Historical novels by Maybelle Wallis
Drawing inspiration from the history of medicine, Maybelle Wallis evokes a past that holds a mirror to the present.
Times may change, but human nature does not.
The DOUGHTY TRILOGY
Blending love with suspense, the DOUGHTY TRILOGY takes in Dickensian England in 1840, the Dublin of the Great Famine in 1849, and a new life in Manhattan in 1854.
The novels pursue timeless themes of surviving trauma, struggling for justice, and healing the broken heart.
HEART of CRUELTY
BIRMINGHAM 1840: Jane Verity’s elopement to a theatrical life has left her suffering the abuses of the workhouse.
When Coroner William Doughty employs her as his servant, she uncovers the injustices of his inquests and his marriage.
He loves her. But can she persuade him to take action that may destroy his world?
“…thoroughly researched and vividly written through all the senses, convincingly evoking externally all the sounds, squalor and smells of a Victorian industrial city, and internally the feel and weight of clothing and the shabbiness of unloved rooms. The dénouement satisfies, and the ending is unexpectedly unconventional…”
The PIANO PLAYER
DUBLIN, 1849: Jane Verity is a pianist in a touring theatre company. William Doughty is a physician in hospitals overwhelmed by the Great Famine. Once lovers, they are long parted; she has married a leading actor.
But as a cholera pandemic overturns their lives, and medicine turns into murder, will they reach out to one another?
“This novel has great heart and humanity and contains a meticulously plotted narrative that kept this reviewer turning pages until, at last, all its themes came together in a satisfying ending. It is a story for our times. ”
DAUGHTER of STRANGERS
The harrowing events of the Irish Famine warped all their lives. Now they must face what connects them: a past they would much rather forget.
MANHATTAN, 1854: Orla, orphaned in the Famine, is musically talented, but traumatised by the brutal eviction of her family from Theodore Royce’s lands. She was adopted by Dr William Doughty and his wife Jane, but adolescence is changing her and they fear for her future. They ask Anna, a schoolmistress, to help.
William’s colleague Joseph Murphy, an Irish surgeon, has never forgotten Anna. Years ago in Dublin, her beauty and kindness touched his heart. Yet Jane and William prefer to keep them apart.
Joseph knows why: the guilty secret from his Irish rebel past that forced him into exile. When he sees his own likeness in a murder victim in the morgue at Bellevue Hospital, his investigations take him to the saloon owned by Spiker O’Shea, the one Irishman that he does not want to meet.
Alex Royce, Theodore’s son and Anna’s former fiancé, courts her again. But the bold and handsome cavalry officer, embittered by the assassination of his father, struggles with his desire for revenge …