Hello! Debra Gallagher here. I’ve been asked to tell you all about a day in my life. I have to say, I’m thrilled. No one has ever wanted to know all about my day, even my husband. I work as a receptionist at the Baxter Family Medicine Clinic. My husband is a police officer and he thinks his job is much more exciting. Hah! Ever since Dr. LeClair started working here, things have become very exciting indeed.

She worked with us while she was a resident in Ann Arbor (just a fifteen minute drive away) and we all really liked her. The Drs. Hawkins made the excellent choice of hiring her. They are a father-son team and used to get along really well, but something has been causing tension lately. Don’t worry, I’ll figure it out eventually. Anyway, back to Dr. LeClair.

She tells me she doesn’t want to hear gossip, but lately that’s all she’s been interested in. Ever since her patient committed suicide, she’s been on a tear to learn everything she can about the town and all of its citizens. It’s true, I do know a lot about everyone here. I grew up in Baxter and anything I don’t know, my friend at the Clip ‘n Curl picks up just by listening to her clients. Between the two of us, I’ll bet we could write the whole history of the town.

A day in my life is never the same twice. I don’t just answer the phones. I have to schedule the appointments and each doc has their own preferences, so I have a different kind of schedule for each one. I have to be a bit of a therapist on the phone, especially when parents call. Sometimes they even ask me what they should do! I tell them, I just work for the docs, I don’t know how to treat the patients. (Although, honestly, some of it is pretty easy to figure out. If you were walking in the woods and now you have an itchy rash it doesn’t take four years of medical school to know you have poison ivy, but I’ll give you an appointment).

Some days I also have to wrangle kids and I feel more like a pre-school teacher than a business-like receptionist. Some parents have to bring their whole family in for just one kid’s appointment and it can get a little hectic in the waiting room. I also have to sneak to the back to grab charts for add-on patients and to deliver messages. And, recently, I’ve been fielding questions about Dr. LeClair. As the new doc in town everyone wants to know as much as they can about her. She’s not as free with her personal details as I would like, but I do know this much: she lives in town with her younger brother, she did her residency in Ann Arbor, and her patients seem to love her. That last one might be because she talks to them and doesn’t focus on the clock, which is a bad thing according to our nurse. Dr. LeClair does seem to run behind schedule quite a bit.

Recently, the questions have been more about Ellen Riley and how she died. I wish I had answers for them. In fact, I have a few questions of my own. . .

You can read more about Debra in Unnatural Causes, the first book in the NEW “Dr. Katie LeClair” mystery series.

Katie LeClair has finally settled down as the new doctor in Baxter, MI. After years of moving, schooling, and training, she wants nothing more than to find a place she can call home, and a small town outside of Ann Arbor seemed perfect.

Katie quickly gets to work in building a life for herself in Baxter, and beyond reviving her love life, she also finds a pair of business partners in a team of father and son family practitioners. But that idyllic dream is immediately shattered when one of her patients is found dead. That wouldn’t be the worst thing, except the death is ruled a suicide, and as evidence has it, the suicide was a result of the medication Katie had prescribed. But she doesn’t remember writing it.

When a closer investigation reveals it was murder, Katie is catapulted into an off-the-books investigation that leads her down a dark path of past secrets. But someone is willing to kill to keep part of the town’s history in the shadows, and Katie must race to find out who before it’s too late in nationally bestselling author Dawn Eastman’s riveting series debut Unnatural Causes.

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About the author
Dawn Eastman lived in Michigan for many years, in a house full of animals, unusual people, and laughter. After attending medical school in New York City, she returned to Michigan to complete her training in Family Medicine. Much of that time was spent in a small-town practice. She now lives in Iowa with her family and one extremely bossy small dog. She is the national bestselling author of The Family Fortune Mystery Series, which features psychics, quirky characters and murders. This is her first Dr. Katie LeClair mystery.

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