The Next Chapter Book Group invites you to join our monthly book discussion on the first Monday of the month at 2pm.

This is a virtual session of the in-person Next Chapter book group. Register HERE.

This month's title is The Woman With the Cure by Lynn Cullen.

"In 1940s and ’50s America, polio is as dreaded as the atomic bomb. No one’s life is untouched by this disease that kills or paralyzes its victims, particularly children. Outbreaks of the virus across the country regularly put American cities in lockdown. Some of the world’s best minds are engaged in the race to find a vaccine. The man who succeeds will be a god.

But Dorothy Horstmann is not focused on beating her colleagues to the vaccine. She just wants the world to have a cure. Applying the same determination that lifted her from a humble background as the daughter of immigrants, to becoming a doctor –often the only woman in the room--she hunts down the monster where it lurks: in the blood.

This discovery of hers, and an error by a competitor, catapults her closest colleague to a lead in the race. When his chance to win comes on a worldwide scale, she is asked to sink or validate his vaccine—and to decide what is forgivable, and how much should be sacrificed, in pursuit of the cure."

Books are available for request via the library catalog. Click HERE to put a copy on hold. Email programs@newburyportpl.org or call 978-465-4428 x242 if you have any questions, or to have a librarian put the book on hold for you.