In 2023, Janelle Spencer, acting director of the London Foundling Museum, is working with Jonas Conrad who is making a fundraising film for the museum, when they come across something very interesting in the history of the Foundling Hospital. In 1885, eight year old Alice Crosby, renamed Mary Graham, goes missing. It is with horror, when they read Mary Alice’s book, that they realise that she is not the only young girl to be sold into a brothel in London’s East End……..
When Alice is three months old, her unmarried mother, Serena, is too ashamed of her situation to ask her sister Lillian Freemont for help, and in desperation leaves her baby, with a token on which is written “Remember My Love” tied with a ribbon around her neck, at the Foundling Hospital. So many of the mothers left their children with tokens of their love and they form part of the Museum’s display.
In 1885, desperately ill and living in abject poverty, Serena reaches out to Lillian who joins up with Matthew McGivern, a journalist who works for W T Stead at the Pall Mall Gazette, to look for Alice, who is now eight years old and has disappeared. There is so much corruption, even in the police, and their courage is incredible as they, armed with their faith, go right into the enemy’s lairs……
The two time frames flow well into one another.
The novel gives us much food for thought as the author deals with such an emotional subject.
I cannot recommend the book strongly enough.
I was given a free copy of the book by NetGalley from Bethany House Publishers. The opinions in this review are completely my own.
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