The Medicine Woman of Galveston

Book excerpt: The author of The Nurse’s Secret delivers a haunting new book based on true history perfect for readers of Kristin Hannah, Ellen Marie Wiseman, and Donna Everhart. This spellbinding story of a determined female doctor pushed into life as part of a menacing swindler’s traveling medicine show in order to support her son is rife with unflinching prose and set against the backdrop of the devastating Galveston Hurricane of 1900. "Perfect on so many levels that I don't even know where to begin." —Addison Armstrong, Author of The War Librarian Once a trailblazer in the field of medicine, Dr. Tucia Hatherley hasn’t touched a scalpel or stethoscope since she made a fatal mistake in the operating theater. Instead, she works in a corset factory, striving to earn enough to support her disabled son. When even that livelihood is threatened, Tucia is left with one option—to join a wily, charismatic showman named Huey and become part of his traveling medicine show. Her medical license lends the show a pretense of credibility, but the cures and tonics Tucia is forced to peddle are little more than purgatives and bathwater. Loathing the duplicity, even as she finds uneasy kinship with the other misfit performers, Tucia vows to leave as soon as her debts are paid and start a new life with her son—if Huey will ever let her go. When the show reaches Galveston, Texas, Tucia tries to break free from Huey, only to be pulled even deeper into his schemes. But there is a far greater reckoning ahead, as a September storm becomes a devastating hurricane that will decimate the Gulf Coast—and challenge Tucia to recover her belief in medicine, in the goodness of others—and in herself.