
The Life She Was Given
A Moving and Emotional Saga of Family and Resilient Women
- 304 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
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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Information
Table of contents
- Outstanding Praise for the Novels of Ellen Marie Wiseman!
- Also by
- Title Page
- Table of Contents
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- CHAPTER 1 - LILLY
- CHAPTER 2 - JULIA
- CHAPTER 3 - LILLY
- CHAPTER 4 - JULIA
- CHAPTER 5 - LILLY
- CHAPTER 6 - JULIA
- CHAPTER 7 - LILLY
- CHAPTER 8 - JULIA
- CHAPTER 9 - LILLY
- CHAPTER 10 - JULIA
- CHAPTER 11 - LILLY
- CHAPTER 12 - JULIA
- CHAPTER 13 - LILLY
- CHAPTER 14 - JULIA
- CHAPTER 15 - LILLY
- CHAPTER 16 - JULIA
- CHAPTER 17 - LILLY
- CHAPTER 18 - JULIA
- CHAPTER 19 - LILLY
- CHAPTER 20 - JULIA
- CHAPTER 21 - LILLY
- CHAPTER 22 - JULIA
- CHAPTER 23 - LILLY
- CHAPTER 24 - JULIA
- CHAPTER 25 - LILLY
- CHAPTER 26 - JULIA
- CHAPTER 27 - LILLY
- CHAPTER 28 - JULIA
- CHAPTER 29 - LILLY
- CHAPTER 30 - JULIA
- CHAPTER 31 - LILLY
- CHAPTER 32 - JULIA
- CHAPTER 33 - LILLY
- CHAPTER 34 - JULIA
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- THE LIFE SHE WAS GIVEN
- Discussion Questions
- Teaser