On a cruise ship stricken by the regression strain, primal urges are impossible to resist and the line between civilization and chaos has never been more fragile.
The Regression Strain
by Kevin Hwang
Genre: Thriller
Nobody’s safe when the inner beast awakens…
Dr. Peter Palma joins the medical team of the Paradise to treat passengers for minor ailments as the cruise ship sails across the Atlantic. But something foul is festering under the veneer of leisure. The brig fills with felons, the morgue with bodies, and the vacation becomes a nightmare.
Peter and his staff face a vile affliction that pits loved ones against each other and shatters the bonds of civil society.
With the ship hurtling towards an unprepared New York, only Peter can neutralize the threat, but he’s hallucinating and delirious.
And sometimes primal urges are impossible to resist.
The Regression Strain is a fast-paced, cerebral medical thriller that’ll grab you from the first to the last page.
Buy Link * Bookbub * Goodreads
As the cab rounded the corner behind the service buildings, the full bulk of the ship rose into view, a floating city gleaming white and blue against the gray Baltic sky. The Paradise would be Peter’s home and workplace for the next month.
His shoulders tightened. Had he forgotten to pack anything? It was too late now.
The taxi ejected him into the cool summer of Copenhagen—heaven compared to the stifling heat of Texas. He checked in at the terminal counter, cleared security, and joined the stream of chattering passengers traversing the covered gangway to board the vessel. Most of them spoke in English and a few in Spanish. Others conversed in German, French, or Scandinavian tongues. They seemed affluent and confident, not at all like his impoverished patients in Houston’s Fifth Ward. That guy in front—his Rolex probably cost more than Peter’s Outback.
Peter wheeled his suitcase through a colonnade of clapping crew members and across the threshold of the grand atrium. Its rich wood paneling and glittering chandeliers were as opulent as the brochures promised. He fused with the crush of passengers piling up in front of the diagrams posted near the elevators. Living quarters for the medical crew were on the lowest deck, conveniently adjacent to the clinic.
Amid the throng, a woman was fussing over a teenage boy in a wheelchair. She leaned in and whispered something in his ear, then tousled his thick mop of brown hair. With one hand cranked tight against his chest, he lolled his head back and rewarded her with a crooked smile. Her haggard face lit up. Now that was one tired mama.
“I like his shirt.” Peter pointed to the graphic of Thor wielding his massive hammer.
“You hear that, Calvin? He likes it.”
Calvin’s nose crinkled above the sparse stubble dotting his chin. She retrieved a ChapStick from her floral fanny pack and slathered Calvin’s lips first, then her own.
She offered the tube to Peter with a glistening smile. “Want some?”
He cringed. That was weird. “Uh, no thanks.”
“Want him?”
Peter’s eyes snapped up to hers. “Excuse me?”
“You can take him for a while.” She smiled and tipped her head. “He doesn’t eat much.”
“Ah…”
“Ha ha, it’s a joke.” She licked her moistened lips. “I’ve been on this boat too long. Cabin fever.” She gave him a little nod and wheeled the kid into the elevator.
The adjacent elevator dinged open, revealing a family that looked right at home, mom admiring the decor, two school kids horsing around. Sipping coffee in his striped polo, dad looked a bit like Peter’s microbiology professor—placid and plump.
Peter pulled his suitcase to the side with a smile. It was nice to see people relaxed and carefree. And if they needed medical attention—well, he could offer it. It would be a relief to simply treat patients. No rationing medications against their rent. No fighting through nettles of bureaucracy just to get a CT scan. He wasn’t built for that fight, and the last few rounds had left him bruised.
The younger child in the elevator darted out. Mom lunged and grabbed his collar, jostling dad into Peter. Coffee sloshed out of the man’s cup and down his jeans.
An animal snarl flashed over the man’s pale, doughy face. “Watch it, prick.”
“Sorry, I didn’t expect…”
The man leaned in, eyes glowing hot behind round bifocals.
Peter jerked back. “Whoa, are you okay?”
As the man cocked his fist back, Peter watched the sleeve of his polo shirt ride up his bicep, almost in slow motion. Peter quickly raised his open palms.
“Honey,” mom hissed. She tugged her little one back, and he huddled under her frail wings.
The man lowered his fist, the stench of coffee hot on his breath.
Peter nodded. “It was an accident. I’ll buy you another coffee. Or jeans.”
The heat in the man’s eyes dissipated and he blinked a few times, looking at Peter’s face yet his attention was directed elsewhere. “Ah, shoot.”
Sorry, mom mouthed and hustled the whole family away.
Peter stepped into the elevator among passengers who seemed oblivious to the encounter. His heart hammered in his chest, and his mouth soured with adrenaline. Microbiology professor? Scratch that—this guy was more like that assistant principal caught in a minivan with the high school girl. And here he’d nearly gotten into a fistfight on his first day.
But hey, he’d defused the situation. He was still supposed to be here. This was going to work out. He closed his eyes as the last passengers got off and the elevator continued to the bottom level.
Kevin O. Hwang, MD, is a professor of internal medicine at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston where he sees patients and teaches residents. His academic work has appeared in leading medical journals. Nothing excites him more than chicken enchiladas, index cards, and appropriately sized packaging.
