The Luckiest Unlucky Couple

Name: The Luckiest Unlucky Couple
Price: 40 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9798216270058

A Medical Love Story

Alicia C. Shepard

$40

Hardback

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English

Bloomsbury Academic
16 April 2026

Oncology; Coping with illness; Coping with death & bereavement

A late-in-life love story unfolds between two adventurers and then everything changes. When he is cured, she is diagnosed, and what follows is a journey of resilience, courage, and the power of love. The story goes something like this: successful journalist and author, Alicia (Lisa), in her late 50s, is single and mostly happy but has given up on finding love again after her first marriage ended abruptly.

Her friends convince her to at least try Match.com, and she finds the love of her life. Then out of the blue, he is diagnosed with melanoma, which has traveled to his brain. Through immunotherapy, he gets cured. And through the process of his illness, she and his children---not especially close before---become a family. That is the first half of the book.

Not long after he is pronounced cured, she is diagnosed with lung cancer. That is the second half of the book, wherein she struggles with cancer, dying, surrendering to support, gets remarried, and ultimately finds deeper love for all things. The book not only details her emotional journey, it also contains a lot of useful information on cutting-edge immunotherapy techniques, and how to live in the moment when that is not your predisposition. The epilogue, written by her husband, shares life after Lisa's passing. In the appendix the couple shares helpful tips for patients and families wrestling with cancer.

By: Alicia C. Shepard
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 218mm, Width: 148mm, Spine: 22mm
Weight: 420g
ISBN: 9798216270058
Pages: 216
Publication Date: 16 April 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

1: One Life to Live 2: I Don't Have a Little White Dog 3: Trauma Never Leaves 4: Afghanistan 5: A Constellation of Strangers 6: The Road to Recovery 7: Reclaiming Our Lives 8: The Seizure That Ended the Sailing Trip 9: The New New Normal 10: My Turn 11: We Can Help You 12: The EGFR Jackpot 13: Losing Judy 14: Who Am I With Cancer 15: The Grand Canyon 16: Scanziety 17: C797S and the Cyberknife 18: Dog No. 1 19: Whack the Mole 20: When One Person in Your Boat Is Calm Epilogue: by David Marsden

Alicia Shepard was an award-winning journalist, professor, media trainer, media critic, and op-ed writer whose writing was published in leading outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, and People magazine. She is a former ombudsman for National Public Radio and contributor to USA Today and NBC News.com

Reviews for The Luckiest Unlucky Couple: A Medical Love Story

In high school, Lisa was my boldest friend—curious, funny, bright and always up for life’s adventures. In this memoir she is just as real and fearless, meeting love, illness, and mortality with courage and honesty. Reading it feels like being with her again. -- Tara Brach * author of Radical Acceptance * Having edited her articles for 20-plus years, I knew Alicia Shepard was an extraordinary journalist and storyteller, but this memoir—inspirational, heartbreaking, useful, and at times (I have to say, because it’s her) funny—took my admiration to a new level. It’s her very best work, in a life that was already full of accolades and successes, a riveting testimony to an adventurous spirit, courage, strength, and ultimately love. -- Bill O'Sullivan * senior managing editor, Washingtonian magazine * It is quite touching, compelling and wise. I believe it will be of value to individuals battling cancer and their loved ones. -- Dr. Michael Atkins * Deputy Director of the Lombardi Comprehensive Center at Georgetown University * Being a journalist in Afghanistan doesn’t automatically prepare you to deal with the news of metastatic melanoma in your partner’s brain. Or does it? Lisa shares with us a double crash course in cancer. And shows us how love can thrive in this personal journey of the luckiest unlucky couple. -- Missy Rand * co-founder, Living With Melanoma Support Group, Alexandria, VA * Part romance, part medical detective mystery, set amidst the war in Afghanistan and the chaos of Covid Washington. These two souls found each other and never let go. It has insights into today’s state of the art treatments for cancer. And for broken hearts. You are not likely to forget its message. -- Paul Magnusson * Washington correspondent Business Week, Knight-Ridder * A journalist at heart with a zest for life, Lisa Shepard left us far too soon. She also left us a heart-rending narrative of back-to-back battles with cancer, one triumphant, the other tragic. It is a story of courage, resilience and grace that is a testament to the human spirit — a compelling final chapter in her inspiring legacy. -- Alan C. Miller * winner of the Pulitzer Prize and AARP Purpose Prize and founder of the News Literacy Project *