City of Promise A Novel of New York's Gilded Age

by Swerling, Beverly

• ISBN13: 9781439136966
• ISBN10: 1439136963
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-08-28
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Summary

A "vivid tableau of 1870s Manhattan" ( Entertainment Weekly), City of Promise continues Beverly Swerling's acclaimed epic saga as New York emerges from the Civil War into the Gilded Agea city marked by soaring expansion and dazzling glamour. It is 1864. The South's surrender is inevitable, and Manhattan is at the heart of the recovering nation's surge to prosperity. Joshua Turner returns home from the war with only one leg, but his ambition intact. He aspires to build the city's first apartment houses for Everyman, a daring vision that will make him New York's first true real estate titan, but also attracts the dangerous attention of a shadowy figure from his past. Meanwhile, Mollie Brannigan, raised by her Auntie Eileen in the toniest bordello in town, is resigned at age twenty-two to spinsterhood until Joshua finds her at Macy's and takes her coaching in Central Park. In his love Mollie finds a world of possibilities she has not dared to dream. But a secret Eileen thought left behind in Ireland will force Mollie to employ all her wits to protect not just her chance at happiness but her life. Vividly imagined and awash in period detail, City of Promise delivers an historical adventure of suspense and intrigue, daring plot twists and bitter rivalries, and the captivating love story of two people struggling to forge their own destiny.

Author Biography

Beverly Swerling is a writer, consultant, and amateur historian. She lives in New York City with her husband.