The Foundling Novel

The Foundling

"Mary Engle has landed a rare job opporutnity for a young woman in 1927: a coveted secretarial position with room and board at a highly esteemed Pennsylvania institution--the Nettleton State Village for Feebleminded Women of Childbearing Age. Mary is immediately in awe of her employer--brilliant, charming Dr. Agnes Vogel. Dr. Vogel had been the only woman in her class in medical school. As a young psychiatrist she was an outspoken crusader for women's suffrage. Now, Dr. Vogel runs one of the largest and most self-sufficient public asylums for women in the country. Mary admires how dedicated the doctor is to the poor and vulnerable women under her care. Soon after she's hired, Mary learns that a girl from her childhood orphange is one of the inmates. Mary remembers Lillian as a beautiful free spirit with a sometimes fiery and unpredictable temperament, but she'd never considered her "feebleminded." Quite the opposite--Lillian had devised wonderful schemes that eluded the strictest nuns at the orphan home. Now Lillian begs Mary to help her escape, claiming the asylum is not what is seems--leaving Mary with a terrible choice. Should she trust her troubled friend with whom she shares a dark childhood secret? Or the wise, benevolent Dr. Vogel, who has high hopes for Mary's future? Mary's decision triggers a stunning sequence of events with life-altering consequences for all." -- page [4] of cover

The Foundling

Don't miss Stacey Halls' incredible new novel THE HOUSEHOLD - available to buy now! The captivating Sunday Times bestseller from the author of The Familiars. Two women, bound by a child, and a secret that will change everything . . . London, 1754. Six years after leaving her illegitimate daughter Clara at London's Foundling Hospital, Bess Bright returns to reclaim the child she has never known. Dreading the worst, that Clara has died in care, Bess is astonished to be told she has already claimed her. Her life is turned upside down as she tries to find out who has taken her little girl - and why. Less than a mile from Bess's lodgings in the city, in a quiet, gloomy townhouse on the edge of London, a young widow has not left the house in a decade. When her close friend - an ambitious young doctor at the Foundling Hospital - persuades her to hire a nursemaid for her daughter, she is hesitant to welcome someone new into her home and her life. But her past is threatening to catch up with her and tear her carefully constructed world apart. From the bestselling author of The Familiars comes this captivating story of mothers and daughters, class and power, and love against the greatest of odds . . . 'The new Hilary Mantel' COSMOPOLITAN 'Stacey Halls is a writer of great originality, great imagination and great sense of place. Atmospheric, intelligent, accessible, every novel is worth reading, then reading again and again' KATE MOSSE Another gripping, immersive, intelligent work of historical fiction from the bestselling author of The Familiars' KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE, author of THE MERCIES A moving, atmospheric chiller' INDEPENDENT 'A breathtaking achievement' SUNDAY EXPRESS 'Enjoyable and atmospheric' THE TIMES 'Historical drama at its very best' MY WEEKLY **THE HOUSEHOLD, the brand new novel from Stacey Halls, is available to pre-order now** *Sunday Times bestseller February and September 2020* *Winner of Women's Prize for Fiction x Good Housekeeping Futures award - Good Housekeeping 14 Oct 2022*

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