About the Book

Book: The Samaritan’s Patient

Author: Chevron Ross

Genre: Contemporary Fiction / Teen Christian Fiction

Release Date: January 25, 2024

Teenager Paige Abernathy awakens after a severe beating to find that she suffers from amnesia, and that everyone seems to hate her.

She has only flashes of memory until the night a grieving parent attacks her in her hospital room. Paige then remembers her role as creator of an online group where members talk about ways to commit suicide.

After recovering from the beating, Paige embarks on a journey of penance to atone for a disaster born of good intentions. Her odyssey launches her on a mission of mercy and into new danger.

The Samaritan’s Patient is a thought-provoking novel about navigating the treacherous waters of social media.

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My Thoughts:

I love the concept behind this novel. Paige starts out as a naive teenager, trying to spread some hope in the world, but her good intentions are used for evil. The consequences impact everyone around her. The story starts with Paige standing on a bridge staring out over the horizon, when she is attacked; and a good Samaritan takes her to the hospital and covers her medical expenses. God takes Paige on a journey that very clearly portrays that He has a purpose for everything and can truly use all things for good. As Paige attempts to make amends for her past, many lives cross her path and are impacted in amazing ways. These lives vary from doctors and hospital administrators to homeless people and prison inmates. There was a chapter or two close to the end that seemed to be used to wrap things up but I felt was unnecessary. Other than that and a couple of little things that pulled me from the story, I thought this was a great book. There were scenes that brought tears to my eyes. Most importantly, the theme/ message were strong, and I will definitely be thinking about them.

About the Author

Chevron Ross is a pseudonym for someone unimportant. He is not a writer, but God keeps putting ideas into his head that somehow turn into stories. If you like them, be sure to offer God a prayer of thanks.

More from Chevron

Behind the Scenes

This novel might never have been born had I not seen an interview on PBS with two New York Times writers, Megan Twohey and Gabriel Dance, on December 16, 2021.

These reporters did an extensive investigation into a website on which subscribers discussed committing suicide and shared methods for doing so. Most visitors to the site were thirty or younger. There were 1.2 million messages. At least forty-five suicides in multiple countries were linked to the site.

At the time of this broadcast, I had just completed my second novel, The Seven-Day Resurrection, and was wondering what to do next. The PBS interview was so shocking that I could not stop thinking about it. What motive could a person have for encouraging strangers to kill themselves? What could one possibly gain from such an endeavor? And what could provoke someone to throw away the gift of life at such a youthful age?

Each of my novels has been the result of an inspiration from God. Once He puts an idea into my head, it consumes my imagination until I cannot stop working. As you might imagine from the title, The Samaritan’s Patient is a blend of two stories: the famous parable of Jesus in the Bible, and a young person with good intentions who gets caught up in a social media nightmare.

God did all the work on this book. He created the character of Paige Abernathy and told me how to build the novel around the circumstances of her personal life—her parents, her friends, and most of all, her Christian faith. He also created the crisis that launches her on a journey of new experiences and personal growth.

I am amazed and grateful that God would choose someone so ordinary and unaccomplished as myself to do this work. Each novel God has written through me has been a great personal gift, and a reaffirmation that God has a plan for each of us. I pray that The Samaritan’s Patient will be as great a blessing to its readers as it has been to me.