Bookrate

"From the internationally bestselling author of Into the Wilderness comes a magnificent epic about two pioneering women doctors in 19th-century New York. The year is 1883, and in New York City it's a time of dizzying splendor, crushing poverty, and tremendous change. With the gravity-defying Brooklyn Bridge nearly complete and the city in the grip of anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock, Dr Anna Savard and her cousin, Sophie - both graduates of the Women's Medical School - treat the city's most vulnerable. Even when doing so puts all they've worked for in jeopardy . . . For Anna, her role as a surgeon has placed her in the path of four children who have lost everything. Faced with their helplessness, Anna must make the 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 her doctor's oath - and thrusts her and Anna into Comstock's orbit, 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 story of two pioneering female doctors, The Gilded Hour is a captivating, emotionally gripping novel of courage and love."