When her beauty provokes a lustful revelation from a young priest, sixteen-year-old Teagan is sent to one of Dublin's Magdalen Laundries for fallen women, where she befriends two other girls who help her endure the harsh captivity.

"The Girls with No Names pulls readers into the gilded age of New York City in the 1910s, when suffragettes marched in the street, unions fought for better work conditions--and girls were confined to the House of Mercy for daring to break the rules. Not far from Luella and Effie Tildon's large family mansion in Inwood looms the House of Mercy, a work house for wayward girls. The sisters grow up under its shadow with the understanding that even as...

"The shocking, deeply reported story of a murder-suicide that claimed the lives of six children--and a searing indictment of the American foster care system"--

"The Salpetriere Asylum: Paris, 1885. Dr. Charcot holds all of Paris in thrall with his displays of hypnotism on women who have been deemed mad and cast out from society. But the truth is much more complicated--these women are often simply inconvenient, unwanted wives, those who have lost something precious, wayward daughters, or girls born from adulterous relationships. For Parisian society, the highlight of the year is the Lenten ball--the Madwomen's...

When a woman's body is discovered in a cathedral and hours later a young man is found hanging from a tree outside his home, Detective Lottie Parker is called in to lead the investigation. Both bodies have the same distinctive tattoo clumsily inscribed on their legs. The trail leads Lottie to St. Angela's, a former children's home, with a dark connection to her own family history. Suddenly, the case just got personal. As Lottie begins to link the current...

The heartbreaking, iconic true story of an abandoned little boy's horrific journey through the American foster care system. One misty evening, Jennings Michael Burch's mother, too sick to care for him, left her eight-year-old son at an orphanage with the words, "I'll be right back." She wasn't. Shuttled through a bleak series of foster homes, orphanages, and institutions, Jennings never remained in any of them long enough to make a friend. Instead,...

A smart and engaging little boy afflicted with cerebral palsy, abandoned by his mother and locked away in the Russian orphanage system, escapes his fate by reaching out to the world in this powerful and moving true-life story.

"Every Heart a Doorway racked up comparisons to C. S. Lewis and Lewis Carroll, and the Wayward Children series has delighted and mesmerized readers. This fourth entry tells the origin story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world around her. As well she should. When she finds a doorway to a world founded on logic and reason, riddles and lies,...

"In Where the Drowned Girls Go, the next addition to Seanan McGuire's beloved Wayward Children series, students at an anti-magical school rebel against the oppressive faculty "Welcome to the Whitethorn Institute. The first step is always admitting you need help, and you've already taken that step by requesting a transfer into our company." There is another school for children who fall through doors and fall back out again. It isn't as friendly as...