The Gilded Hour (The Waverly Place #1 of 2) [B2096]

2016 PB with cover wear and a few sentences underlined in pencil. The international bestselling author of Where the Light Enters presents a remarkable epic about two female doctors in nineteenth-century New York. The year is 1883, and in New York City, Anna Savard and her cousin Sophie-both graduates of the Woman's Medical School-treat the city's most vulnerable, even if doing so puts everything they've strived for in jeopardy...

Anna's work has placed her in the path of four children who have lost everything, just as she herself once had. Faced with their helplessness, Anna must make an unexpected choice between holding on to the pain of her past and letting love into her life. For Sophie, an obstetrician and the orphaned daughter of free people of color, helping a desperate young mother forces her to grapple with the oath she took as a doctor-and thrusts her and Anna into the orbit of anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock, a dangerous man who considers himself the enemy of everything indecent and of anyone who dares to defy him. With its vivid depictions of old New York and its enormously appealing characters, The Gilded Hour is a captivating novel by an author at the height of her prowess.

From the many recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "A sweeping saga full of love, mystery, and a great work of historical fiction. I can't wait to read the sequel."; "I thoroughly enjoyed this book, the first I've read by this author. It took a bit to get into it and keep up with characters, but once I did I was hooked. I was sad it came to the end, even after 700+ plates, and I'm looking forward to the sequel,"; "This book was one of the best I've read in some time. It was well written, with characters that were unforgettably complex, intelligent, interesting, and some truly monstrous. The crime(s) and medical backstories were interwoven in such a way that I had a hard time putting this book down."; "Tremendous. I loved the setting, the characters, the peek into 1880's medicine, particularly that which was practiced by female doctors and the particular challenges leveled at them."