This is where Willa meets Doctor Katherine Winston who has just taken over a local practice. Through happenstance, an accident at the bar involves one of Willa's brothers and she has to take him to the nearest doctor. Willa is fascinated by everything she learns and as it turns out, she may not be the only one who wishes for a different future than their parents. Secretly, she has been getting medical texts from the library through her friend and which she hides under her floorboards because her parents would never allow the notion of it. Though it is a very noble and honorable duty, it is not what Willa feels in her heart. This is a very big deal to all of them, as Willa is their a gift to the church.Ĭara is Willa's best friend, and she is the only one that knows how Willa really feels about going to the convent. Willa, on the other hand, has been destined by her strongly devout catholic parents to go to the convent and become a nun. The MacCarthys, Irish, have immigrated to the area like so many others and are fortunate to have an apartment and work at a time when so many immigrants are fairing very badly financially.Įach one of the siblings has a path for the future somewhat laid out for them but there's enough wiggle room for the boys.

Wilhelmina “Willa” MacCarthy lives with her brothers and parents above the bar that her family runs. At a time when few women are practicing medicine, it is an inconceivable notion by outside forces. Set in 1936 San Francisco, it tells the story of an 18-year-old young lady that wishes nothing more than to become a physician and do well in her community. It envelops the reader with warmth and home feels in a slow and savory way.

This historical fiction novel is one to cozy up with. Willa thinks she can handle her new chaotic life, but as she draws closer to a dashing young ironworker and risks grow at the bridge, she discovers that hiding from what she truly wants may be her biggest lie of all. Keeping secrets from her family only becomes more complicated when Willa agrees to help the doctor at a field hospital near the new bridge being built over the Golden Gate. Each day she sneaks away to help Doctor Katherine Winston in her medical clinic in San Francisco’s Richmond District. It’s 1936, and as the only daughter amongst four sons, her Irish–Catholic family is counting on her to take her vows-but Willa’s found another calling.

The last thing eighteen-year-old Wilhelmina “Willa” MacCarthy wants is to be a nun. A Winter 2020 Junior Library Guild Selection.

Across a Broken Shore by Amy Trueblood