First published 2019
Molly Ayer faces her final months in foster care at seventeen. One misstep will land her in juvenile detention. Her last hope comes through a community service assignment helping 91-year-old Vivian Daly clear out her Maine home. Vivian has spent decades keeping her past locked away in attic trunks. As Molly sorts through the belongings, she learns that Vivian rode the orphan trains as a young Irish immigrant, sent west with hundreds of other children to find new families. Molly recognizes something familiar in Vivian's story. As a Penobscot Indian raised by strangers, she too knows what it means to be an outsider searching for belonging. The two women form an unlikely bond across their shared experiences of displacement and loss. Through their growing friendship, Molly gains the strength to confront her own uncertain future while helping Vivian face the mysteries that have shaped her long life.
Genres: american-fiction, coming-of-age, biography-memoir, adoption
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Maine, Penobscot
Period: 20th-century
278 pages · Paperback · William Morrow Paperbacks
Content warnings: child-abuse