Gary Braver is the pen name of Gary Goshgarian, the author of six critically acclaimed suspense novels: three under his own name--Atlantis Fire, Rough Beast and The Stone Circle--and three under his pen name--Elixir, Gray Matter, and Flashback. He is also the author of four popular college writing textbooks--Exploring Language, The Contemporary Reader, Dialogues, and What Matters in America.

Gary is an award-winning professor of English at Northeastern University where he teaches Fiction Writing and courses in popular culture (Science Fiction, Horror Fiction, Detective Fiction, Modern Bestsellers, and Edgar Allan Poe.) He has taught fiction-writing workshops throughout the U.S. and Europe, including the Maui Writers Retreat, Cape Cod Writers Conference, London Writers Conference, Almost Famous Writers Conference (Switzerland), as well as workshops at Brown University, Emerson College, Florida State, and others.

Rachel Whitman appears to have everything. She is young, attractive, and affluent. Her husband is the brilliant CEO of his own company. They live a big new house in a flossy Boston suburb. They have all the brand name "toys" that go along with wealth. And they have a gorgeous, sweet little six-year old son named Dylan.

But Dylan has learning disabilities. Although intelligence isn't everything, Rachel lives in a community where the rewards for brainpower are conspicuous. She fears her son will grow up never fully appreciating the wonders of life. Like so many middle-class parents who would do anything to improve life for their children--whether it means having their hair, teeth, or nose fixed--Rachel cannot accept that her child is less than perfect.

Tortured by the idea that something she did in the past caused Dylan's problems, Rachel becomes obsessed with a secret and expensive medical procedure that claims to turn slow children into geniuses.

Should she and her husband sacrifice their fortune on the risky experimental procedure for the sake of their son's happiness? Unaware of the real consequences of the brain enhancement procedure, Rachel can't know that the costs of the operation go brutally far beyond financial ones.