Miraculous
As a dry summer turns into an even drier fall in Oakdale, Ohio, the town becomes desperate for rain. Conditions are ripe for the recent arrival, Dr. Kingsbury, who claims that his miraculous tonic can cure any ailment from personal lameness to atmospheric draught, to do his magic. As demand for his snake oil rises, Dr. Kingsbury relies on his young helper, Jack, who has indentured himself to the wandering physician because he believes Dr. Kingsbury healed his dying sister. But Jack’s fellow worker, Isaac, has mysteriously disappeared, and when Dr Kingsbury forbids Jack even to mention the boy’s name, Jack wonders whether the doctor is the hero he took him to be.
As they await Founders’ Day, Jack meets a young girl, Cora, with whom he shares an immediate, profound connection. The two don’t know that years back, Cora’s grandmother similarly formed a friendship with an outsider, Silas, who was accused of burning down a barn and then run out of town. But years later, Silas has returned to purchase the farm where he was unjustly accused. A good man, he not only sets the record straight, but supports Jack as he uncovers the truth about Dr Kingsbury.
Written in lyrical chapters that centre on a rich cast of townspeople, Miraculous tells the coming-of-age story of an itinerant boy and a homebound girl who form a late-summer friendship whose sweetness lingers in the memory. However, their youthful loyalty is put to the test when it appears that Jack might be in service to a quack and a murderer. As childhood romance gives way to the quest for a wrongdoer, Jack and Cora learn whom to trust and what version of the truth to believe.
