Liberty Street is a dual-time line, dual POV novel chronicling the abuses done to women in the fictional Mercer Women’s Prison. In the 1960s timeline, Emily Radcliffe is an editorial assistant at Chatelaine magazine, mentored by her boss, feminist Doris Anderson. An anonymous note is smuggled from the prison and ends up at the Chatelaine office, Emily who wants to follow in her war-correspondent father’s footsteps, persuades her boss to allow Emily to go undercover in the prison. The cub reporter hopes to follow in the footsteps of the American journalist, Nelly Bly.
In the 1990s time frame, Detective Rachel Mackenzie investigates remains of a unidentified young woman found in an unmarked grave in an Ontario cemetery. Rachel has a rocky family history, and the case brings back her own unresolved issues regarding her mentally-ill mother.
I have read Nelly Bly’s memoir Ten Days in a Madhouse, and the descriptions of the atrocities performed in Mercer Women’s Prison are consistent with those described by Bly. I enjoyed Liberty Street a great deal and would heartily recommend it as both a reminder of how poorly women have been treated throughout history and cautionary tale about the future if fascism continues its unwarranted stripping of human rights around the globe.
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Liberty Street (Ballantine Books, June 16, 2026) is available through:
Your local independent bookseller | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
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