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Liberty Street
Heather Marshall
Publication Date: June 16th, 2026
Ballantine Books
480 Pages
Amazon | Goodreads | Bookshop.org
Genre: General Fiction | Women’s Fiction
I love Heather Marshall’s Canadian historical fiction, and this review is going to contain a lot of adjectives. This one was, in a word, captivating. It’s a dual-timeline story about a prison for women in Liberty Village. The real-life events that this story is based on will break your heart. The injustices these women went through, and the strength they showed, blew my mind.
In Toronto in 1961, Emily works at Chatelaine magazine. When an inmate sends the magazine a shocking letter, Emily thinks she has a scoop on her hands and ends up in the prison. Trying to get a scoop about the prison and write about it is one thing, but actually living there is quite another, and she learns this lesson very quickly. The other timeline is in 1996 in a small county in Ontario. Female remains are found in an unmarked grave. Detective Rachel Mackenzie is put on the investigation, and that leads her to the prison. This brings up Rachel’s own past family trauma.
I liked how Marshall shows how both women are determined to get to the truth even though they’re separated by decades. She seamlessly weaves these two timelines together magnificently. Lots of historical books that have dual timelines have one that is better written than the other, and for me, it is usually the older one that I enjoy more. In this case, I loved them both because the pacing is perfect in both, and the way the ending ties them together was amazing.
I found the whole book just so heart-wrenching because Marshall doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the injustice these women faced. Women were so easily sent away for the smallest things, like missing curfew, not wanting to get married, or being “incorrigible.” And these decisions were all made by men. It made me so angry and chilled my bones at the same time.
Her character development was so masterful. Both Emily and Rachel are written very well; they’re so deeply human, and watching Emily grow from naive and ambitious to strong and resilient was a joy to read about. Rachel was such a quiet and reserved person but had a great determination about her. I cheered them both on, and I felt so bad for them.
This is a poignant story about mental health and the strength of resilience. This is historical fiction at its finest. It made me feel so much anger and sadness, and it was so unsettling. I found it hard to put down. Marshall has proven once again that she is a brilliant storyteller of women’s history. It is such an emotional story that is beautifully written and wonderfully researched that it deserves… All. The. Stars.
I hope this review expresses the emotional weight of the book and explains exactly why both timelines worked so well for me.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
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