A Sunday Times bestseller, Breathtaking is an insider's account of the first wave of Covid pandemic, based on Rachel’s own experiences working on NHS Covid wards. Now adapted for broadcast on ITV1 and ITV in early 2024 by Rachel, Jed Mercurio and Prasannah Puwanarajah, who co-wrote and executive produced the 3-part series.

Praise for Breathtaking:

“Clarke is a superb storyteller as well as a clear-eyed polemicist . . . she writes with such compassion and humanity that you feel you are in the room . . . Breathtaking is a beautiful, blistering account of a key moment in our history.”

Christina Patterson, Sunday Times

”Clarke has written the UK's human story of Covid.”

Stylist

”Superb.”

Madeleine Bunting, Guardian

”This memoir of the first wave of Covid will, I predict, be read a century from now as one of the best eyewitness accounts of what happened in the nation's wards in 2020.”

Matthew D'Ancona, Tortoise Media

”If you only read one book about Covid, make it this one.”

The Tablet