Bowery Girl

By: Kim Taylor Blakemore

Narrated by: Ann Shanks Etter

Length: 5 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

From Willa Award-winning author Kim Taylor Blakemore....

"Inspiring and poignant historical fiction novel that will engage readers that are looking for an insightful, yet entertaining read. " (Luxury Reader)

“Lends credence to the millions of historical and contemporary girls who dare to dream in the face of extraordinary challenges.” (Kirkus, Starred Review)

“compelling, gritty, and sometimes brutal view of life on the streets.” (Barnes and Noble)

“Gang violence, raucous carousing, sex, accidental pregnancy, and crime–not what most will expect from Victorian-era historical fiction. But that’s exactly what they’ll find in this tightly plotted novel…” (Booklist)

New York, 1883: Gamblers and thieves, immigrants and street urchins, Do-Gooders and charity houses, impossible goals and impossible odds. The Bowery is a place where you own nothing but your dreams. And dreams are the only things that come cheap for pickpocket Mollie Flynn and prostitute Annabelle Lee. Pleasure is fleeting—and often stolen. Nights at Lefty Malone's saloon, sneaking into the Thalia Theatre. Then it's back to their airless, windowless tenement room and the ongoing struggle to keep a roof over their heads and bread in their stomachs.

The Brooklyn Bridge is nearing completion, and things are changing in New York City. The two women fantasize of starting a new life across the East River. Nothing but a flight of fancy, perhaps, until wealthy Do-Gooder Emmeline DuPre, who has opened the Cherry Street Settlement House, steps into their lives with her books, typewriters, and promises of a way to earn a respectable living. Despite Mollie and Annabelle's fascination with the woman and what she offers, is Emmeline helping or meddling?

Is it really possible to be anything other than a Bowery Girl? Mollie and Annabelle will have to decide exactly who they are, and what sort of women they want to be.

©2015 Kim Taylor Blakemore (P)2022 Kim Taylor Blakemore

Friendship and Survival in the Bowery

Historical New York is my favorite setting for novels, so I had to jump on this one. On May 24, 1883, The Great Bridge opened to connect the cities of New York and Brooklyn across the East River, offering up new opportunities for dreamers on both sides...

Welcome to New York in the Gilded Age - mansions are being built Uptown, but we don't see any of that in The Bowery, where immigrants struggle to pay rent for their tiny tenement rooms, and the only way to survive is to break the law... or turn their backs on friends in an effort to "better" themselves. But Bowery Girl isn't about Rich vs Poor; this is a gritty little look at loyalty, prejudices, and love within the lower classes.

Kim Taylor Blakemore writes "This is not a novel about pain or poverty. It is a story of friendship and survival, and the ability to dream in the midst of insurmountable odds." Bowery girl will show you a lot of pain and poverty, though. It has to. And it'll look at how that pain and poverty make both friendship and survival challenging. It forces the characters to ask questions - the reader, too.

On a bright side note, a fun part of historical fiction is the ability to include "cameos" by real life figures, and I appreciated the hat tip to Annie Hindle, famous male impersonator.