Award-Winner of the Cross Genre category and Award-Winning Finalist of the Mystery/Suspense, Historical Fiction, and General Fiction categories of the 2021 International Book Awards
In the shadows of New York City lies the abandoned, forbidden North Brother Island, where the remains of a shuttered sanitorium hide the haunting memories of century-old 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 this enigmatic woman through the foliage, intrigue turns to obsession as he seeks to uncover her past—and his own family's dark secrets. By unraveling these mysteries, will he be able to save Cora? Or will she meet the same tragic ending as the thousands who've already perished on the island? The Vines intertwines North Brother Island's horrific and elusive history with a captivating tale of love, betrayal, survival, and loss.
Praise for The Vines:
"The Vines weaves beautiful writing around an unsettling mystery: Who is the strange, scarred woman living on a seemingly uninhabitable island? Shelley Nolden's debut seems not just prescient - given the world's current focus on virology and immunizations - but also timeless, as it illustrates in painful detail how mankind seems destined to repeat our cruelest mistakes. Luckily for us readers, there's a bright thread of hope running through this book - as well as the promise of a sequel."
— Sarah Pekkanen, #1 NYT bestselling co-author of You Are Not Alone
"Highly original and richly drawn, Shelley Nolden's The Vines features one of the most fascinating central characters you'll ever meet. Drawing on both the dark history of North Brother Island and today's painfully immediate worries about immunity and transmission of deadly disease, this debut transcends genre to combine history, thrills, obsession, medical ethics, and more into the compelling story of three generations of doctors and one remarkable woman."
— Greer Macallister, bestselling author of The Magician's Lie and The Arctic Fury
"Eerily timely and profoundly compelling, The Vines is an unputdownable, unforgettable saga, the journey of a seemingly helpless, persecuted American woman who survives and battles back, against all odds; this first in what promises to be an explosive series signals the arrival of Shelley Nolden's masterful new voice in hybrid fiction."
— May Cobb, Author of The Hunting Wives
