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 in nineteenth-century New York.One summer night...

**NATIONAL BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE ROBBIE ROBERTSON DARTMOUTH BOOK AWARD and the EVELYN RICHARDSON NON-FICTION AWARD**Previously published as Daughter of Family GWeaving together touching scenes from her family history and her own life, Ami McKay's intimate and captivating memoir captures what it means to live fully even when you know your life may be cut short.In 1895, Ami McKay's great-great aunt, a dressmaker named Pauline Gross,...

The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare, the first daughter to be born in five generations of Rares. As a child in an isolated village in Nova Scotia, she is drawn to Miss Babineau, an outspoken Acadian midwife with a gift for healing. Dora becomes Miss B.’s apprentice, and together they help the women of Scots Bay through infertility, difficult labours, breech births, unwanted pregnancies and even unfulfilling sex lives. Filled with details as compelling as they are surprising,...

In a tale spanning the 20th century, Ami McKay takes a primitive and superstitious rural community in Nova Scotia and creates a rich tableau of characters to tell the story of childbirth from its most secretive early practices to modern maternity as we know it.Epic and enchanting, ‘The Birth House’ is a gripping saga about a midwife's struggles in the wilds of Nova Scotia.As a child in the small village of Scot's Bay, Dora Rare – the first female in five generations of Rare...

A Buzzfeed Best Gift Book of the Year"A dark, atmospheric, and feminist story of three women in New York City's Gilded Age, each determined to thrive in a society hell-bent on keeping them down, and using their coven to do so." —BuzzfeedINTERNATIONAL BESTSELLERRespectable Lady Seeks Dependable Shop Girl. Those averse to magic need not apply.New York in the spring of 1880 is a place...

Those averse to magic need not apply...The perfect novel for Halloween!1880Witches Adelaide Thom and Eleanor St Clair have opened a tea shop in Manhattan specialising in cures, palmistry and potions.When an enchanting woman called Beatrice joins the witches as an apprentice, she soon proves indispensable, but her new life is marred by strange occurrences.She sees things no one else can see. She hears voices no one ...

A macabre voyage into the underbelly of nineteenth-century New York.'I am Moth, a girl from the lowest part of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic and the man who broke her heart.' So begins THE VIRGIN CURE, a novel set in the tenements of lower Manhattan in 1871. As a young child, Moth's father smiled, tipped his hat and walked away from her for ever. The summer she turned twelve, her mother sold her as a servant to a wealthy woman, with no intention of e...

Respectable Lady Seeks Dependable Shop Girl. Those averse to magic need not apply***.***New York in the spring of 1880 is a place alive with wonder and curiosity. Determined to learn the truth about the world, its residents enthusiastically engage in both scientific experimentation and spiritualist pursuits. Séances are the entertainment of choice in exclusive social circles, and many enterprising women—some possessed of true intuitive powers, and some gifted with the art ...

The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare, the first daughter to be born in five generations of Rares. As a child in an isolated village in Nova Scotia, she is drawn to Miss Babineau, an outspoken Acadian midwife with a gift for healing. Dora becomes Miss B.’s apprentice, and together they help the women of Scots Bay through infertility, difficult labours, breech births, unwanted pregnancies and even unfulfilling sex lives. Filled with details as compelling as they are surprising,...

Weaving together family history, genetic discovery, and scenes from her life, Ami McKay tells the compelling, true-science story of her own family's unsettling legacy of hereditary cancer while exploring the challenges that come from carrying the mutation that not only killed many people you loved, but might also kill you.The story of Ami McKay's connection to a genetic disorder called Lynch syndrome begins over seventy years before she was born and long before sci...

Those averse to magic need not apply...1880Witches Adelaide Thom and Eleanor St Clair have opened a tea shop in Manhattan specialising in cures, palmistry and potions.When an enchanting woman called Beatrice joins the witches as an apprentice, she soon proves indispensable, but her new life is marred by strange occurrences.She sees things no one else can see. She hears voices no one else can hear. Has she been touched by magic or is she simp...

**NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY THE BOSTON GLOBE AND THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE"So filled with vivid descriptions and complex characters that the reader's experience is virtually cinematic. . . Utterly compelling." – The Washington PostFrom the author of When We Lost Our Heads, a spellbinding story about two gifted orphans – in love with each other since they can remember – whose childhood talents allow them to rewrite their future.**...