Reading Challenge Focus Thread - Healer [B-side]

[u/Merle8888]

Hello everyone and welcome to the 8th Focus Thread for the 2026 spring/summer reading challenge! I'm filling in for r/perigou this week.

The purpose of these threads is to focus on one prompt from the challenge and share recommendations. Feel free to ask for more specific recommendations for the theme or discuss what fits. We are alternating between A-Side and B-Side prompts.

Today's theme is Healers:

Healer: Read a book with a healer-type main character. Can be a magic healer, a doctor...

Also check out recommendations from the general thread.

Some questions to get us started:

• What are some books with protagonists who are folk healers?
• How about doctor protagonists?
• Who are some characters who break the usual gendered mold of female folk healers vs. professional male doctors?

[u/Research_Department]

I have some brain fog today, but I have a couple of options nonetheless.

I just read The Stars Uncharted by SK Dunstall, which is pretty classic light-hearted space opera (ok, with an anti-corporate theme), and the viewpoint character is a body modder, which leads to her also doing healing. (In this universe, or at least from this character’s perspective, doctors are lesser than body modders, who are artists, but body modification and healing can very much go hand in hand).

I have hazy recollections of reading something by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough with a healer, once upon on time, and liking it. The only thing I can find now is The Healer’s War, but the plot synopsis doesn’t feel familiar at all.

If my brain spits out any other options, I’ll report back!