Read : Overground Railroad The Green BookRoots of Black Travel in America Read : Turning Point Read : We Keep the Dead Close A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence Read : Goldilocks Read : Inheritance A Memoir of Genealogy Paternity and Love Read : The Mountains Sing
Ellen Marie Wiseman acclaimed author of What She Left Behind and The Life She Was Given weaves the stories of two very different women into a page-turning novel as suspenseful as it is poignant set amid one of historys deadliest pandemics. In the fall of 1918 thirteen-year-old German immigrant Pia Lange longs to be far from Philadelphias overcrowded streets and slumsEllen Marie Wiseman acclaimed author of What She Left Behind and The Life She Was Given weaves the stories of two very different women into a page-turning novel as suspenseful as it is poignant set amid one of historys deadliest pandemics. In the fall of 1918 thirteen-year-old German immigrant Pia Lange longs to be far from Philadelphias overcrowded streets and slums and from the anti-German sentiment that compelled her father to enlist in the U.S. Army hoping to prove his loyalty. But an even more urgent threat has arrived. Spanish influenza is spreading through the city. Soon dead and dying are everywhere. With no food at home Pia must venture out in search of supplies leaving her infant twin brothers alone . . . Since her baby died days ago Bernice Groves has been lost in grief and bitterness. If doctors hadnt been so busy tending to hordes of immigrants perhaps they could have saved her son. When Bernice sees Pia leaving her tenement across the way she is buoyed by a shocking life-altering decision that leads her on a sinister mission: to transform the citys orphans and immigrant children into what she feels are “true Americans.” As Pia navigates the citys somber neighborhoods she cannot know that her brothers wont be home when she returns. And it will be a long and arduous journey to learn what happened—even as Bernice plots to keep the truth hidden at any cost. Only with persistence and the courage to face her own shame and fear will Pia put the pieces together and find the strength to risk everything to see justice at last.(less)