Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Life She Was Given

The Life She Was Given

Wiseman, Ellen Marie

Paperback

General FictionHistorical Fiction

Publisher Price: $18.95

ISBN10: 1496749863
ISBN13: 9781496749864
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation
Published: Jan 21 2025
Pages: 384
Weight: 0.75
Height: 1.02 Width: 5.60 Depth: 8.20
Language: English
Before We Were Yours meets Water for Elephants in New York Times bestselling author Ellen Marie Wiseman's vivid, daring, emotional novel about the devastating power of family secrets--beginning in the poignant, lurid world of a Depression-era traveling circus and coming full circle in the transformative 1950s.

On a summer evening in 1931, Lilly Blackwood glimpses circus lights from the grimy window of her attic bedroom. Lilly isn't allowed to explore the meadows around Blackwood Manor. She's never even ventured beyond her narrow room. Momma insists it's for Lilly's own protection, that people would be afraid if they saw her. But on this unforgettable night, Lilly is taken outside for the first time--and sold to the circus sideshow.

More than two decades later, nineteen-year-old Julia Blackwood inherits her parents' estate. For Julia, home was an unhappy place full of rules and forbidden rooms. She hopes that returning might erase those painful memories. Instead, she becomes immersed in a mystery involving a hidden attic room and photos of circus scenes featuring a striking young girl.

At first, The Barlow Brothers' Circus is just another prison for Lilly. But in this rag-tag, sometimes brutal world, Lilly discovers strength, friendship, and a rare affinity for animals. Thanks to elephants Pepper and JoJo, and their handler, Cole, Lilly is no longer a spectacle but the circus's biggest attraction . . . until tragedy and cruelty collide. It will fall to Julia to uncover Lilly's fate and her family's shocking betrayal, and somehow make Blackwood Manor a place of healing at last.

Moving between Julia and Lilly's stories, Ellen Marie Wiseman portrays two extraordinary, very different women in a novel that is tender, heart wrenching, and hopeful.

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