire in a unique way through the opposing forces of kink, power imbalance, and professionalism. Especially in this case, where outside typical genre conventions, it could be argued that neither person is considered 'good.' Although albeit Cyrus is obviously considerably worse, Kess has also wrestles with manipulation and a lot of internalized classism, misogyny, and fatphobia (something I wish was specified in the trigger warning, as this done outside the on-page eating disorder content with weight being used as a judgement of people's character).
My main critique is that the writing style was inconsistent, some parts written better than others in terms of mood and genre that led to me being yanked out of immersion. There were vivid detail of Kess' family home that relayed her surroundings but then the interactions between people would sometimes fall flat, tropey, over the top, or just confusing in motivation.
Review of advance copy
I couldn't put this book down, it was that good. It left me with a sense of ick, like the characters are deeply disturbed and their actions are even worse. While there are parts of the book, while reading, I had this sense of dread for Kessa, the main character, hoping that she would realize what was happening and be strong for herself but she was insecure enough to think she deserved what happens to her. This book is definitely dark and while there are romantic gestures, I wouldn't call this a romance book either. I think that some people will be upset with the aggression and abuse of power in this book but others, like myself, will realize it's just a story and love the book for what it is. I think that the author wrote Cyrus' character very well! I would feel a physical effect when reading his words. Overall, great book! I really enjoyed it.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Review of advance copy received from Author
This book drags you through twist after twist, forcing you to keep reading even when it becomes deeply unsettling. It’s not just dark—it’s suffocating.
You meet the FMC, a woman who has never been allowed a life of her own. Every dream she once had has been buried under duty, sacrifice and years spent caring for her mother. She’s already broken when the MMC enters the picture a doctor who is supposed to help her. But his help comes at a cost. The line between salvation and control blurs, and you’re left questioning whether he’s rescuing her… or remaking her into something that belongs to him.
Read the trigger warnings. Seriously. This is not a comforting book, and it doesn’t try to be. It’s dark, intense, and psychologically complex, pulling you deeper with every chapter until you’re trapped right alongside the characters. Disturbing, gripping and impossible to put down.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily
You meet the FMC, a woman who has never been allowed a life of her own. Every dream she once had has been buried under duty, sacrifice and years spent caring for her mother. She’s already broken when the MMC enters the picture a doctor who is supposed to help her. But his help comes at a cost. The line between salvation and control blurs, and you’re left questioning whether he’s rescuing her… or remaking her into something that belongs to him.
Read the trigger warnings. Seriously. This is not a comforting book, and it doesn’t try to be. It’s dark, intense, and psychologically complex, pulling you deeper with every chapter until you’re trapped right alongside the characters. Disturbing, gripping and impossible to put down.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily
Review of advance copy received from Author
ARC Review
A Perfect Patient
Author: Charli J Connolly
Release Date: March 4, 2026
Genre: Dark Medical Romance
It’s hard to place this novel into a specific genre. The emotional and physical interactions are written in a way that puts you in the story. The setting is descriptive whether it’s the smell of sticky carpet of the aroma of cigarette smoke. The described medical situations that brought the MC’s together were something I never even thought about. We read and we don’t judge! You’ll question, as a consenting adult where is the line between expectation of care and body autonomy? What happens when someone with a duty of care puts their own obsession above all else?
Triggers: as someone who has no triggers I strongly recommend that you always check your triggers and be good to yourself
#bookstagram #readersofinstagram #reviews #books #indyauthor
A Perfect Patient
Author: Charli J Connolly
Release Date: March 4, 2026
Genre: Dark Medical Romance
It’s hard to place this novel into a specific genre. The emotional and physical interactions are written in a way that puts you in the story. The setting is descriptive whether it’s the smell of sticky carpet of the aroma of cigarette smoke. The described medical situations that brought the MC’s together were something I never even thought about. We read and we don’t judge! You’ll question, as a consenting adult where is the line between expectation of care and body autonomy? What happens when someone with a duty of care puts their own obsession above all else?
Triggers: as someone who has no triggers I strongly recommend that you always check your triggers and be good to yourself
#bookstagram #readersofinstagram #reviews #books #indyauthor
Review of advance copy
Do y’all remember that girl who went viral on TT for posting a thousand-part series about her obsession with her therapist? That’s what I thought was happening here, but I was a little off.
This is a book about obsession, desire, and toxic manipulation. There is a serious power imbalance. The concept is dark, disturbing, and unsettling, but I felt it fell a bit short.