Website * X * Instagram * LinkedIn * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads
Can you, for those who don’t know you already, tell something about yourself and how you became an author?
I’m an internal medicine doctor and professor at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston where I see patients and teach residents. I’ve wanted to write a novel since I was a teenager but never got past the first few scenes. I’ve written some short stories but a novel was always the dream.
It still took a while to commit to the concept of writing about a doctor, but once I finally took the advice to “write what you know,” I still needed to decide on a setting. I didn’t want to put the protagonist in a standard hospital or medical office setting.
On day it finally hit me: We’ve been on a few cruises, I’m a doctor, and maybe there’s a story in there somewhere. A story centered on a single cruise itinerary seemed narrow enough in scope to attempt. I also wanted the protagonist to think about human nature because I think about it a lot.
Can you tell us a little bit about the characters in The Regression Strain?
The protagonist is Peter Palma, a young doctor who takes a job working on a cruise ship because he thinks it’ll be easy gig – just the thing he needs after going through some very difficult times professionally and personally. Of course, he soon finds out he’s in for the “adventure” of a lifetime. He’s thoughtful, vulnerable, and acutely aware of his shortcomings. Peter isn’t your typical cocky, know-it-all hero. He has to dig pretty deep to overcome challenges facing himself and everyone depending on him. He struggles with a lot of self-doubt along the way.
Dr. Elizabeth Hartley is a senior physician on the ship who fails as Peter’s mentor as she teeters on the edge of madness.
Mandy Chin is a nurse from Portland whom Peter can’t stop thinking about in all the wrong ways.
Captain Forster wields an ego bigger than the ocean!
Harrington is the security chief desperate to maintain order.
Calvin is a teenage boy abandoned by his mother.
If your book was made into a film, who would you like to play the lead?
Matt Damon – from back in the Jason Bourne days!
How did you come up with name of this book?
My original title was “Belly of the Whale” because the imagery and theme of someone trapped in an ocean-faring creature or vessel fits with the story. But I heard feedback that the title lacked the intense, edgy vibe that a thriller novel deserves. So I thought about the main external dramatic element of the story, where human behavior changed for the worse, or regressed. Hence, The Regression Strain.
Convince us why you feel your book is a must read.
It’s a fast-paced story with a likeable protagonist struggling with his own nature and against a sinister plot to remake humankind into something terrifying. It has a bit of medicine and science, but not so much as to overwhelm readers. The story has a lot of twists and turns, and psychological suspense.
What makes a good story?
When at least one character, especially a flawed character, struggles against long odds to accomplish something personally important to them.
What is your writing process? For instance do you do an outline first? Do you do the chapters first?
For this novel – my first – I was a methodological pantser. I developed a sparse outline of the key turning points, maybe 8 in total, and wrote freely to get from one point to the other. A detailed scene list emerged sometime during that process, and in the later stages, I bounced back and forth between writing the actual novel and working on the scene list. It was quite chaotic and messy.
An annoying pattern is that I’ll sit at my computer and struggle to come up with ideas. Then if I go for a walk or drive, or take a shower, that’s when the ideas start flowing.
If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
Write what you know. Just start something and get to the end. Then go back and revise it. I still need to remind myself of that.
Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!
July 17
Kickoff at Silver Dagger Book Tours
July 18
The Dungeon Crawlers – GUEST POST
☼ A Place In The Spotlight ☼ with M.C.V. EGAN
Books all things paranormal and romance
Inside the Insanity – GUEST POST
July 19
Book Bites….with a side of coffee
July 20
July 21
Sarcastically Yours, Jen – GUEST POST
July 22
July 23
Stormy Nights Reviewing & Bloggin’
July 24
Thanks to Silver Dagger for organizing and hosting this tour for my book, The Regression Strain.
This sounds like a great read for the summer. I am loving the cover too. Sounds like one that will keep me reading all night for sure!
Sounds like a good book.
This sounds like an excellent thriller.
Sounds like a interesting book. I really like the excerpt and the cover.
This excerpt is truly inspiring.
This sounds like a great read
Star Trek The Next Generation has an episode close to the plot described, only it involved actual mutations.
Admittedly I’m more of an old-school Star Wars fan, but I’ll have to check that out!
this sounds like an exciting book to read
Sounds like a good read
Nice cover, looks like an interested book to read
Thanks for you all’s kind feedback on the cover and excerpt! — Kevin Hwang (author of The Regression Strain)
Looks very exciting Do you write in a daily journal?
I’m not great at journaling but my desk is buried under index cards, scraps of paper, and little notebooks for my to-do-items and novel ideas!
I like the book details.
Sounds like a good read.
I like the covers and and and the excerpt!
Sounds intense; I hope to have the pleasure of reading it :)
The excerpt sounds really good. Thanks for sharing.
I can tell from reading the excerpt this is an exciting read!
Thank you for sharing it.
Thanks for the excerpt!. Sounds like a good thriller. Thanks for the Q&A too! :)
It looks like a good read.
looks like a fun one.
This sounds like an interesting book and I also like the cover.
I enjoyed the excerpt for The Regression Strain. Thanks for the giveaway!
Sounds like something that could actually happen.
Beyond Comps