Peeking Between the Pages

...escape into the pages of a good book

Friday Finds (August 27)


Friday Finds hosted by Should Be Reading asks us to share what great books we heard about or discovered in the past week.

My pick this week is a book called The Virgin Cure by Ami Mckay not releasing until Oct 2011 by Knopf Canada but I was way too excited to post about it to wait until then. Have any of you read The Birth House by Ami Mckay? Well it is one fantastic novel that is very well worth reading so needless to say when I saw that Ami McKay had a new one coming out I was very excited. Here’s some info on it from Amazon.ca:


The much-anticipated follow-up to the phenomenon that is The Birth House, The Virgin Cure secures Ami McKay’s place as one of our most beguiling storytellers.
“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 Victorian New York in the year 1871. As a crowded, sweltering summer of riots and poverty comes to a close, twelve-year-old Moth’s journey is just beginning.

Sold away by her mother, Moth is befriended by a young pickpocket named Torch Boy. He introduces her to the formidable Marm Birnbaum, matron of the leading pickpocketing ring of the Lower East Side. There, under the guidance of a female thief named Kid Glove Lena, Moth is given lessons in survival, loyalty and, surprisingly, the art of melodramatic “blood-and-thunder” theatre.

Moth soon learns that life as one of Marm’s girls is filled with unexpected dangers. After witnessing a violent crime involving a little girl, Moth is taken into the care of Dr. Sadie Fonda, a physician at the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. Moth’s confessions about that night confirm what the young doctor has suspected all along, that there is a dark secret haunting the young women of the city — the myth of the virgin cure.

Determined to expose the myth, Sadie unknowingly puts herself in harm’s way, leaving Moth to travel down a twisted, strange and dangerous path, alone. From a dime museum of anatomical wonders, to a dance hall populated by child prostitutes, to an apothecary shop where a magical pear tree once stood, Moth must rely on the lessons she learns from both Sadie and the streets to make things right.

The Virgin Cure is a tale of secrets and truths, of dark myths and magic of the heart — of one woman’s fight to be heard, and one girl’s desire to be loved.

I’m very excited! Yet I obviously have a very long time until it is published but she’s an amazing writer so I’m sure it’ll be worth the wait. How about you – did you find anything that you’re over the top excited about this week? Leave me your link or share in the comments.

© 2010, Darlene of Peeking Between the Pages. All Rights Reserved. If you’re reading this on a site other than Peeking Between the Pages or Darlene’s Feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.

Comments

  3. Oh yes! This is going on the list!!
    I have a copy of The Birth House, but have not yet read it. This one sounds great! Thanks for sharing it Dar!

  4. Thanks for mentioning this book! I loved The Birth House and had no idea she was coming out with another book. I'm adding it to my wish list!

  5. I haven't read the first book either, had not heard of this author.
    Sounds like books you really get involved in.
    Hope you and Buddy have a great weekend!

  6. I haven't read The Birth House but thanks for recommending it to us. Maybe you'll get an ARC of The Virgin Cure 🙂

  10. Very excited to hear she has another booking coming out. I hate we'll have to wait until 2011. I read The Birth House per your recommendation. Good book!

  11. Ooh, this book sounds wonderful! And this is the second book! Guess I'll have to track down the first one!

    Thanks for sharing!