A sprawling beautiful delight of a novel spanning nearly a century as four generations gradually peel back the layers of long-buried family secrets that may just change everything. ... I immensely enjoyed this sweeping heartrending emotional roller coaster of a tale which made me laugh cry and think about the true meaning of family. -- Kristin Harmel New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Daughter Orphan Train meets Before We Were Yours meets Water for Elephants in this compelling multigenerational novel of survival love and the families we make. In 1924 four-year-old Cecily Larsons mother reluctantly drops her off at an orphanage in Chicago promising to be back once shes made enough money to support both Cecily and herself. But she never returns and shortly after high-spirited Cecily turns seven she is sold to a traveling circus to perform as the little sister to glamorous bareback rider Isabelle DuMonde. With Isabelle and the rest of the circus Cecily finally feels shes found the family she craves. But as the years go by the cracks in her little world begin to show. And when teenage Cecily meets and falls in love with a young roustabout named Lucky she finds her life thrown onto an entirely unexpected--and dangerous--course. In 2015 Cecily is now 94 and living a quiet life in Minnesota with her daughter granddaughter and great-grandson. But when her family decides to surprise her with an at-home DNA test the unexpected results not only bring to light the tragic love story that Cecily has kept hidden for decades but also throw into question everything about the family shes raised and claimed as her own for nearly seventy years. Cecily and everyone in her life must now decide who they really are and what family--and forgiveness--really mean. Sweeping through a long period of contemporary history The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson is an immersive compelling and entertaining family drama centered around one remarkable woman and her determination to survive.
