Hiram's Faith
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Book Overview
New Orleans, 1853
Hiram T. Whitaker, a once-promising medical student, haunted by guilt and family tragedy, arrives in the French Quarter seeking redemption, only to find a city choking on miasma, government ineptitude, corruption, and the stink of death. Amidst the nauseating odors of the docks, children's coffins are piled high on drays and cannon fire thunders in a desperate attempt to clear the air of pestilence.
Dependent on morphine and appalled by the region's brutal customs, Hiram opens an unlicensed apothecary, determined to prove the superiority of modern medicine over the old, superstitious ways.
But as a devastating yellow fever epidemic ravages the city, Hiram's rigid worldview is threatened, and he is drawn into the dangerous lives of those around him: Jerome, the enslaved man he has inherited; Charlotte, a formidable free woman of color whose practice of voodoo challenges him at every turn; and the corrupt medical establishment that controls the city.
As floodwaters rise and grief seeps into every room, the epidemic forces a reckoning with the limits of Hiram's beliefs and the human cruelty he can no longer abide, leading him to discover that true healing demands more than science alone can provide. When he attempts a desperate act of mercy he crosses a line he cannot uncross and plunges himself into a scandal that threatens his career-and his life.
A haunting story of medicine, magic, and belief, Hiram's Faith explores the cost of clinging to what we hold sacred and what becomes possible when we finally let go.
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