The Light of Luna Park by Addison Armstrong

A lovely, sentimental and poignant historical fiction about a nurse who gives up everything for the sake of a premature infant.

Told in alternating points of view between Nurse Althea Anderson in New York City, 1926, and Stella Wright, a young married teacher in Poughkeepsie, 1950. The story starts as Althea makes the decision to take a preemie to Luna Park, Coney Island, to be treated by a doctor and his staff who are using incubators and controversial treatments to save lives. In reality, Althea has kidnapped the baby girl whose parents think that she died shortly after birth. That choice changes the entire course of Althea's life.

Stella, whose mother recently died, is newly married to Jack and working as a teacher of children with special needs in an era when they are forced into a damp basement and given only rudimentary materials and minimal effort to educate. When Stella is forced to quit her job, she knows she needs to face the loss of her mother and returns to her childhood home to go through her mother's belongings. Then she finds some odd material in her mother's special memory box. The questions come and Stella must confront everything she thought she knew about herself and her mother.  NO SPOILERS.

I really enjoyed this debut and could relate to both of the characters as they try to navigate a world where women have no voice and have to claw their way out of subjugation in all the big and small ways. The choices Althea made were by no means the right ones even though she felt like she had to do what she did. Sure, the ends may or may not justify the means in utopia, but legally and morally there are some challenges. I found the history of the Coney Island incubators very interesting as I had never heard about that before. I like to think that education, medicine, and nursing have advanced in the treatment of exceptional children, but I know that many who work in health care and special needs education still have to grapple with negative perceptions about the work they do.

Definitely this was a story about sacrifice and motherhood and Althea represents the extreme of that love in action. Would any of you make those same commitments -- give up everything for a child that was not even biologically yours?  

This would make a great choice for a book club and I'd like to thank NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Putnam, G.P. Putnam's Sons for this e-book ARC to read, review, and recommend.

This is a standalone and is not part of any series.

Genre - historical fiction dual timeline 1926 and 1950