No more than twenty-three by Anna’s estimation, hardly five feet tall and most of that composed of sharp corners: a chin that came to a point and a nose and cheekbones to match, elbows poking out at noncongruent angles.

The young woman stood with her arms folded at her waist and hands tucked into wide sleeves, all in white, from a severe, unadorned bonnet tied tightly beneath her chin to the wide habit that fell like a tent to the floor. Lee’s cupped hands, and then she turned to greet her visitor.

'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title.ĮARLY ON A March morning on the cusp of spring, Anna Savard came in from the garden to find a young woman with a message that would test her patience, disrupt her day, and send her off on an unexpected journey: a harbinger of change wearing the nursing habit of the Sisters of Charity, standing in the middle of the kitchen.Īnna passed four eggs, still warm from the nest, into Mrs. 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 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, emotionally gripping novel that proves Sara Donati is an author at the height of her powers. With the gravity-defying Brooklyn Bridge nearly complete and New York in the grips of anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock, Anna Savard and her cousin Sophie-both graduates of the Woman's Medical School-treat the city's most vulnerable, even if doing so may put 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. The internationally bestselling author of Into the Wilderness makes her highly anticipated return with a remarkable epic about two female doctors in nineteenth-century New York and the transcendent power of courage and love.The year is 1883, and in New York City it's a time of dizzying splendor, crushing poverty, and tremendous change.

The gilded hour donati