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A Novel
by Ellen Baker
Orphan Train meets Before We Were Yours meets Water for Elephants in this compelling multigenerational novel of survival, love, and the families we make.
In 1924, four-year-old Cecily Larson's mother reluctantly drops her off at an orphanage in Chicago, promising to be back once she's made enough money to support both Cecily and herself. But she never returns, and shortly after high-spirited Cecily turns seven, she is sold to a traveling circus to perform as the "little sister" to glamorous bareback rider Isabelle DuMonde. With Isabelle and the rest of the circus, Cecily finally feels she's found the family she craves. But as the years go by, the cracks in her little world begin to show. And when teenage Cecily meets and falls in love with a young roustabout named Lucky, she finds her life thrown onto an entirely unexpected—and dangerous—course.
In 2015, Cecily is now 94 and living a quiet life in Minnesota, with her daughter, granddaughter, and great-grandson. But when her family decides to surprise her with an at-home DNA test, the unexpected results not only bring to light the tragic love story that Cecily has kept hidden for decades but also throw into question everything about the family she's raised and claimed as her own for nearly seventy years. Cecily and everyone in her life must now decide who they really are and what family—and forgiveness—really mean.
Sweeping through a long period of contemporary history, The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson is an immersive, compelling, and entertaining family drama centered around one remarkable woman and her determination to survive.
"Baker's re-creation of circus life, tuberculosis-sanitarium life, and home-for-wayward-girls life in the 1920s and '30s is well researched and punchy." —Kirkus Reviews
"An engaging, multigenerational family saga….Baker deftly weaves the lives of three generations of Larson women into a moving tale of secrets, identity, and found family." —Booklist
"A family secret, a DNA test, a journey as rich and colorful as the early-day circus itself. Through Cecily Larson's hidden life, Ellen Baker tenderly examines personal determination, lost love, family ties, and our innate need to discover our own truth." —Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours and Before and After
"The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson is a deeply satisfying, multi-generational rollercoaster of a novel written in gorgeous prose and with characters that ring so true you want to reach out and touch them. I savored every page of this book and will remember the story of Cecily and Lucky for a very long time to come." —Tara Conklin, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Romantics and Community Board
This information about The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ellen Baker is the author of the novels The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson, Keeping the House, and I Gave My Heart to Know This. She has worked as a museum curator and as a bookseller and event coordinator at an independent bookstore. Originally from the Upper Midwest, she currently lives on the coast of Maine.
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