Thank you to NetGalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review. 

This book hooked me with the beautiful cover and historical fiction-related synopsis but rapidly turned into self-published "Amazon bestseller" adventure tripe.

I almost DNF at least 3 different times but finally spite-finished it because I don't agree with leaving reviews for books I DNF.  YMMV. 

And it was even "to be continued" just like one of those aforementioned "adventure" series. 

Spoiler:  Nazis, Josef Mengele, Aliens.  
CW:   Medical torture, childbirth, implied rape

The Vines is a fictional history with mystical notes that will leave the reader wanting more. Coraline McSorley and her sister Maeve are sent to Riverside Hospital on North Brother Island with measles in 1901. Maeve doesn’t survive but Coraline does and is forced to undergo quarantine and testing by Dr. Otto Gettler. Over the years, Cora is subjected to torture and misery by Gettler offspring all in the name of research.
Along with Cora’s complicated relationship with the Gettler family, the island itself sustains and traps her so that her life becomes one of solitude and sacrifice. Cora thrives on the bare minimum and finds comfort in relationships with island workers like Mr. O’Toole. The famous Typhoid Mary becomes an ally with a daring escape plan.
The story goes back and forth from the early 1900’s to present day 2007. The youngest Gettler, Finn, discovers the family secret and is determined to save Cora. It is complicated on all sides. What doesn’t he know? How has his family justified what they have done?
The author, Shelley Nolden, discovered an untapped well of mystery surrounding a neglected, off-limits island in the East River of NYC. Many details like O’Toole & his family, Cora’s last name, Nurse Holden, and the descriptions of the island buildings are inspired by old news articles. Events such as the wreck of the General Slocum steamship in 1904 and the teenage heroin addicts in the 1950’s are part of this historical tale.
While disappointing not to have closure, The Vines was a fun read and I look forward to finding out what happens to Cora in the sequel.

Need a good historical fiction/mystery book? If so, then this one should be on your to-be-read list!
Cora is sent to North Brother Island after she and her sister fall ill. The first Dr. Gettler learns interesting information about Cora while she is staying at North Brother Island. This sparks years of research that affects Cora. The Dr. Gettlers that follow are groomed for the continuance of researching Cora and the island.

I loved this book! The long-standing family dynamics, the survival story, and the historical elements held my attention the entire time. I loved that this book also sparked my interest in the history of the island! I ended up doing some research on the island and things that were done there. I love books that make me want to go out and dig for more!

I also loved how the author of ended the book with the note that a next one will be coming! There were still so many questions at the end of the book. The author did a fantastic job of tying up enough of the story line to feel complete with the first book but left leads open to go into the next book.

I would have liked more detail of what Cora did on the island in the periods of time she was alone. Coras journey was very interesting and I loved her growth as a person.

This is such a great escape book! It helps you forget your troubles as you follow along. I would highly recommend this book! I have given The Vines by Shelley Nolden 4/5 stars!

Thank you to the publishers through NetGalley where I received this EARC to give my review!

I expected an haunted atmosphere when I discovered these pages. I imagined a setting filled with fog, cold and silence. A ghost town that would scare me and make me jump at the slightest noise.

I was right about the decor. Regarding what emerges from the story, it's different.

The story is told by Finn and Cora and plunges us between several spaces-times. In the present tense, Finn is doing urbex. It is his great passion and it is his quest to find the key to his family secrets that led him to the island, which has become an abandoned urban jungle. It was by chance that he came across Cora and their meeting was marked by hostility and fear to say the least. Despite looking vulnerable, Cora is to be feared and she's not afraid to let intruders on her island know.

In the past, history takes us to the beginning of the 20th century. Cora was only sixteen when she and her sister were hospitalized with typhus. And, while she miraculously comes out of it, her sister does not know the same luck. Yet it is the start of a descent into hell for Cora who becomes Finn's grandfather's lab rat.

So, much of the action takes place in the past to help us understand how Cora came to be who she is and why she is trapped on the island.

Although fascinating because it does not spare us the horror that Man can show, I still wondered where it was taking me. Indeed, it is very interesting to understand Cora's past. At times, I even started to work out a few theories about what she was really going through and why.

And then, when I took a step back on the plot, I wondered where the author was going with it. There are details that make us think and that make our imagination run wild, especially concerning Cora's real age but in fact, it is to better keep us caught up in the pages.

