A captivating historical epic set in gilded age New York, City of Promise is the latest installment in Beverly Swerling’s popular series.

New York, 1864 – crowds hustle from place to place as horse-drawn trolleys jockey for position on crowded streets. Vanderbilt’s new Grand Central Depot and the glittering Ladies’ Mile shine as beacons of the city’s burgeoning wealth. This is New York in a time of unyielding progress and technological wonder, a bustling metropolis coming into its own, its skyline transformed by the proliferation of ever-taller buildings and by the Brooklyn Bridge slowing rising out of the East River.

Joshua Turner returns home from the War with only one leg, but his ambition intact. He sees opportunity in the city’s rapidly changing landscape and conceives a way to capitalize on the exponential growth of a new class of worker, able to afford better than a dreary boarding house. Land may be in short supply in the island city, but Manhattan, Joshua knows, possesses unlimited air. He envisions the apartment house for everyman, and sets out to become one of the city’s first real estate titans. Along the way he meets the irresistible Mollie Brannigan, whose upbringing in a brothel has taught her more than she wants to know about men, but will make her his perfect wife.