DISCLAIMER: This interview discusses another family's experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is not related to the events or characters depicted in Code Blue Lies, but explores broader issues of informed consent, patient advocacy, and medical ethics that readers may find relevant.DISCLAIMER: This interview discusses another family's experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is not related to the events or characters depicted in Code Blue Lies, but explores broader issues of informed consent, patient advocacy, and medical ethics that readers may find relevant.
Code Blue Lies
A Riveting Novel Inspired by Real-Life Medical Ethics Scandals, Based on a True Story
By Joan Dominique Clancy
Published by Stolen Dreams Editions
Product Description
A Gripping Medical Thriller Inspired by a True Story
When Bree Calloway rushes her mother, Bridget, to the emergency room after three failed visits to her doctor, she expects answers.
Instead, she enters a nightmare.
What begins as a routine hospital admission quickly spirals into a devastating medical crisis. As Bridget's condition deteriorates, Bree watches her mother become trapped inside an intensive care unit where every decision carries life-altering consequences, trust begins to unravel, and the line between healing and harm grows increasingly blurred.
Years later, one discovery changes everything.
While searching through medical records, Bree uncovers inconsistencies that refuse to be ignored. The deeper she digs, the more disturbing the questions become. What really happened inside those hospital walls? Who knew the truth? And how far would someone go to keep it buried?
Inspired by true events, Code Blue Lies is a gripping novel of family, resilience, and the relentless pursuit of truth. Blending emotional depth with the suspense of a legal and medical thriller, Joan Dominique Clancy delivers a powerful story about love, courage, and what happens when one daughter refuses to stop asking questions.
Because sometimes surviving is only the beginning.
If it could happen to Bree's family, could it happen to yours?
Book Details
Format: Paperback
Trim Size: 6 × 9 inches
Length: 272 pages
Publisher: Stolen Dreams Editions
Release Date: August 2025
Categories: Medical Thriller, Legal Thriller, Medical Drama, Contemporary Fiction
About the Author
She never intended to become an author.
She never intended to write this book.
She simply reached a point where silence was no longer an option.
Joan Dominique Clancy is an entrepreneur based in Paradise Valley, Arizona. Code Blue Lies is her debut novel, inspired by personal experience and years of research.
Blending the emotional depth of family drama with the suspense of a medical and legal thriller, Clancy explores the fragile intersection of trust, ethics, and the relentless pursuit of truth.
Written with compassion, courage, and an unwavering commitment to storytelling, Code Blue Lies transforms deeply personal inspiration into a gripping work of fiction that asks one haunting question:
What happens when the people entrusted to save your life become the ones you fear most?
For Clancy, this novel is more than a story. It is a tribute to resilience, the enduring bond between a mother and daughter, and the courage to keep searching for answers when the truth refuses to stay buried.
Frequently Asked Questions
⚠️ (Warning: This section contains major spoilers.)
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Code Blue Lies is a work of fiction inspired by real events. While the emotional journey draws inspiration from lived experiences, the characters, dialogue, institutions, timeline, and many events have been fictionalized or altered for literary purposes.
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No.
Within the novel, the mother is never diagnosed with COVID-19.
That fact is central to the story.
Code Blue Lies explores what happens when a family begins questioning why medical decisions appear to unfold within the framework of the COVID-19 era despite the absence of a COVID-19 diagnosis. Rather than providing simple answers, the novel follows a daughter's relentless search for truth, informed consent, and accountability.
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Because trauma is lived one day at a time. The diary format allows readers to experience the same uncertainty, hope, fear, and unanswered questions as the daughter, exactly as she lived them.
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Yes.
Code Blue Lies is a fictional gain-of-function thriller exploring advanced engineered cell therapies, the possibility of unauthorized human experimentation after life support, and the fight for informed consent when a patient can no longer speak for themselves.
As the daughter's diary unfolds, what begins as a routine hospital admission evolves into a search for truth that forces her to question whether every medical decision made on behalf of her mother was fully understood, properly authorized, or something far more extraordinary.
The novel intentionally explores these questions through fiction and should be read as a fictional narrative inspired by real events.
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Because one question drives the entire story:
Who speaks for a patient who can no longer speak for themselves?
As the mother's legally appointed healthcare Power of Attorney, the daughter is suddenly forced to make life-altering decisions while questioning whether every medical intervention was fully understood, properly authorized, and consistent with her mother's wishes.
At its core, Code Blue Lies is a story about informed consent, patient advocacy, the responsibility that comes with speaking for someone you love, and what happens when trust is tested inside the walls of a hospital.
