The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames

<p><strong>Far from growing up in the wealthy, fox-hunting circles she had always<br>suggested, her mother had in fact been raised in a foundling hospital for the<br>children of unwed women. </strong> <strong>Editors Choice, <em>The New York Times Book Review</em></strong></p><p><strong>Extraordinary fascinating, moving. </strong><strong><em>The Telegraph</em></strong><br><strong>This emotional and transatlantic journey is a page-turner. </strong> <strong>Editors Pick<em>, Amazon<br>Book Review</em></strong><br><strong>Book groups will<br>find as much to discuss here as they have with The Glass Castle by Jeannette<br>Walls, and Educated by Tara Westover. </strong> <em><strong>BookList</strong></em><br>Recommended<br>by <strong><em>The New York Times</em></strong>, <strong><em>The Saturday Evening Post</em></strong><em>,<br><strong>Amazon Book Review</strong></em>, <strong><em>The Atlanta Journal Constitution</em></strong>, <strong><em>Publishers<br>Weekly</em></strong>, <strong><em>Kirkus </em></strong>and more, Justine Cowans remarkable true<br>story of how she uncovered her mothers upbringing as a foundling at Londons<br>Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young<br>Children has received acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. In the U.K., it<br>has been featured in <strong><em>The Mail on Sunday</em></strong><em>, <strong>The Daily Mail</strong>,<br><strong>The Daily Mirror</strong></em> and <strong><em>The Spectator</em></strong>. <strong><em>The<br>Telegraph</em></strong> calls it extraordinary and <strong><em>Glamour</em></strong> magazine chose<br>it as the best new book based on real life. <br>The story begins when Justine found her often volatile mother in<br>an unlit room writing a name over and over again, one that she had never heard<br>before and would not hear again for many years Dorothy Soames. Thirty years<br>later, overcome with grief following her mothers death, Justine found herself<br>drawn back to the past, uncovering a mystery that stretched back to the early<br>years of World War II and beyond, into the dark corridors of the Hospital for<br>the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children.<br>Established in the eighteenth century to raise bastard children to clean<br>chamber pots for Englands ruling class, the institution was tied to some of<br>historys most influential figures and events. From its role in the development<br>of solitary confinement and human medical experimentation to the creation of<br>the British Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts, its impact on Western culture<br>continues to reverberate. It is the reason we<br>read Dickens <em>Oliver Twist</em> and enjoy<br>Handels <em>Messiah</em> each Christmas. <br>It was also the environment that shaped a young girl known as<br>Dorothy Soames, who bravely withstood years of physical and emotional abuse at<br>the hands of a sadistic headmistressa resilient child whose only hope would be<br>a daring escape as German bombers rained death from the skies. <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>Heartbreaking, surprising, and<br>unforgettable,<em>The Secret<br>Life of Dorothy Soames</em>is the true story of one womans quest<br>to understand the secrets that had poisoned her mothers mind, and her<br>startling discovery that her familys fate had been sealed centuries before.<br></p>