The gilded hour

New York City, 1883. The Brooklyn Bridge is close to finished, and the city holds grand wealth beside deep poverty. Cousins Anna Savard and Sophie trained at the Woman's Medical School, and now they care for the people with the least protection, knowing the work could cost them the careers they built.

Anna's patients lead her to four children who have lost everything, as she once did. Faced with their need, she has to choose between keeping hold of her old pain and letting someone close.

Sophie is an obstetrician, the orphaned daughter of free people of color. When a desperate young mother comes to her for help, Sophie must weigh the oath she swore as a doctor against the risk of acting on it.

Their choices draw both women toward Anthony Comstock, the anti-vice crusader who holds the city in his grip. He regards himself as the enemy of everything indecent and of anyone who defies him, and he is dangerous.

This is historical fiction with two women doctors at its centre. It moves between the personal stakes of each cousin and the pressure of a city where law and morality are enforced by a powerful zealot.