— AN IRISH-AMERICAN TALE OF ANCIENT TRUTHS
The Healer
of Corky Row
A healer bound by tradition. A family tested by change.
A troubled Irish healer wreaks havoc in the lives of her loved ones as she uses ancient prayers, potions, and rituals to fulfill a promise — and save her soul.
“lluminates the life story of a startling character striving to merge the ancient truth of one world with the relentless modernization of another.”
— Celia Jeffries, author of Blue Desert
“Nuala, a mother and a healer, lives and struggles at the center of this expansive and beautifully written novel about a large and vivid Irish-American family.”
— Hester Kaplan, award-winning author of Twice Born, The Edge of Marriage, and more.
— About the Author
Virginia Ryan
Born the second of seven children in Fall River, Massachusetts — the dying mill town that inspired her to write — Virginia Ryan spent her summers crossing the country in a powder blue Chevy station wagon, listening to her father spin stories at every stop.
She studied journalism at George Washington University, served in the Peace Corps in Thailand, and earned her MFA from Lesley University. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Fly Fish Journal, Adelaide, Embark, Broad River Review, Heartwood Literary Journal, and other publications.
She lives on Cape Cod with her husband, their dog, ten chickens, and one rambunctious rooster.
— The Novel
The Healer of Corky Row
By Virginia Ryan
1908. Irish healer Nuala Conneely arrives in a struggling Massachusetts mill town with a sacred vow: to preserve the ancient healing traditions that cost her father his life.
In Corky Row, her potions and prayers bind a community together. But every cure has a cost, and as her nine children come of age in a changing America, the old ways begin to fray.
Through war, hardship, and shifting beliefs, Nuala must face a difficult truth: what must be preserved, and what must be let go.
— On Substack
Writing Beyond the Book
Essays on family, place, food, and the stories that shape us. Virginia writes regularly on Substack — follow along for dispatches from Cape Cod and beyond.
Virginia Ryan
On Substack
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