Rescue Team (30 page)

C
ANDACE
C
ALVERT
is a former ER nurse and author of the Mercy Hospital series—
Critical Care
,
Disaster Status
, and
Code Triage
—and the Grace Medical series—
Trauma Plan
and
Rescue Team
. Her medical dramas offer readers a chance to “scrub in” on the exciting world of emergency medicine. Wife, mother, and very proud grandmother, Candace makes her home in northern California. Visit her website at
www.candacecalvert.com
.

U
SE THESE QUESTIONS FOR INDIVIDUAL REFLECTION OR FOR DISCUSSION WITHIN YOUR BOOK CLUB OR SMALL GROUP.

Note: If you would like me to “attend” your book club’s gathering, please e-mail me at
[email protected]
. I’ll try to arrange a speakerphone or Skype visit to join your discussion.

1. In the opening scene of
   Rescue Team
   , Wes Tanner plunges down a gully to rescue a missing woman; he is soon joined by a team of volunteers that includes a local funeral director, a coffeehouse barista, and a dog named Hershey. Throughout the story, we see that Wes is proud of and grateful for his team—folks united in a calling to serve others. In your personal experience, have you ever had a strong sense of team? What were the circumstances? How did it make you feel?
   
2. On the flip side, at the beginning of
   Rescue Team
   , we find Kate Callison struggling to hold her emergency department team together. She blames her problems on the fact that she’s “stepping into the shoes of a saint,” replacing a much loved and tragically lost ER director. Do you think she’s correct in
   that assessment of the problem? Could she have done more to unify her team? Discuss.
   
3. Tireless hospital volunteer Judith Doyle is dedicated to her own rescue plan. What was valuable about seeing the story from her point of view? Were you surprised by the turn of events that brought the police to her door? Did you suspect Judith’s secret identity?
   
4. Rescue Team
   is set in and around Austin, Texas, and readers get glimpses of both rural settings (the Tanner and Braxton ranches) and colorful cityscapes, from famous music clubs to quirky tastes of Austin’s famous gourmet trailer food. What imagery added to your enjoyment of this story? Have you ever traveled to Austin? If you were to visit, which of Kate and Wes’s destinations would you want to see?
   
5. The story’s more serious moments are balanced by small bits of humor, often from walk-on characters—even those who can’t actually walk, like vintage doll Nancy Rae. What did the tea-and-cookie scene with Nancy Rae and Amelia Braxton tell you about our hero, Wes?
   
6. In a scene at the Braxton ranch, while standing at the site of an abandoned well, Wes describes his first rescue to Kate. Struck by a sense of Wes’s good and heroic heart, Kate says something to him about her own flaws—that she’s “not the kind of person God would listen to.” Wes responds by talking about the undeserved gift of grace. How important was this conversation to Kate’s overall journey? What similarities do you see between this exchange and the Bible story of the woman at the well (John 4:1-42)?
   
7. Both Kate and Wes join the search for missing baby Harley. Finding her feels both urgent and very, very personal for each of them—for far different reasons. Did you understand their feelings? Empathize with them? Discuss.
   
8. After her painful confession to Wes, Kate feels confused and hopeless. So she does what she’s always done: runs away. Yet something prompts her to stop by triage nurse Dana Connor’s house, and afterward, she feels “a little less lost.” Why do you think that was?
   
9. Though Kate wanted desperately to find baby Harley, she instead found Sunni Sprague’s bones. At a pivotal point in the story, Sunni’s grieving mother says she believes it was God’s plan that Kate found her daughter. Would you agree? Why? Have you ever found yourself in a role that seemed crafted by God but wasn’t your plan? How did you respond?
   
10. The broken relationship between Kate and her father, Matt, was an important part of this story. How did you feel when Kate went home to Happy Hollow Lane? How important was that resolution to her healing?
    
11. How satisfying was
    Rescue Team
    ’s ending for you? Were any of your questions left unanswered?
    

Please visit my website at
www.candacecalvert.com
for more information on upcoming books in this series.

Thank you for reading
Rescue Team
.

Warmly,

Candace Calvert