Time Travel Thursday

Welcome to Time Travel Thursday, my beautiful Book Dragons! This evening’s Gem is a beautiful Emerald cut in the shape of a Shamrock. Hold it in your palm and you will feel the vibrations of decades of sorrow and happiness, pain and joy, confusion and contentment, contention and peace, sin and redemption alternation like currents through it’s four leaves.

This is Gem Maker Heidi Daniele’s “The House Children”. Imagine living in a time when having a child out of wedlock is a crime which is punishable by prison time. When that very tiny babe will then be taken from from your arms and you will be sent away and it will never know you. No matter how you long for it, no matter how you long to tell others about how much you love and miss your babe you can never bring it up or you will be ostracized and outcast.

Now imagine the other side of the coin. If you survive infancy, you are either placed in an orphanage, are one of the lucky few who might find an adoptive home with loving parents or a foster family who might treat you well or put you on the same level as the family dog.. or perhaps lower. Mayhap the orphanage you go to is an institution where you are treated decently – clothes, food, a rudimentary education and taught a trade or you are abused, neglected and sometimes abused and molested. What will the luck of the draw bring you in a cold, cruel world?

Heidi Daniele has brought to us the poor Irish childhood from the illegitimate perspective. This is a story of fiction with a fair amount of truth thrown in. Frank McCourt’s autobiography “Angela’s Ashes” stirred many a heart, including my own. Heidi Daniele will do the same for everyone out there who picks up this beautiful yet powerful story of Mary Margaret Joyce who goes through childhood at the whim of nuns, social workers and other in 1937 Ireland.

If you are looking for an historical fiction based on many a fact, then I bid you get this book, grab the biscuit tin, fire up the teapot, grab your shawl, pull up a chair near the fire and turn off your phone because you aren’t going anywhere for several hours. You are going to Ireland and walk alongside little Peg (as she is called by the nuns) and you are going to want to put your arms around her more than once and tell her you will be her protector, her Mam and her friend. Make sure you keep a bookmark handy for this one, you won’t want to lose your place!

The holidays are coming and this would be a superb gift for the reader in your life who loves a good drama. I know I am keeping my copy to read again. Here is the link to grab it https://www.amazon.com/House-Children-Novel-Heidi-Daniele-ebook/dp/B07G83LV1D .

Until tomorrow, I remain, your humble Book Dragon,

Drakon T. Longwitten

I received a copy of this for review from the publisher, my opinions are my own.