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"[A] bright, burning novel-- intended for a young adult audience but powerful enough to engage any adult is set in the Philadelphia of 1870. Using surprising period details and a gorgeous turn of phrase, Kephart has called forth an interesting time in our city's history and made it live again for just a moment.... While many historical novels, especially those for younger readers, can come across as corny or costumey, this one rings true, its language seeming to have been composed during the era it describes.... These people feel real, and we have no trouble imagining them living out their dramas just as painfully and joyously as we do ours, 100 or more years before we were born." 
—The Philadelphia Inquirer 

Flavored by the oddities of historic personalities and facts, Dr. Radway’s Sarsaparilla Resolvent is set in Bush Hill, Philadelphia, 1871—home to the Baldwin Locomotive Works and a massive, gothic prison. Acclaimed writer Beth Kephart captures the rhythms and smells of an extraordinary era as William Quinn and his Ma, Essie, grapple with life among terrible accidents, miraculous escapes, and shams masquerading as truth.

Distributed by Temple University Press for the New City Community Press