Publication Date: January 20, 2026
For fans of Ariel Lawhon’s The Frozen River, debut historical fiction about a brothel nurse in nineteenth-century New York City who fights brutality in the sex trade and pioneers treatments for survivors of sexual violence.
A high-class brothel that entertains New York’s most powerful men, the Double Standard Sporting House funds a free clinic for women. When the Tammany Hall criminal syndicate takes over the city in 1868 and starts kidnapping girls, the house’s owner Nell “Doc” Hastings cannot stay quiet—especially after sixteen-year-old Vivie arrives at the clinic bruised and bleeding.
Resolving to seek justice for Vivie and girls like her, Doc builds an unlikely alliance with religious reformers, a rare honest ward cop, and an alluring newspaper publisher she can’t seem to keep away from. Even with their help, Doc will have to use her sharpest tools—secrets, guile, and a surgical blade—to prevent a dark turn in the sex trade.
Full of intrigue, friendship, and love, this timely story of a heroine erased from history by the sexual double standard reminds us that women help and heal one another, even when shameless criminals come to power.
For women living in the 19th century, society dictated appropriate vocations, which certainly excluded working in a brothel. As a result, these women lived on the fringes as targets.
Author Nancy Bernhard serves up a fascinating slice of historical fiction with The Double Standard Sporting House. In it, she introduces Nell “Doc” Hastings, the operator of a high-class brothel who had aspirations of becoming a doctor.
She takes on the political force of the time, the Tammany Hall crime syndicate, as she builds a free clinic for the prostitutes. Her character leverages partnerships with unlikely allies, making the story come to life.
For the reader, the story offers a different perspective on prostitution and the ways women were excluded from society. In an era when quackery was common in medicine, there is something to be said about ignoring medical skills because of sex.
The Double Standard Sporting House highlights the unruly days of 19th-century New York and a showdown between a female crusader and the men in power.
Nancy Bernhard is a journalism historian and yoga teacher, fascinated by how survivors of political and sexual violence heal through storytelling and movement. She was born in Brooklyn, and lives with her family in Somerville, Massachusetts.
