A Home for Friendless Women

Set in the real-life women-run charitable institution in Louisville, Kentucky, which took in pregnant, unmarried women from 1876 to 1919, A HOME FOR FRIENDLESS WOMEN is an evocative and nuanced blend of archival research and fiction that delves into the darker truths of nineteenth century American white feminism through three women's stories.

In Victorian-era Louisville, the Home for Friendless Women is run by benevolent benefactors with one mission- to reform the fallen women who live there into pious mothers and wives through religious lessons and hard work.

For Ruth, a college student who's expelled after a campus sexual assault, the Home is a purgatory to endure before she can get her life back. For Belle, a queer sex worker who exchanged her bed at a brothel for one in the Home, it's a safe place to rest her feet until she can track down her missing lover. And for Minnie, the daughter of the religious couple who founded the charity, the Home is her mother's idea of a cautionary tale.

But as Minnie prepares for the Home's silver anniversary party, she finds herself questioning the true cost of good intentions-and grappling with a terrible secret that has the power to unravel the Home entirely.