Dr. Bertina M. Hooks has lived more than one life.
She’s a physician, healthcare executive, entrepreneur, mother, and disability advocate. In 2022, a life-threatening medical crisis put her on the other side of the physician-patient relationship and resulted in the loss of her right leg below the knee.
Now she’s telling the story in From Fire to Freedom: A Memoir of Transformation, Renewal, and Resilience, coming September 23.
And you can read it before everyone else does.
Become an Advance Reader!
Bertina is opening her ARC Team to readers who would like a free advance copy of From Fire to Freedom before publication.
This is a chance to discover a new memoir before it reaches the wider reading world and to be part of helping a book find its first readers. If the book speaks to you, you’ll also have the opportunity to share your honest thoughts and help other readers discover it.
I edited From Fire to Freedom, and Bertina’s resilience took my breath away. But this book isn’t compelling simply because extraordinary things happened to her. It’s a genuinely good story. I wanted to know what happened next, and I cared about the woman at the center of it.
Bertina writes about medicine, motherhood, marriage and divorce, racism and sexism, burnout, disability, grief, faith, ambition, and what happens when the life you planned changes underneath you.
If you’ve ever had to figure out who you are after life changed the question, there may be something in Bertina’s story for you.
Join the From Fire to Freedom ARC Team and receive your free advance copy.
From Fire to Freedom publishes September 23, 2026.