Orphan History

The sinking of the Brig Minerva results in many deaths, while for others, the future is suddenly brighter. But it’s not always easy to leave the past behind.... Evie Parfitt is almost 30, penniless, and with no prospect of ever marrying. She has her hands full helping turn a jewel merchant’s willful heiress into a lady able to move in good society. When the sinking of the Minerva leaves her charge an orphan and she selects a notorious rake as her guardian, Evie is determined to protect both of them from his attentions.

Eight-year-old Benjamin Franklin “B .F.” Windes decides to abandon home and trail his father’s path. Thus begins a trip of constant struggle with disease, severe weather, hardship, Indian attack, and death on his lone journey across much of what is now the United States. B. F. spends the next 11 years in gold rush towns in California - first as a barber, then as a physician’s assistant - before departing for the Caribbean at age 19, where he becomes a blockade runner during the American Civil War.

For nearly one thousand years, the Core Empire has held together thousands of star systems and billions of citizens. But a coup attempt has broken the empire into pieces. Some planets and systems have survived and still have law and order. Others have fallen to barbarism and piracy. For young Hugh Cascade, this is but a history lesson, even if the nightmares of kinetic weapons exploding have followed him through most of his childhood. Ten years later, the war finds Hugh, now a military cadet.

When leading archeologist Dr. Hank Murphy discovers an alien artifact on the Moon, corporate interests are quick to get involved. Murphy just wants to understand what this thing is and how it works. After months of research, he finally manages to locate the power source. The gate is soon activated...and Murphy is pulled through. Moments later, he finds himself in a war-torn corner of the galaxy where strangers like him are called Orphans...and they are considered extremely dangerous. Somehow altered by the experience, the archeologist now has enhanced strength, speed, and agility.

1945, Auschwitz: I stumble out of the gates, tightly grasping the hands of two smaller children. Hunger swirls in my stomach and the barren landscape swims before my eyes. I can barely believe it. We’re free. We survived. But what happens now… Sixteen-year-old Tasha Ancel turns to take one last look at the imposing place that stole her freedom and her childhood. She has no idea how she continued to live when so many others did not. For the first time in months, her heart beats with hope for her future and that of the smaller children who cling to her now.

If every war needs its master chronicler, Ukraine has Serhiy Zhadan, one of Europe’s most promising novelists. Recalling the brutal landscape of The Road and the wartime storytelling of A Farewell to Arms, The Orphanage is a searing novel that excavates the human collateral damage wrought by the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine.

A heartbreaking, enthralling and utterly unforgettable World War 2 story of two young sisters cruelly abandoned by their mother at an orphanage. 1929: four-year-old Etty and eight-year-old Dorothy are abandoned at Blakely Hall orphanage by their mother, never to see her again. With no other family to speak of, the sisters worship their beloved mam - and they are confused and heartbroken to be deserted by her when they need her the most.

England, 1941: Life has always been cruel to Ethel. Raised in an orphanage by a merciless mistress, she never knew the meaning of love. And now she has fallen for the one man who is forbidden to her - Karl, a German held captive in the local prisoner-of-war camp. He might be the enemy, but he has her heart. When Ethel discovers she’s pregnant, she is labelled a traitor and shunned by all. The love of her life is torn away from her, but she vows to protect their precious daughter. But the unthinkable happens....

Look for Pam Jenoff’s new novel, The Woman with the Blue Star, an unforgettable story of courage and friendship during wartime. A New York Times bestseller! “Readers who enjoyed Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale and Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants will embrace this novel. “ —Library...

Penobscot Indian Molly Ayer is close to "aging out" out of the foster care system. A community-service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping Molly out of juvie and worse.... As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly learns that she and Vivian aren’t as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.

Sarah Jennings knows there’s one place she can go to find some peace and quiet during her difficult divorce. But arriving at her beloved father’s home in the countryside, she finds him unwell and hunched over boxes of files, studying the records from Cedar Hall, the crumbling orphanage in town. He says that hidden behind the wrought iron gates and overgrown ivy are secrets about their family, and he asks for her help.

As snow begins to fall, and word reaches their town that the Red Army are approaching, German-born mother-of-two Emma knows she has no choice: She must pack their meagre belongings and leave their home, in search of safety. Even if safety is within Nazi Germany. But as the icy grip of winter tightens around them, her four-year-old son—her blue-eyed angel—Jacob becomes ill. Desperate for him to get well enough to continue their journey, she takes him to a hospital, where she hands him to a kind nurse. Then a terrible attack separates mother and son, and their lives change forever.

Beloved author Lindsey Hutchinson is back with another novel of triumph over adversity set in the heart of a Black Country community. Perfect for fans of Josephine Cox and Lyn Andrews. Taken into service, orphan Lily Rae has heard all the stories about what entitled masters think their pretty maid's duties include. But when the very worst happens to her, she knows scrubbing the scullery floors of Ryder House no longer provides refuge from the sadistic Sebastian Ryder. Cold and alone, Lily makes for the town of Wednesbury, knowing she has only herself to rely on.....

Bella Jones and Kathleen Collins are as close as sisters and that's how they want things to stay. But fate intervenes. Kathleen's brothers have disappeared; they traveled from New York on the Orphan Train and nobody has heard from them since. She can't shed her gut feeling something awful has happened to them. She goes looking for them, but is she prepared for what she will find?

Clara Newton is the new Housemother of Shilling Grange Orphanage. Many of the children have been bombed out of their homes and left without families, their lives torn apart by the war, just like Clara’s. Devastated by the loss of her fiancé, a brave American pilot, she is just looking for a place to start again. But the orphans are in desperate need of her help.

Kathleen Green longs for a child of her own. Her work with the orphan trains only serve to heighten her need. When tragedy strikes, will she get the child she always wanted? Will the cost be worth it?

New York Times and USA Today Bestseller In this stunning new historical novel inspired by true events, Kim van Alkemade tells the fascinating story of a woman who must choose between revenge and mercy when she encounters the doctor who subjected her to dangerous medical experiments in a New York...

It's 1941, and tensions are rising in the United States as the Second World War rages in Europe. Eleven-year-old Gusta's life, like the world around her, is about to change. Her father, a foreign-born labor organizer, has had to flee the country, and Gusta has been sent to live in an orphanage run by her grandmother. Nearsighted, snaggletoothed Gusta arrives in Springdale, Maine, lugging her one precious possession: a beloved old French horn, her sole memento of her father. But in a family that's long on troubles and short on money, how can a girl hang on to something so valuable and yet so useless?

For fans of Kristin Harmel and Martha Hall Kelly's Lilac Girls -- the bestselling author of The Piano Maker returns with a vivid, atmospheric, and deeply moving novel set during the final months of the Second World War. NATIONAL BESTSELLER London, 1944/45: Kate Henderson is an energetic and...

Orphans of Empire tells the story of what happened to the thousands of children who were raised at the London Foundling Hospital, Coram's brainchild, which opened in 1741 and grew to become the most famous charity in Georgian England. It provides vivid insights into the lives and fortunes of London's poorest children, from the earliest days of the Foundling Hospital to the mid-Victorian era, when Charles Dickens was moved by his observations of the charity's work to campaign on behalf of orphans.