INSTANT INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLERA beautiful tale of hope, courage, and sisterhood—inspired by the real House of Mercy and the girls confined there for daring to break the rules.Growing up in New York City in the 1910s, Luella and Effie Tildon realize that even as wealthy young women, their freedoms come with limits. But when the sisters discover a shocking secret about their father, Luella, the … secret about their father, Luella, the brazen elder sister, becomes emboldened to do as she pleases. Her rebellion comes with consequences, and one morning Luella is mysteriously gone.
Effie suspects her father has sent Luella to the House of Mercy and hatches a plan to get herself committed to save her sister. But she made a miscalculation, and with no one to believe her story, Effie’s own escape seems impossible—unless she can trust an enigmatic girl named Mable. As their fates entwine, Mable and Effie must rely on their tenuous friendship to survive.
Home for Unwanted Girls meets The Dollhouse in this atmospheric, heartwarming story that explores not only the historical House of Mercy, but the lives—and secrets—of the girls who stayed there.
“Burdick has spun a cautionary tale of struggle and survival, love and family — and above all, the strength of the heart, no matter how broken.” — New York Times Book Review
“Burdick reveals the perils of being a woman in 1913 and exposes the truths of their varying social circles.” — Chicago Tribune
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A coming-of-age tale and a story of the powerful love between sisters steeped in tragedy, loss and the iron resolve to find one’s way back.
It kept me wanting more!
I kept waiting for the title to come into play.
Very good story!
I became so involved in the characters, and wanted to know more, when it ended.
Overall: Enjoyable
While historical fiction is not my go-to read, I found this one rather enjoyable. The characters were so compelling, I simply had to know how it was going to end! If your looking for a brutally honest take on the best/worst parts of young adulthood early America, I would give it a shot!
For my full review, please visit: https://www.krwardbookreview.com/
compelling and beautifully written
This is one of those books that touches the heart. Beautifully written and richly imagined, the novel tells the story of a courageous and tenacious girl as she becomes a woman under the most brutal circumstances. The characters are believable, and the ending is bittersweet.
NuThe Girls With No Names by Serena Burdick is set in 1910’s New York City, a time when it was legal, and common practice, to imprison women for anything considered an ‘immoral act’. This could be anything from prostitution to a young girl caught kissing a boy. More horrifying than these laws were the facilities where the unfortunate girls and women were sent. They differed slightly from area to area. Some kind, but many housing pregnant and unwed mothers, criminals, orphans, destitute, and mentally insane females all together – all receiving same treatment. All imprisoned.
The Girls With No Names refers to The House of Mercy, a Protestant Episcopal home for wayward girls. This was modeled after the Magdalene Laundries, a group of religious facilities spread across the county claiming to take in and reform girls and women for immoral acts of sexual nature. They were in fact horribly cruel prisons using the women as slave labor to run their commercial laundry. The church of course pocketed the profits.
The story begins with sisters Effie and Luella stumbling through the woods, trying to find their way home in the dark. Typically under the constant watchful eye of parents or servants, the girls had sneaked off to follow music they’d heard in the distance. Finding a gypsy camp along the river running through the wood near their home Luella, a classically trained ballerina, became fascinated with the music and beautiful gypsy dancers – so unlike anything she’d experienced before. Awakening a yearning for freedom and adventure she could not ignore.
They enjoy a wonderful few months sneaking off to spend time in the gypsy camp, until Effie comes home one afternoon to find Luella gone. Assuming their father discovered their interaction with the gypsies and sent Luella to The House of Mercy, Effie devises a plan to bring her home.
What follows is a year long journey to reunite the family, with many harrowing and heartbreaking moments along the way.
I enjoyed this story and recommend for anyone interested in 1910’s New York, women’s rights, or the bond and loyalty between sisters.
The Girls with No Names left me a little conflicted, and looking back over the story, the things I liked and the things I didn’t were about even. The book is well written as far as flow, and there’s a good mix of details and dialogue. It is atmospheric, and the scenes are described well. However, there were some lags in the story here and there, and while I didn’t feel the need to skim past those parts, they did slow the story down for me. The characters were interesting, but the story is quite predictable. That said, one of the things that bothered me the most was the ‘inspired by the real House of Mercy’ line in the blurb. I really expected more details about the House of Mercy, but felt like it took up very little of the book. Most of the story was more family drama than anything else, which really doesn’t bring anything new or thought-provoking to the table. As I mentioned, I did find the characters interesting, particularly Mable. I can’t say that I liked her, but she did keep the pages turning. In the end, this one ended up being just an okay read for me. It held my interest enough to finish, but it isn’t particularly memorable.
This is a historical fiction and is told from the point of view of effie, her mother jeanne, and mable. I like the way the author did the p.o.v where you won’t be confused about who’s p.o.v it is. I enjoyed reading effie and mable’s p.o.v and was surprised to see that the story had effie’s p.o.v and not luella’s. I would have liked to know what was going on in luella’s head, why she made the choices that she did. Reading this book made me want to learn more about the House Of Mercy and other places like it that existed during that time. There was also a short mention of the shirt waist factory fire that occurred years ago due to terrible work conditions.