The last part of the story hangs, to my surprise, with our world. Diseases and pandemics are mentioned and this makes us wonder all the more. At this point, it's still impossible to guess how the novel will end. It even takes on the air of a anticipatory novel, which adds to my surprise when a huge family secret is revealed. This one completely turned everything I believed upside down and from there I didn't try to think anymore and let myself be rocked by the rhythm of the action, unable to land pages until the very end of this volume.

It ends on a cliffhanger that leaves me quite frustrated and with a lot of questions unanswered.

Unfortunately, although I appreciated the creepy side linked to the nature of Man that is portrayed in this first volume, I don't feel this "thing" that makes me go for the sequel. It was a pleasant read but one that will not leave me with lasting memories even if it made me have a nightmare. So I will stop there for this series.

Splice Today
Dec 1, 2020

The Dark Isle of Shelley Nolden

By Kenneth Silber

The Vines, a novel, probes the shadows of North Brother Island.


Shelley Nolden began spinning a dark tale in my dining room some seven years ago. Her subject was North Brother Island, a 22-acre piece of land in the East River off the Bronx; it was the onetime site of a hospital where contagious patients like Typhoid Mary were held in quarantine, briefly a housing site for World War II veterans and later a rehab center that kept young addicts in solitary confinement; uninhabited since the 1960s, it had become an off-limits bird sanctuary of crumbling buildings and spreading woods; in short, it was a creepy place.

Nolden’s a friend of mine; our families are close, and hers was living near ours in northern New Jersey before decamping a year later to her native Wisconsin. At the dinner party that night, Shelley ruminated about what outlandish goings-on might’ve occurred over decades and centuries on North Brother, an island that had resurfaced somewhat in public consciousness because of a coffee-table book. It was the start of an obsession that would lead to Nolden’s debut novel The Vines, to be published in March 2021. With The Vines, Nolden takes the gloomy history of North Brother and stretches its shadows even further.

Fueling Nolden’s obsession with the hospital island were her own experiences of illness and medical isolation. One day in 2011, my wife and I were picking up our son at the daycare he shared with Shelley’s daughter, and learned something had gone terribly wrong. Shelley had lost her baby in the 19th week of pregnancy, a miscarriage caused by the mother’s newly diagnosed leukemia. Shelley had to spend the next 40 days as an inpatient and couldn’t see her 18-month-old daughter, as this disease subtype, acute promyelocytic leukemia, makes one unable to clot blood properly and thus so vulnerable that even a hug might be deadly.

Several years later, having gone through harrowing but successful treatments, Nolden imagined the story of The Vines, revolving around Cora, a patient at North Brother’s Riverside Hospital, which operated from 1885 to 1942. Cora is witness to much tragedy, including the General Slocum disaster, in which a passenger steamboat caught fire and sank off the island in 1904. This young woman is exposed to carriers of numerous diseases, and seems to have unusual immunity against illness. Consequently, she attracts close attention from the Gettlers, a multi-generational family of doctors whose ambitions draw them into unethical experimentation.

In 2007, Finn Gettler, an urban explorer who’s developed suspicions about his family’s history on North Brother, kayaks to the prohibited island and finds unexpected dangers in a place where human habitation hasn’t ended. The story shifts back and forth in time as Finn and the reader piece together what’s going on. It’s a tale, moreover, that takes on a notable present-day relevance, with fears of contagion hanging over every action and the 2003 SARS epidemic setting the stage for efforts to develop a vaccine against a greater coronavirus pandemic.

At present, in real life, the pandemic has resulted in North Brother Island’s closure to even the minimal visitation normally allowed to scientists and other researchers. The island is strikingly remote, considering that it’s just about 1000 feet from the shore of the Bronx and readily visible from the Bruckner Expressway. North Brother retains the mystique of a forbidden zone and the somber aura of a site long filled with suffering. Nolden’s accomplishment in The Vines is to elucidate this unique place by opening new potentialities for its sinister strangeness.

