The Mending Girl

New England, 1907. Eleven-year-old Ivy Hartwell, newly orphaned, comes to live with her physician uncle in the small mill town of Ashford Falls - and finds herself apprenticed to his black medical bag. Bandages, fevers, croup, splinters, sprains: Ivy learns the old home remedies, the new germ theory, and the quiet bravery of first aid under pressure. But when a strange fever outbreak creeps through town - first the mill workers, then the schoolchildren - doctors are baffled and panic spreads faster than the illness itself. Ivy, armed only with her uncle's medical library, her sharp eyes, and a growing understanding of sanitation, pure water, and contagion, suspects the sickness isn't random at all. Racing against quarantine, town gossip, and her own self-doubt, Ivy must trace the outbreak to its hidden source before Ashford Falls loses more than its health - a tale of science, courage, and healing for readers who love mystery, medicine, and grit.