A home for friendless women A novel

Founded in 1876, the Home for Friendless Women in Louisville offered refuge to "fallen" women--those who were pregnant and had no other options. Intrigued by the cryptic historical records, debut author Hill creates a story spanning from 1877 to 1901 and imagines the personalities and circumstances of several of the mothers ("inmates"), such as bluestocking Rose and queer, worldly-wise sex worker Belle, as they pass through the Home. Readers also meet some of the Home's women benefactors, who often dictate the mothers' fates with cavalier insensitivity and opportunism, with sometimes tragic consequences. Snippets from contemporary news articles and etiquette tracts emphasize the suffocating hypocrisy and impossible standards that dictated women's respectability in Victorian society, but the memorable characters who emerge from the pages leave little doubt in the reader's mind that while they may be oppressed, they aren't fools; as Rose observes: "A woman doesn't fall on her own. . . . It takes a mighty push from someone more powerful." Share this with those seeking historical novels that focus on women's lives and social inequity.