Finalist, 2023 Colorado Book Awards
Sandra Dallas's Little Souls is a gripping tale of sisterhood,
loyalty, and secrets set in Denver amid America's last deadly flu
pandemic.
Colorado, 1918. World War I is raging overseas, but it's the home front
battling for survival. With the Spanish Flu rampant, Denver's schools
are converted into hospitals, churches and funeral homes are closed, and
horse-drawn wagons collect corpses left in the street. Sisters Helen and
Lutie have moved to Denver from Iowa after their parents' deaths. Helen,
a nurse, and Lutie, a carefree advertising designer at a fashionable
women's store share a small, neat house, and each finds a local
beau--for Helen a doctor, for Lutie a young student who soon enlists.
They make a modest income from a rental apartment in the basement. When
their tenant dies from the flu, the sisters are thrust into caring for
the woman's small daughter, Dorothy. Soon after, Lutie comes home from
work and discovers a dead man on their kitchen floor and Helen standing
above the body, an icepick in hand. She has no doubt Helen killed the
man--Dorothy's father--in self-defense, but she knows that will be hard
to prove. They decide to leave the body in the street, hoping to
disguise it as a flu victim.
Meanwhile Lutie also worries about her fiancé "over there." As it
happens, his wealthy mother harbors a secret of her own and helps the
sisters as the danger deepens, from both the murder investigation and
the outbreak.
Set against the backdrop of an epidemic that feels all too familiar,
Little Souls is a compelling tale of sisterhood and of the sacrifices
people make to protect those they love most.