I didn’t hate this. I didn’t love this. I definitely think there is an audience for this book, but it isn’t me. I enjoy a book that makes me feel uncomfortable, but this really made me feel so weird and gross at times. The dynamic between Kessa and Cyrus was rushed to the point that it didn’t feel psychological; it just felt odd.
Thank you to Charli J. Connolly and BookSirens for the eARC & I am leaving the review voluntarily.
This is a book about obsession, desire, and toxic manipulation. There is a serious power imbalance. The concept is dark, disturbing, and unsettling, but I felt it fell a bit short.
I didn’t hate this. I didn’t love this. I definitely think there is an audience for this book, but it isn’t me. I enjoy a book that makes me feel uncomfortable, but this really made me feel so weird and gross at times. The dynamic between Kessa and Cyrus was rushed to the point that it didn’t feel psychological; it just felt odd.
Thank you to Charli J. Connolly and BookSirens for the eARC & I am leaving the review voluntarily.
January 16, 2026
A Perfect Patient has a disturbing and intriguing premise, but the execution felt lacking. While the themes of obsession, control, and power imbalance are clear, the storyline and character development fall short—especially in key situations that should have carried more impact.
Kessa’s choices and Cyrus’s fixation often escalate without enough buildup, making their dynamic feel rushed rather than deeply psychological. The dual POV adds perspective, but it doesn’t fully explore the characters’ motivations or emotional depth.
Overall, it’s an unsettling concept with potential, but the lack of development kept it from fully resonating.
Kessa’s choices and Cyrus’s fixation often escalate without enough buildup, making their dynamic feel rushed rather than deeply psychological. The dual POV adds perspective, but it doesn’t fully explore the characters’ motivations or emotional depth.
Overall, it’s an unsettling concept with potential, but the lack of development kept it from fully resonating.
January 28, 2026
Thank you for the eARC. WHAT did I just read, omg the emotional roller coaster that was the relationship was insane. The relationship that Kessa and Cyrus had was not only unethical but predatory in nature because of Cyrus’s title and his ability to manipulate Kessa. Overall I appreciated reading this story and stepping into their emotionally intense relationship if you can even call it that. The one thing that bothered me throughout was the nickname Kessa gave Cyrus which was Russy. I do not know why it bothered me as much as it did but man did I cringe every time it was written in the book. If you’re looking for a wild ride of a read, add this book to your list.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy
I liked reading this book, it was an eye opener on how things can turn out with coercion and manipulation and grooming and the way he got in her head, I think she was looking for something she didn't have and it led her to a path that was rough and bumpy.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Review of advance copy
4.3 STARS ⭐️
ARC REVIEW:
If you read this, please go in being aware of triggers like gaslighting, manipulation, and emotional abuse.
This book kept me hooked, but it also left me emotionally raw and exhausted so please note that reader discretion is advised.
I went into this story curious and cautiously intrigued, and it stayed that way the whole time.
The characters, particularly the FMC and MMC, are complex in ways that left me uncertain of their motives at different points. Both characters were unpredictable, and while that adds tension, it also made me want to snap them into reality!
Reading this arc left me feeling grossed out, emotionally wrecked, and exhausted, yet somehow I was unable to stop. There’s a clear throughline of manipulation, control, and psychological tension that runs throughout, which makes it compelling, but also deeply, deeply uncomfortable.
This is not a light romantic read, it’s dark, challenging, and will leave you questioning the characters’ morality and your own reactions to their actions. However, if you can handle that, it’s a gripping, intense, and complex story that will stay with you long after the last page.
A quote that stayed with me from the book: “Our minds are always the worst kind of incarceration.”
ARC REVIEW:
If you read this, please go in being aware of triggers like gaslighting, manipulation, and emotional abuse.
This book kept me hooked, but it also left me emotionally raw and exhausted so please note that reader discretion is advised.
I went into this story curious and cautiously intrigued, and it stayed that way the whole time.
The characters, particularly the FMC and MMC, are complex in ways that left me uncertain of their motives at different points. Both characters were unpredictable, and while that adds tension, it also made me want to snap them into reality!
Reading this arc left me feeling grossed out, emotionally wrecked, and exhausted, yet somehow I was unable to stop. There’s a clear throughline of manipulation, control, and psychological tension that runs throughout, which makes it compelling, but also deeply, deeply uncomfortable.
This is not a light romantic read, it’s dark, challenging, and will leave you questioning the characters’ morality and your own reactions to their actions. However, if you can handle that, it’s a gripping, intense, and complex story that will stay with you long after the last page.
A quote that stayed with me from the book: “Our minds are always the worst kind of incarceration.”
Review of advance copy
This was great! Psycho Doctor = sign me up! Spice was perfection and had me blushing 😊
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
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