THE SECRET ORPHAN by Glynis Peters

Note: I am not a paid reviewer, and I have purchased this title to read for my personal enjoyment.

Nearly seven-year-old Rose is trapped in her house with her dying mother during an opening, moving scene set during the Luftwaffe’s merciless Coventry bombing raid in November, 1940. Flash forward and eighty-five-year-old Rose celebrates her birthday with family, and reflects on her life path from Coventry to Cornwall to Canada. A sturdy branch of my family tree is from Cornwall, and I’m hooked on a historical story set in the far southwest of England (e.g., The Lake House). Rose’s story toggles to 1938, and transforms into the story of Elenor, a young Cornish woman who ultimately adopts Rose. Just before the Coventry bombing raid, Elenor returns to Cornwall to run Tre Lodhen, the family farm, where she enlists young women to toil with her in a sisterhood kinship to keep Tre Lodhen running during WW2. Elenor has many admirable qualities, such as courage, loyalty, empathy, leadership, industriousness, with a fierce maternal protective streak. Elenor meets a young Canadian flyer and a family might form if sinister challenges can be overcome. Unfortunately, life-changing moments and mysterious intended tensions for Elenor and Rose are often summarized without the immediacy of the promising opening scene.