Overall this book was Great. Effie’s fight for freedom and discovering strength within herself, mable and effie’s budding friendship and close bond made this an exciting and interesting read.
I highly recommend this book.
4.5 stars
Effie and Luella Tildon grew up in the New York high society. Stifled by family expectations, they found an escape among the gypsy group nearby. But freedom had new meaning when it was no longer an option.
The 1910s New York setting gave readers an insight into both high society and the slum through the main characters. The story was a little slow in the beginning, but I enjoyed it overall.
It followed three female characters from two different social standing, navigating life based on the trials and tribulations of the period. They might seem weak and/or unlikable on the surface but they formed an invisible strength from the bond that connected them. My favorite character was Mable because she had the most interesting past.
The Girls with No Names is a story of survival and hope. It would appeal to readers who are interested in female camaraderie Historical Fiction.
Effie and Luella lived a privileged life and had to conform to all the strict rules set upon women in the 1910’s including being sent away.
Effie was the sister who had a health problem, and Luella was the sister who was beautiful. Both behaved, but were bored with their lives and the control their parents had over them.
One day the sisters were at lunch with their father and witnessed something he did that shocked and upset them. What they found out, made Luella become rebellious.
Luella being the bolder of the two sisters hinted that she knew her father’s secret, and this made her father furious. Because of her rebellion, Effie woke up one morning to realize her sister wasn’t there.
Did their father take her away or did she go away on her own?
After Luella left, Effie couldn’t function, and she needed her parents to tell her where Luella was. Effie wouldn’t give up, but did she go too far for the love of her sister?
We follow this disjointed family as each member seems to be living a life separate from one another even though they live under the same roof. Having to now deal with Luella gone, things became more difficult.
THE GIRLS WITH NO NAMES was an enjoyable, interesting read with characters you will like but will want to tell to think before acting.
THE GIRLS WITH NO NAMES will be of interest to women’s fiction fans and those readers who enjoy family tension, life in the 1900’s, sisterly love, story line twists, and secrets.
This book is one you won’t want to put down. ENJOY!! 5/5
This book was given to me by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book grabbed me from the very first when Effie was in the basement feeling like she was dying. Effie was born with a bad heart. A hole in her heart and she was not suppose to live a year. She’s 13 now and looking for her sister Luella.
Luella and Effie are sisters. Very close sisters who will do anything for each other. Luella never believed that Effie was really dying despite the fact she has a terrible heart problem and what they call “blue fits”. Their parents love them and trust them it seems completely. But when the Gypsies come around they love to sneak off and go visit them.
Luella is a ballet dancer in the very early 1900s and is 16 years old. She is very fascinated by the Gypsies and loves going to visit and listen to their music while dancing with them also. Effie is more fascinated with the fortune telling part. She goes along mainly because of Luella though. She seems to almost worship her older sister.
Effie was born in 1900 and with a hole in her heart. The dr told her parents that she would never survive to see her first birthday. Each year on her birthday Jeanne, the girls mother, is afraid it will be Effie’s last. She’s not ready to lose her baby girl. It seems the birth of Effie puts a distance between their parents in the fear of having another baby born with problems. But their problems are by far not Effie’s fault.
The parents seem to truly love the girls and give them a good life. Their father, Emory, does not allow to many maids or help and seems like he may be a little bit on the stingy side but it’s understandable if he’s doing this to teach his girls to be selfs reliable. Luella wants her own maid but Effie does not see the sense in that. Luella is growing up and wants things that her parents don’t understand. She’s like a free spirit in many ways.
One morning Effie awakes and Luella is gone. She is convinced her father sent her to the HOUSE OF MERCY. A place where young girls were sent if they were a bit out of hand or for other reasons. It’s not a very pleasant place though. The girls are treated more like slave workers than human beings. The so called Sisters who run the place are cruel indeed. Makes me wonder about any religion that allows such cruelty. Effie finds a way to get put in this awful place and meets a girl, Mable. Mable is a character I won’t forget soon. This book tells her story along with Effie’s and Luella’s. Jeanna tells her story of fear and heartbreak. Many points of views are told here. Each so worth reading and knowing. It explains so much about each of the characters of this book.
I love the end where the author told about the places like HOUSE OF MERCY that were everywhere back then. They were all cruel and treated women, both young and older, terrible. The research that was done for this book is very interesting and worth reading also. So at the end be sure and read that part.
This story will touch your heart. Make you hold your breath in several places and even laugh in a few. It’s told from several prospectives and the characters are so well developed. I loved them all. I think this book is one that will stick with me for a long time. The ending did make me cry, but also part of it made my heart happy. It’s the story of not just two girls, but three and the mother of two of them, and how they survived, dealt with and endured some things that no young girl should have too. I was also surprised that back then at 16 a girl could get married without the parents consent. Men could do whatever they wanted and got away with it, that part didn’t surprise me though. It’s the story of love, loss, finding one’s self and losing people who are a treasure. It’s well written and a very touching story.
Thank you to #NetGalley, #Harlequin, and a new to me author, Serena Burdick. I look forward to more from this author. This is my own review.
I have to give it 5 stars. A very high recommendation also. A must read.
This was a fast book for me, I had a hard time putting it down. The story was interesting but also sad. I enjoyed it! Definitely recommend! Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the early copy