—Kenneth Silber is author of In DeWitt’s Footsteps: Seeing History on the Erie Canal and is on Twitter: @kennethsilber


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Overall I really liked this book. As a science nerd, I really liked the mystery surroundings Cora's immunities, There was the interplay of ethical's considerations for scientific research. This book did jump around telling both a story from the past and present concurrently. It was a little hard to keep track of the timelines, but I don't think the story would've made as much sense (or be as suspenseful if it was written differently). There were definitely some surprises in the story. This book is part of a series. I'm looking forward to reading the next one to see how the story line is resolved.

Shelley does a fantastic job bringing the reader into the story as she weaves the past and present together. I found myself staying up late to read because the ending of the chapter made me keep going--I just had to know what happened. Before reading The Vines, I had no idea of North Brother Island but Shelley is true to history while bringing to life what could be in a fanatical world. I actually had to go read more about the island because of the way it was brought to life in The Vines. I think all families have some secrets but Shelley really explores the darker parts of human history but also the way love can pierce anger and hate.

I tried, like really tried, to read this book from Day 1 however, I just cannot seem to get into it. I feel like the author jumps from one thought to another without explaining the the thought process led to the next thought (if that makes sense). So it just got to be too much jumping around and left me feeling all confused. The plot line, based on the description of the book, seemed really interesting which is why I placed interest in this ARC. I hate to DNF a book but also I feel like life is too short to read something I just can’t get into and enjoy.
Thank you so much though for the opportunity to give this book a try.

This book was not what I was expecting, however this does not mean I would say it was bad. For the most part I enjoyed this book. I thought the story was interesting for the genre. However, I do not usually read this genre. If you even remotely enjoy History type books you will more than likely enjoy this book. But if you do not this book would be a slog to get through. I fell into a weird mix with this book enjoying it when I read it and reading a lot of it in one setting, but also not wanting to back to this book ever.

The Vines by Shelley Nolden. After an unusual beginning, the story transitioned into a twisted darkness that was uncomfortable to read. Strange and somewhat slow pace, it was difficult to connect with the characters were who unsavory and hard to like. Cora was interesting but she too had a dark side. An intense, torturous historical medical thriller with an interesting premise that may not appeal to everyone.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book.

Finn’s family is looking for a cure while Cora is waiting on the island for the right virologists to figure out how to turn her blood into a miracle that can end a pandemic. Many interactions follow, leading to what can only be seen as a very haunted past for all those involved.

The Vines is both a work of historical fiction and a contemporary story discussing the value and rights of a single human being. Is one life – one person’s happiness – worth the deaths of many? Would you sacrifice yourself and give up your own life for the greater good?

The story takes place on North Brother Island, an island in New York City. You’ll learn a lot about the history of this island including the role it played in isolating asymptomatic carriers of diseases like Typhoid Mary. The setting adds to the graveness of the story. Yet even though it is a story about diseases, death, and suffering, The Vines is not a heavy read.

Shelley Nolden has a pleasant writing style and succeeds in alternating the past and the present in a very natural way. It is quite a feat to make all timelines equally interesting and have the reader curiously anticipating the time jump without feeling annoyed.

While Shelley Nolden writes acceptable contrasting characters – Cora’s hurt beyond repair and Finn’s hope and brightness, for example – the main characters of the story are not actually in the center of the attention. I was more focused on solving the problem the author presented to us, thinking about the ethical dilemmas that prevent people from finding cures. I didn’t care for any of the main characters, nor was I particularly interested in Finn and Lily’s relationship or Sylvia’s health. The more subtle struggles within the Gettler men of the past, Otto and Ulrich, were presented in a better way. These Mengele copycats felt more ‘human’ and real than the other characters.

I can’t wait for the sequel to this debut novel to find out if he will succeed! “Haha, nice ending,” is literally what I thought when I finished the book. Who is the ‘he’ I am talking about? You’ll know who I’m talking about when you read the book.

Such a fascinating read! I did not know much about North Brother Island, but this book fascinated me from the beginning so I had to do some of my own reading. This is such a unique read, full of multi-generational family conflict and scientific mystery.

This book follows Coraline, an 18 year old who became sick in the early 1900's. She was moved to North Brother Island, and not long after was showing no physical symptoms of being sick. However, when she tried to leave the island, the symptoms began again and she would not be able to survive long. After contracting other diseases, she became an asymptomatic prisoner of the island. Her only hope is the Gettler family, in which the men were all determined to find her cure as well as provide medical answers to even bigger problems. With their own motivations and experiments, Cora had to find a way to survive for more years than she ever expected.

