From #1 international bestselling author Ami McKay comes The Virgin Cure, the story of a young girl abandoned and forced to fend for herself in the poverty and treachery of post-Civil War New York City.
McKay, whose debut novel The Birth House made headlines around the world, returns with a resonant tale inspired by her own great-great-grandmother’s experiences as a pioneer of women’s medicine … pioneer of women’s medicine in nineteenth-century New York.
In a powerful novel that recalls the evocative fiction Anita Shreve, Annie Proulx, and Joanne Harris, Ami McKay brings to light the story of early, forward-thinking social warriors, creating a narrative that readers will find inspiring, poignant, adventure-filled, and utterly unforgettable.
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This is a very well researched book and wonderfully written. I felt I knew the characters and was rooting for them…plus a lot of history, all very well told.
If you love historical fiction this is it. New York City in the late 1800s. Go for it
Memoirs of a Geisha set in the US. It was very interesting and had good character development until the end when it just fizzled out, like the author ran out of things to say.
I love historical fiction and this book really fit the bill! Extensively researched, easy to read and it such a great story…..I couldn’t put it down!
I found Ami McKay’s book, Virgin Cure, to be one of the very best reads I have had in years. Ms. McKay tells the story of Moth, a poor girl whose life after her mother indentured her to work as a maid in the household of a wealthy woman in New York City in the latter half of the 19th Century.
With the help of the Doorman, Moth escaped the …
Such a sad chapter of history …
Well written and researched view of a time past.
Myth follows us too closely sometimes, so Moth, a 12-year-old girl, finds herself named by her father who claimed to have heard the legendary Pear Tree whisper the word as he passed under it with his pregnant wife. She finds herself abused by a wealthy woman, then abandoned, living on 1870’s New York streets. Eventually she seeks to rise as a …
Melodramatic and a fun read.
Fascinating story about young girls in poverty in NYC.
I found this book to be very thought provoking. While it is a work of fiction, I feel that the author did some serious research on sex trafficking and its history. Some passages elicited great emotional empathy for the plight of females who are trapped in poverty and hopeless circumstances— sometimes placed there by family. This story is an …
Love the Characters, the story and the history involved. I got right into it.
based on the real challenges of women in that era, although this had a happy ending
.Started reading but just could not get into it/
I LOVED this book!!! Historical and entertaining, reminds me of how lucky I am to live now instead of in that time. Amazing story plots, a twist I never saw coming- I went back and reread that part again!!!! And a happy ending!!!! Wonderful book, I highly recommend this one!!!
Interesting 19th century cure for syphilis. Mythological and Not at all effective.
Eye opening history lesson focusing on young women trying to stay alive in NYC”s poverty stricken economy in the mid to late 1800”s.
Haunting but beautiful
I don’t know what prompted me to download The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay, but I am very happy I did. This reading discovery was like winning a lottery prize for reading addicts. This is a five-star, highly recommended, 340-page historical fiction account of socially horrible conditions in 1870s New York. There is extreme life-threatening hunger and …
The subject was historically interesting, but personally distressing.