ItвЂ™s a coming of age story of a resilient girl,a character to be remembered. ItвЂ™s a historical look at a pandemic that ravaged so many lives. ItвЂ™s a depiction of a time and place where immigrants are not seen in the best light. PiaвЂ™s journey over the years is a sad one, filled with suspense and a mystery to solve as she never gives up on her search for her brothers. ThereвЂ™s another character who acts out of desperation, a desperation that comes from another place, one tinged with cruelty.

Pia falls ill with the flu before she can get back to her twin brothers and they are gone when she is able to return. Every possible thing goes wrong that one could imagine. The focus of the story is on a young German immigrant girl, Pia, who out of desperation to find food for her baby brothers, leaves them in their apartment alone. Wiseman Paints this bleak picture of the impact of the Spanish Flu epidemic in Philadelphia, in particular on an impoverished neighborhood where many immigrants live. It was definitely difficult, not just because some things sounded eerily familiar, but because most of the story is pretty bleak and there are some pretty gruesome scenes. I had a feeling that a book about the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 wasnвЂ™t going to be an easy one to read during the current pandemic and that may be why I put off reading it. When sheвЂ™s not busy writing, she loves spending time with her children and grandchildren. Ellen lives on the shores of Lake Ontario with her husband and two spoiled Shih-tzus, Izzy and Bella.

Her newest novel, THE ORPHAN COLLECTOR, comes out on August 4th, 2020. Her fourth novel, THE LIFE SHE WAS GIVEN, was named A GREAT GROUP READS Selection of the WomenвЂ™s National Book Association and National Reading Group Month, and a Goodreads Best of the Month for July. Her third novel, COAL RIVER, was called 'one of the most 'unputdownable' books of 2015' by The Historical Novel Review. EllenвЂ™s second novel, WHAT SHE LEFT BEHIND, was named a Huffington Post Best Books of Summer 2015. THE PLUM TREE received much praise for its depiction of WWII and was named by Bookbub as One of Thirteen Books To Read if You Loved ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE.

Her debut novel, THE PLUM TREE, is loosely based on her motherвЂ™s stories about growing up in Germany during the chaos of WWII. She is a New York Times Bestselling author whose novels have been translated into twenty languages. Powerful, harrowing, and ultimately exultant, The Orphan Collector is a story of love, resilience, and the lengths we will go to protect those who need us most.ДЄ first-generation German American, Ellen Marie Wiseman discovered her love of reading and writing while attending first grade in one of the last one-room schoolhouses in NYS. As Bernice plots to keep the truth hidden at any cost in the months and years that follow, Pia must confront her own shame and fear, risking everything to see justice вЂ“ and love вЂ“ triumph at last. VincentвЂ™s Orphan Asylum вЂ“ the first step in a long and arduous journey. Waking in a makeshift hospital days after collapsing in the street, Pia is frantic to return home. It becomes her sinister mission to tear families apart when theyвЂ™re at their most vulnerable, planning to transform the cityвЂ™s orphans and immigrant children into what she feels are вЂњtrue Americans.вЂќ Watching Pia leave her brothers alone, Bernice makes a shocking, life-altering decision. When food runs out in the cramped tenement she calls home, Pia must venture alone into the quarantined city in search of supplies, leaving her baby brothers behind.Д«ernice Groves has become lost in grief and bitterness since her baby died from the Spanish flu.

Funeral crepe and quarantine signs appear on doors as victims drop dead in the streets and desperate survivors wear white masks to ward off illness. But as her city celebrates the end of war, an even more urgent threat arrives: the Spanish flu. In the fall of 1918, thirteen-year-old German immigrant Pia Lange longs to be far from PhiladelphiaвЂ™s overcrowded slums and the anti-immigrant sentiment that compelled her father to enlist in the U.S.

The orphan collector