The ending was such a cliffhanger to the point where I stared at the page in disbelief that this author made it to where you NEED to read the second book.

I'm looking forward to finding out what happens next!

If I remember correctly it was last year when I discovered North Brother Island. A documentary of the Island popped up on my YouTube feed. I watched it and learned a few details about its history and thought-at the time-I would love to read a fiction story that included the history elements. Low and behold, writer Shelley Nolden wrote a dual time-line story that takes place on the mysterious Island.

I must admit I was briefly hesitant at first to read the book based on the story’s topic of contagions. It’s not that I lacked interest in that subject but because of our current world-wide state of a pandemic. I thought it might be too sensitive of a story to read at the moment. However, my curiosity had gotten the better of me and I changed my mind.

When I opened to the first page on my Kindle, it wasn’t long before I became fully absorbed in the story. Finn Gettler arrives-more like sneaks-to North Brother Island and becomes immediately intrigued with the nature reclaiming the Island. He soon comes in contact with Cora. A woman who is not only trapped on the Island but, unknown to him , a prisoner of his family.

Cora is a fascinating woman and I enjoyed how the author developed her character as the story unfolded. Her experiences and circumstance had me connecting dots about real life, past and present, medical science I’ve often thought about.

When I discovered Finn’s last name is, “Gettler,” it struck a chord. I had heard of that name before but couldn’t remember where. I delved in little research and I was stunned at what I discovered to say the least! Nolden brilliantly balances real people and events into her story.

I experienced countless emotions reading this book. Many of them were sorrowful and feelings of anger on behalf of what was happening to Cora. The other emotions, I felt strongly, were for the absolute lack of humanity of a few of the characters. What makes this story good, yet all too disturbing, is the relevancy of the subject contagions and the evil that exists in this world.

There were moments I felt a few scenes were boggled down by just a little too much detail but overall, it was a worthwhile read. I’m looking forward to reading the next book in this series!

Stephanie Hopkins

The Vines had a really interesting idea behind it and I really wished that I loved it more. It took me a while to get into it. But I can see this book being well loved

I felt like I was watching a movie while reading this book. The details are superb and the images - vivid. I could hear and smell everything that was happening by description alone. I sympathized greatly for Cora and all the things she’d been through. A genuinely great book! The author definitely did her research and I am looking forward to reading more from her! Thank you for letting me read this very well-written and engrossing tale.

I really enjoyed the slow unraveling of the mystery that is Cora and the whole family and their connection to her. The modern day stuff had me hooked and I kept wishing there was more of it. Lily's uncertainty throughout most of the book had me on a bit edge. The writing and the character development were really good.

Different to most mysteries I read, this book involves a woman, Cora, who is secretly trapped and experimented on in an abandoned hospital on an uninhabited island in New York City called North Brother Island. This island is real, as is the history of it detailed in the story, so it combines historical fact with fiction. The island is a heron sanctuary so Cora is safe from people discovering her on the island, except for the occasional trespassers and any authorized officials that may pass through. But during mating season, there is no authorized access, and that's when most of the narrative occurs. The story is pretty dense with scientific language, dealing with the timely subject of viruses, contagions, pandemics, etc.

Cora is found to be immune to most major diseases at a time when massive outbreaks were killing people by the thousands. A doctor at the hospital began experimenting on Cora and other medical members of his family followed suit. They were determined to extract whatever her body contained that left her as an asymptomatic carrier, convinced that she held the key to vaccines eradicating all disease. That's about as layman as I can put it, as the story is far more in depth about the science of it all. That's probably where it loses a lot of people, as you really can't get into the book if this subject doesn't interest you. It's more medical than mystery, really. The story covers several periods in time, but why and who they involve is kind of a spoiler.

The modern timeframe involves Finn, who discovers Cora while exploring the island his family is so secretive about. The first scene actually involves him spying on her while she showers in one of the broken down buildings on the island, so that's a little off-putting, especially when you realize that he has a longtime girlfriend he supposedly loves so much. And it's weird because the reader is supposed to see Cora as a vulnerable victim of the medical experimentation and introducing her as an attractive showering woman just doesn't feel right. So Finn's not quote likeable to me, as his girlfriend, Lily, is part of the story and she's made to feel bad because she questions her boyfriend's motives. Well, hello, of course she would. Anyway, Lily's probably the only character I didn't dislike - the rest of Finn's family is much worse than him and they're pretty much the only other characters. I get the sense that the author is more comfortable with the science of the story than the fictional development of the characters.

