Darden North, MD

Reprinted from ... WHAT TO READ BY NAN GRAVES GOODMAN PORTICO JACKSON Magazine - December 2008 - Page 14 Fresh Frozen by Darden North, M.D. (Ponder House Press) Jackson (MS)OB-GYN physician and author of House Call and Points of Origin , both recipients of literary awards, has woven yet another spellbinding medical world novel of suspense and intrigue, this one based in the modern, expensive world of frozen embryos. When an infertile, nearly bankrupt couple decides to choose from a human egg and embryo donor bank, the trouble begins. The non-ethical owner of the baby-making business runs a shady place, located just north of Jackson, Mississippi. The lives of Hollywood celebrities, a Mississippi socialite, and an Internet thief—who uncovers the baby factory’s shady dealings online—make for an interestingly mixed plot complete with greed, angst, and murder. North has become a master of medical suspense.

Not often a factor analyzed by the national media as it dooms the national and global economy, book signings may be holding their own --- at least around here. Even as my third novel, FRESH FROZEN , was enjoying an October 2008 book release just as the economy was really tanking (not a cause and effect relationship, I’m sure), I along with hoards of other authors and publicists was busy. The goal was to line up and confirm appearances at bookstores, gift shops, art galleries, museums, outdoor festivals, schools, business conventions, family reunions, or any other location where a crowd of potential shoppers was anticipated. (Considering the long lines of folks waiting to vote before and on November 4, it’s too bad that book signings are not allowed at the polls.) While book distributors may encounter difficulty in moving the hardcover works of even the “major” authors, hopefully books and book signings may prove themselves recession-proof in the long run. Then, of course, there is the...

Reproduced from Oxford Town / Oxford (MS)Eagle newspaper, published October 30, 2008 By Kenneth Jones In North’s third medical thriller, Wesley and Carrie Sarbeck have struggled for years to get pregnant, all but bankrupting them and nearly killing Carrie at one point. Feeling left out of a society where having a child is almost compulsory, the Sarbecks decide to make one last, desperate grab for the American Dream, and visit the Van Deman Center, just outside of Jackson. Housed in what was once an abandoned, dilapidated building, the Van Deman Center has emerged as the pre-eminent fertility clinic in the United States. It is where the Sarbecks, superstar Allyn Saxton, and southern belle Cheryl Choice all go. But with an internet voyeur tapping into the clinic’s security system, and a poisonous mix of hormones and surgical treatments killing one of the aforementioned patients, the pursuit of life suddenly becomes a run from death. With desperate would-be parents, embryo and sperm ped...

DELTA MAGAZINE is published by Coopwood Magazines, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Review of FRESH FROZEN written by Denise Grones and reproduced from DELTA MAGAZINE - Nov/Dec 2008 - Page 31 Where else do you find a handsome, young doctor, a gorgeous socialite, a thief, a flamboyant personal shopper and a grisly murder plot? All in a Darden North novel, of course. North, a Cleveland native and practicing obstetrician and gynecologist in Jackson, has just released his third medical thriller, Fresh Frozen. In this suspenseful novel, Wesley and Carey Sarbeck, a young policeman and his wife, desperately want to produce a family. After many medical problems, the couple is offered one last chance at the Van Deman Center of Reproductive Technology. The cutting edge center for infertility treatment is housed in a dilapidated building north of Jackson, Mississippi, along with many secrets that are being kept at any cost. At the center, the Sarbecks' lives become unknowi...