The Island of Worthy Boys / Connie Hertzberg Mayo

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Author:

Connie Hertzberg Mayo

Date:

She Writes Press
October 2015

Author:

Additional Info

THE ISLAND OF WORTHY BOYS

Rights Holder: April Eberhardt Literary
Original Language: English

“Mayo renders a historically rich tale that will not only capture readers of historical fiction, but a wider audience for its humanity, compassion, and spirited prose style.”
—Sarah Anne Johnson, author of The Lightkeeper’s Wife

“Connie Mayo’s fast-paced novel, The Island of Worthy Boys, transports you to the pungent gritty streets of nineteenth-century Boston where two unlikely delinquent heroes lurk. Fair warning: they will steal your heart. Mayo’s dramatic flair, psychological insight, and mastery of nineteenth-century Boston make for a remarkable debut novel that reads like the work of a seasoned pro. Unforgettable.”
—Katherine Keenum, author of Where the Light Falls

“Hertzberg Mayo turns all this unusual material into a thrilling and often quite moving narrative about youth and second chances in an age with fewer social safety nets to catch boys like Charles and Aidan. The novel brings an alien world vividly to life.”
—Historical Novel Society

In 1889, the Boston Farm School didn’t accept boys with any sort of criminal record. Which made it the perfect hiding place for two boys who accidentally killed someone.

Charles has been living alone on the streets of Boston for the last two of his twelve years. Aidan’s mom can’t stay sober enough to keep her job. When the boys team up, Charles teaches Aidan the art of rolling drunks in the saloon and brothel district, and life starts to look up―until a robbery goes horribly wrong one night and they need to leave the city or risk arrest.

When the boys con their way into The Boston Farm School―located on an island one mile out in Boston Harbor―they think they’ve cheated fate. But the Superintendent is obsessed with keeping the bad element out of his school, and as both their story and their friendship start to splinter, Charles and Aidan discover they are not as far from the law as they had hoped.

Connie Hertzberg Mayo came to Massachusetts to get a literature degree from Tufts University, and never left. She first learned about Thompson Island shortly after graduation and immediately knew it was a great setting for a work of fiction, but it took twenty years and the rise of the Internet to make her feel like she could start researching and writing. She works as a Systems Analyst and lives in southern Massachusetts with her husband, two children, two cats, and her heirloom tomato garden.

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