The Medicine Woman of Galveston

A downtrodden female doctor takes up with a traveling medicine show to support her disabled son, joining a German giantess, a bowlegged musician, an indentured Creek poet, and a handsome tinker under the thumb of a charismatic but menacing swindler on a collision course with the deadliest natural disaster in American history - the Galveston Hurricane of 1900.

Readers of Christina Baker Kline, Sandra Dallas, and Sara Donati will be captivated by this story of medical historical fiction by Amanda Skenandore, registered nurse and acclaimed author of The Nurse’s Secret and The Second Life of Mirielle West.

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.

Amanda Skenandore is an award-winning author of historical fiction and a registered nurse. Her debut novel, Between Earth and Sky was a Publishers Marketplace Buzz Books selection and winner of the American Library Association’s RUSA Reading List award for Best Historical Fiction of the year. Her third novel, The Second Life of Mirielle West, was the 2023 Silicon Valley Reads selection, an Apple Best Books of the Month and a Hoopla Book Club Pick. She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada and can be found online at AmandaSkenandore.com.