I’m not sure what I just read, but I’m not sorry I read it. It was definitely strange reading about someone living through other historical pandemics while living through one in our own time, but I think that made it even better.
Cora lives all alone on the abandoned North Brother Island, within view of Rikers Island, in rotting buildings that were part of the now abandoned Riverside Hospital, which historically held people with a variety of contagious diseases in isolation from the rest of New York. Cora has them all — smallpox, typhoid, and scarlet fever to name just a few — but she is symptom free unless she tries to escape the island. As soon as she leaves, she starts dying, so she’s trapped, which makes her especially susceptible to abuse at the hands of her captors. For decades, generations of doctors from a single family have tried to figure out what makes her unique, treating her less like a human being and more like a lab rat. That is, until Finn arrives on the island, trying to uncover the truth behind his family’s secret research and the horrors of what’s been done to Cora.
I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when I picked this one up. I thought it might be a ghost story or have supernatural elements, but that’s not the direction it went. It can probably fit into science fiction, but that only describes a small part of it. Historical fiction, mystery, thriller. This one is a mish-mosh of genres. But it actually works.
Because the author bounces us back and forth between Cora in the past and Cora in the present, we can see how she changes over time from a naïve girl to a hard, tough, woman who doesn’t trust anyone, especially not someone from Finn’s family of doctors. The timeline jumps are what make this book really work, and I especially liked reading about Cora in the past.
Honestly, I wasn’t a big fan of the Holocaust/Dr. Mengele piece of the story — I’ve read too many survivor accounts to enjoy having it snuck into fiction writing without warning — but it does help define which side of right many of these characters are on, including some of the ones we are supposed to like.
Overall, though, I enjoyed this book, although know it ends on a cliffhanger and a sequel is in the works. Usually, I like to read a series all at once since I don’t always trust myself to remember the details, but I’ll be keeping an eye out for this one, and I hope it drops soon. I really want to find out what happens to Cora and Finn.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and Freiling Publishing in exchange for my honest review. It has not influenced my opinion.