The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames : A Memoir

Far from growing up in the wealthy, fox-hunting circles she had always suggested, her mother had in fact been raised in a foundling hospital for the children of unwed women. Editors Choice, The New York Times Book Review

Extraordinary fascinating, moving. The Telegraph

This emotional and transatlantic journey is a page-turner. Editors Pick, Amazon Book Review

Book groups will find as much to discuss here as they have with The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, and Educated by Tara Westover. BookList

Recommended by The New York Times, The Saturday Evening Post, Amazon Book Review, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus and more, Justine Cowans remarkable true story of how she uncovered her mothers upbringing as a foundling at Londons Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children has received acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. In the U.K., it has been featured in The Mail on Sunday, The Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror and The Spectator. The Telegraph calls it extraordinary and Glamour magazine chose it as the best new book based on real life.

The story begins when Justine found her often volatile mother in an unlit room writing a name over and over again, one that she had never heard before and would not hear again for many years Dorothy Soames. Thirty years later, overcome with grief following her mothers death, Justine found herself drawn back to the past, uncovering a mystery that stretched back to the early years of World War II and beyond, into the dark corridors of the Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children. Established in the eighteenth century to raise bastard children to clean chamber pots for Englands ruling class, the institution was tied to some of historys most influential figures and events. From its role in the development of solitary confinement and human medical experimentation to the creation of the British Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts, its impact on Western culture continues to reverberate. It is the reason we read Dickens Oliver Twist and enjoy Handels Messiah each Christmas.

It was also the environment that shaped a young girl known as Dorothy Soames, who bravely withstood years of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of a sadistic headmistressa resilient child whose only hope would be a daring escape as German bombers rained death from the skies.

Heartbreaking, surprising, and unforgettable,The Secret Life of Dorothy Soamesis the true story of one womans quest to understand the secrets that had poisoned her mothers mind, and her startling discovery that her familys fate had been sealed centuries before.