City of God: A Novel of Passion and Wonder in Old New York - Paperback

by Beverly Swerling (Author)

The third installment in the bestselling Old New York series set in the tumultuous years before the Civil War, where New York City stands on the brink of transformation--and destruction.

In 19th-century New York, Manhattan is a place of astonishing contrasts--fabulous wealth and brutal poverty, fervent faith and moral outrage, glittering society and blood-soaked streets. Waves of immigrants crowd Manhattan as religious movements ignite, gangs rule entire neighborhoods, and the drums of war grow louder. Ships from around the world fill the wharves with riches, while just blocks away men fight to the death with broken bottles and filed teeth. It is a city tearing itself apart even as it hurtles toward a powerful, perilous future.

Nicholas Turner is a young physician who knows that the discoveries of antisepsis and anesthesia promise medical miracles beyond the dreams of ages. But he learns that to make such progress reality he must battle the city's corrupt politics and survive the snake pit that is Bellevue Hospital, all while resisting his forbidden love for Carolina Devrey, the wife of his powerful cousin. Sam Devrey, a shipping magnate and dreamer of empire, believes the future belongs to his fleet of magnificent clipper ships. Yet the life he presents to society--in an elegant Fifth Avenue brownstone with a beautiful, devoted wife--is a carefully maintained illusion. His true heart lies with Mei-hua, his secret Chinese child-bride hidden away downtown. When Sam's double life places Mei-hua in mortal danger, Nick's skill becomes the only things standing between love and catastrophe.

As riots erupt and the city nearly burns to the ground, secrets are exposed and loyalties tested. Carolina and Mei-hua are forced to confront the devastating truths of their marriages, while love gives way to rage, revenge, and reckoning. Set against a glittering New York rising from the ashes--where luxury dining rooms echo with ambition and gold glints in every eye--City of God is a sweeping tale of desire, deception, and survival in a city struggling to define its soul.