The Second Life of Mirielle West

Based on the true story of America's only leper colony, the Louisiana institution known as Carville, where thousands of people were stripped of their civil rights, branded as lepers, and forcibly quarantined throughout the entire 20th century. For Mirielle West, a 1920's socialite married to a silent film star, the isolation and powerlessness of the Louisiana Leper Home is an unimaginable fall from her intoxicatingly chic life of bootlegged champagne and the star-studded parties of Hollywood's Golden Age. At first she hopes her exile will be brief, but those sent to Carville are more prisoners than patients and their disease has no cure. Instead she must find community and purpose within its walls, struggling to redefine her self-worth while fighting an unchosen fate.

Amanda Skenandore is a historical fiction writer and registered nurse. Her debut novel, Between Earth and Sky, was the winner of the American Library Association's RUSA Reading List for Best Historical Fiction Novel of the Year. She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. Visit Amanda Skenandore online at AmandaSkenandore.com.