The Home for Unwanted Girls, Joanna Goodman
The Home for Unwanted Girls, Joanna Goodman
22 Rating(s)
List: $26.99 | Sale: $18.89
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The Home for Unwanted Girls
The heart-wrenching, gripping story of a mother-daughter bond that could not be broken - inspired by true events

Author: Joanna Goodman

Narrator: Saskia Maarleveld

Unabridged: 9 hr 59 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 04/17/2018


Synopsis

Philomena meets The Orphan Train in this suspenseful, provocative novel filled with love, secrets, and deceit—the story of a young unwed mother who is forcibly separated from her daughter at birth and the lengths to which they go to find each other.In 1950s Quebec, French and English tolerate each other with precarious civility—much like Maggie Hughes’ parents. Maggie’s English-speaking father has ambitions for his daughter that don’t include marriage to the poor French boy on the next farm over. But Maggie’s heart is captured by Gabriel Phénix. When she becomes pregnant at fifteen, her parents force her to give baby Elodie up for adoption and get her life ‘back on track’.Elodie is raised in Quebec’s impoverished orphanage system. It’s a precarious enough existence that takes a tragic turn when Elodie, along with thousands of other orphans in Quebec, is declared mentally ill as the result of a new law that provides more funding to psychiatric hospitals than to orphanages. Bright and determined, Elodie withstands abysmal treatment at the nuns’ hands, finally earning her freedom at seventeen, when she is thrust into an alien, often unnerving world.Maggie, married to a businessman eager to start a family, cannot forget the daughter she was forced to abandon, and a chance reconnection with Gabriel spurs a wrenching choice. As time passes, the stories of Maggie and Elodie intertwine but never touch, until Maggie realizes she must take what she wants from life and go in search of her long-lost daughter, finally reclaiming the truth that has been denied them both.

About Joanna Goodman

Joanna Goodman is the author of the bestselling novels The Forgotten Daughter, The Home for Unwanted Girls,and The Finishing School. Originally from Montreal, she now lives in Toronto with her husband and two children.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Angela M on April 08, 2018

3.5 stars rounded up. Joanna Goodman does not shy away from focusing on some controversial things that happened in Canada’s history in this moving novel. She presents the divide between English and French in Quebec in the 1950’s both from a family perspective as well as a societal one. “Much like the......more

Goodreads review by Lindsay L on September 18, 2018

5 stars! I truly loved this novel! This story ripped my heart out. It made me angry, hopeful, frustrated. It had me rooting for these characters, holding my breath and crossing my fingers for a positive outcome. It exhausted me emotionally (in the best way possible). Simply stated – I adored this boo......more

Goodreads review by Norma ~ The Sisters on September 24, 2018

THE HOME FOR UNWANTED GIRLS by JOANNA GOODMAN was such a moving, heart-wrenching, and riveting historical fiction novel that had quite the emotionally gripping story. This book literally crushed me and made me feeling so many different emotions while reading it. Some of the subject matter and histor......more

Goodreads review by Jonetta on September 19, 2018

Maggie Hughes is the 15-year old daughter of an English speaking Canadian father and a French mother living in Quebec. Despite her father’s admonishments to not cavort with French boys, Maggie’s young heart is captured by Gabriel Phénix, the young and impoverished boy living at the adjacent farm. Wh......more

Goodreads review by Sharon on December 29, 2023

I chose The Home for Unwanted Girls for ATY (Around the Year) Challenge 2024 for prompt 41, a book with a chilling atmosphere. It is also a book that will be discussed in one of my book clubs. I thought I would get a jump start and read it at the end of 2023, and select a different book for ATY 2024......more