That said, it's not like it's a poorly written book, it's just hard to immerse yourself in it because it's not a fast-paced brainless thriller - you really have to pay attention to the numerous details and scientific intricacies of the plot. But if it that's what you're into, it won't disappoint.

*This book was received as an Advanced Reader's Copy from NetGalley.

The Vines has an interesting premise. An abandoned island, that used to play home to those with infectious diseases, in which a mystery is set.

Finn doesn't know what he's getting into when he goes to the island. He just knows that his father and brother are up to something, and have been for some time, and he hasn't been included. Having chosen a different path from them (diverging from the family tradition of medicine) he's always felt a bit the outcast. But when he gets to the island and finds Cora, secrets about his family are revealed and show a lot to be desired. Is he as bad as his family? Or can he go a different way and help Cora instead of hurting her like so many men in his family have.

Finn is probably the most interesting character in the book. He very much lives in the grey area because of his feelings for Lily (who won't marry him), his attraction and resonance with Cora, and his strife with his family. He has to make a lot of decisions in the book without having a real clear idea of anything that is going on. Cora, she left a little more to be desired. Sure, she's strong and seems to have a good head on her shoulders, but honestly, for her age I expected her to not be quite as young-seeming. Granted she's had some of her development obstructed, but there's got to be more that helps someone develop over time. And finally, the rest of the family, sheesh, I'm not sure what I can say aside from this book makes it seem like cruelty just passes down the line in the family.

While I enjoyed most of the first half of the book, I found the second half rushed and too much happening and too many curve balls thrown in. Kristian's history especially, while I'm not surprised, I think could have not been that and still made the book interesting. In fact, *spoiler alert*, I think that whole plotline was thrown in just to make sure there was a sequel when without it this book could have been a very good stand-alone. My other issues with the book is that at some parts it just seemed like an excess of torture. I get it was supposed to portray horrible things happening to Cora, but some of it seems unlikely she would have survived, even with her special abilities. It just kind of took me out of the book.

But back to the better first half. I enjoyed how it went from past to present and told Cora's history and her experiences. It made figuring out what was happening in the present like a guessing game with different players entering the arena. And infectious diseases are pretty relatable right now, so there's a topic that probably won't lose interest for awhile.

Not bad, but I really wish this would have been a strong stand-alone instead of going amok and potentially continuing on for another day.

Review by M. Reynard 2020

Although I read 3 books at a time, the first page of this book won’t let me put it down. The character development was so descriptive that ,visualization of setting, interaction with the main character or the side stories kept you wanting more. This Historical Fiction (my definition ). The story covered the medical dilemma the US medical community experienced thru the mass migration of European peoples to the present day pandemic. It wove the story of self sacrifice from patient and doctors both wanting to cure mankind’s medical issues thru glory while having no regard for the patient. This multi-decade experimental testing off the grid lead to many emotions not only from characters but also the reader. Moral issues,1 sacrifice for the good the the world warrant such prison status, family agony and super surprise ending. I am sure this type of testing goes on someplace in the world and this book brought it home in a unique manner.

The only issue was this book is too long. It wants to tell a gigantic story in a short time but uses 800 pages. This book needs to be shorter!

The Vines

The Vines takes you from the present day to as back as 1904. This is a story about finding vaccines for highly contagious diseases. The Vines, which is set at North Brother Island in New York, goes back and forth between present day and historical time periods. The reader really gets an eerie feeling from the abandoned hospital on the island.

Cora is a host to two viruses, small pox and typhoid, without showing symptoms. Finn, whose family conducted most of the research, must figure out how Cora lived so long. Both Cora and Finn are just two of the many characters in this book that range from eerie to brash.

The Vines, an extremely slow burn, captivated my interest mainly because of the setting in which the story takes place. An abandoned hospital along with all its history peaked my interest. I learned so much from this book, including when I googled North Brother Island and Typhoid Mary to get more history of when happened.

This book brought several ethical issues to mind, such as is it ok for one person to suffer for the benefit of mankind and how much medical testing is too much. I would highly recommend this book to any historical fiction fans.

5 stars