In the shadows of New York City’s North Brother Island stand the remains of a shuttered hospital and the haunting memories of quarantines and human experiments. The ruins conceal the scarred and beautiful Cora, imprisoned there by contagions and the doctors who torment her. When Finn, a young urban explorer, arrives on the island and glimpses the enigmatic woman through the foliage, intrigue turns to obsession as he seeks to uncover her past–and his own family’s dark secrets.  Nolden skillfully intertwines North Brother Island’s horrific and elusive history with a captivating tale of love, betrayal, survival, and loss. 

Review:

Timely, action-packed, and supernaturally creepy!

The Vines transports you to North Brother Island, NY, from 1902 to 2008 and immerses you in all the obsession, tragedy, emotions, memories, fantastical elements, destruction, experimentation, sickness, and long-buried secrets that mars and defines the multi-generational, Gettler family.

The prose is mysterious and dark. The characters are obsessed, callous, and ruthless. And the plot told from alternating timelines is a fascinating, engrossing tale full of familial drama, heartache, tension, sacrifice, violence, and intriguing, historical medical philosophies and procedures.

Overall, The Vines is a spellbinding, atmospheric, sinister tale by Nolden that not only highlights her incredible knowledge and passion for a time and place that is often unknown, forgotten or overlooked, but also does a remarkable job of reminding us that advances in medicine has both a light and a dark side, as the power to help and heal often comes at a price.

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