An Edinburgh author, and University of the West of Scotland (UWS) graduate, explores the risks of psychedelic healing in new psychological thriller The Medicine.
Scottish author Emma Dhesi, who graduated from the then University of Paisley (now UWS) with a BA (Hons) in Applied Social Studies, returns with The Medicine, a psychological suspense novel that examines trauma, memory, and the growing interest in psychedelic-assisted therapy.
Emma is the author of five novels, including The Day She Came Home and Follow Me, and is known for writing emotionally charged stories centred on women navigating complex personal crises.
Her work blends domestic suspense with psychological depth, often exploring the tension between perception and truth.
The third instalment in A Scottish Suspense Series, The Medicine follows Ashley, a woman who has spent fifteen years trying to bury the truth about a night that changed her life. When a murder in her local community forces the past back into view, she turns to a jungle-based medicine retreat in search of answers. What she uncovers begins to fracture her understanding of her marriage, her memories, and the story she has told herself to survive.
Set between Scotland and the South American jungle, the novel draws on the rising global conversation around plant medicine and its potential role in treating trauma, depression, and addiction. As clinical research into psychedelic therapies expands, The Medicine asks a darker question: what happens when healing becomes destabilising?
Emma made her debut with The Day She Came Home in 2019 and has since published multiple novels of psychological suspense. Her work focuses on women, secrets, and the hidden fractures within seemingly ordinary lives. In 2023, she published the non-fiction guide Launch Pad: The Countdown to Writing Your Book, an Amazon bestseller.
She is also a regular guest on writing and publishing podcasts and will appear at the Heart of Stone Book Festival in May and Shetland Noir in June 2026.
Find out more about The Medicine and Emma’s writing on her website: https://books.emmadhesi.com/