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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I received a complimentary copy of this book. All opinions given are my own and not an endorsement of all author’s opinions.

Author Interview

1. Why did you want to become an author?

I never intended to become an author, and I don’t think of myself as one. God is the author. I’m just a typist. When He put the idea for Weapons of Remorse into my headseven years ago, I knew that He wanted it to be about a Christian man struggling with his conscience as a gun rights advocate. Once I had that foundation, everything else fell into place.

2. What step of writing this book was the most challenging and why?

I really struggled with the opening scene of The Samaritan’s Patient once I realized how critical it was to subsequent events in the book. God kept giving me these feelings that something wasn’t right and sent me back to the start over and over again. I probably spent more time on that scene than any other.

3. What/Who inspired you to write on the main themes found in the book?

The Samaritan’s Patient might never have been born had I not seen a PBS interview 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. Everything else in the book just seemed to grow naturally from that news story.

4. Which character in your book do you relate to the most?

Strangely, the one I still think about most is Norris Tankersley, the man who tries to break into the hospital emergency room. Although he’s nothing like me, his personal journey from darkness to light is so moving.

5. What message do you hope readers take away from your book?

That God loves each of us so much that He involves himself in every experience of our lives. And that He expects us to care about each other as He cares about us.

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.