Secret Life of Dorothy Soames

“Far from growing up in the wealthy, fox-hunting circles she had alwayssuggested, her mother had in fact been raised in a foundling hospital for thechildren of unwed women.” — Editor’s Choice, The New York Times Book Review

“Extraordinary … fascinating, moving.” —The Telegraph

“This emotional and transatlantic journey is a page-turner.” — Editor’s Pick, AmazonBook Review

“Book groups willfind as much to discuss here as they have with The Glass Castle by JeannetteWalls, and Educated by Tara Westover.” — BookList

Recommendedby The New York Times, The Saturday Evening Post,Amazon Book Review, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Publisher’sWeekly, Kirkus and more, Justine Cowan’s remarkable truestory of how she uncovered her mother’s upbringing as a foundling at London’sHospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted YoungChildren has received acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. In the U.K., ithas been featured in The Mail on Sunday, The Daily Mail,The Daily Mirror and The Spectator. TheTelegraph calls it “extraordinary and Glamour magazine choseit as the best new book based on real life.

The story begins when Justine found her often volatile mother inan unlit room writing a name over and over again, one that she had never heardbefore and would not hear again for many years – Dorothy Soames. Thirty yearslater, overcome with grief following her mother’s death, Justine found herselfdrawn back to the past, uncovering a mystery that stretched back to the earlyyears of World War II and beyond, into the dark corridors of the Hospital forthe Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children.Established in the eighteenth century to raise “bastard” children to cleanchamber pots for England’s ruling class, the institution was tied to some ofhistory’s most influential figures and events. From its role in the developmentof solitary confinement and human medical experimentation to the creation ofthe British Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts, its impact on Western culturecontinues to reverberate. It is the reason weread Dickens’ Oliver Twist and enjoyHandel’s Messiah each Christmas.

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

Heartbreaking, surprising, andunforgettable, The SecretLife of Dorothy Soames is the true story of one woman’s questto understand the secrets that had poisoned her mother’s mind, and herstartling discovery that her family’s fate had been sealed centuries before.

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