What Girls Are Good For: A Novel Of Nellie Bly

From International Bestselling Author David Blixt: Nellie Bly has the story of a lifetime. But will she survive to tell it?

Enraged by a sexist article in the Pittsburgh Dispatch, Elizabeth Cochrane pens a furious letter to the editor that ends in a job offer! Taking the name Nellie Bly, she fights the male-dominated newspaper industry to report what no one else will—stories of women.

Chased out of Mexico for revealing government corruption, Bly can break into New York’s Newspaper Row if she can nab a major scoop—life inside a madhouse! Feigning madness, she is committed to the dreaded Insane Asylum on Blackwell’s Island, where matters are far worse than she dreamed. Stripped, drugged, beaten, she must endure a week of terror, reliving the darkest days of her childhood. She knows she must escape to tell the world her story. But when the week ends and no rescue comes, she fears she may be trapped in the madhouse forever...

Ripped from the true events of Nellie Bly’s life and reporting comes a novel of rage, determination, and triumph, all in the frame of a tiny Pennsylvania spitfire who refused to let the world change her, and changed the world instead. 

★★★★★ - 'With rich imagination and meticulous research, David Blixt has brought the hectic, exciting world of nineteenth-century journalism vividly to life. His Nellie Bly is determined, independent, crafty, irresistible—a heroine any reader would be delighted to get to know.' - Matthew Goodman, Eighty Days

★★★★★ - 'David Blixt pens a heroine for the ages in 'What Girls Are Good For,' which follows the extraordinary career of pioneer newspaperwoman Nellie Bly. This real-life Lois Lane had me cheering aloud as I turned the pages—simply a delight!' - Kate Quinn, The Alice Network