The Forgotten Children by Anita Davison
Published: 1st November 2017
Publisher: Aria
Pages: 544
Available in Paperback and on Kindle
Rating: 5/5
Blurb
The forgotten children of London are going missing, apparently being sold by their own families. Can she save them before it's too late...
Flora Maguire’s life is perfect – a beautiful home in Belgravia teeming with servants, a loving husband, and new baby Arthur to enjoy. But when she is invited to tour St Philomena’s Children’s Hospital in deprived Southwark, she gets a harsh insight into the darker side of Edwardian London.
Shocked by the conditions people are living in, she soon uncovers a scandal with a dark heart – children are going missing from the hospital, apparently sold by their own families, and their fate is too awful to imagine. With the police seemingly unable or unwilling to investigate, Flora teams up with the matron of the hospital, Alice Finch, to try to get to the bottom of it.
Soon Flora is immersed in the seedy, dangerous underbelly of criminal London, and time is running out to save the children. Will they get to them in time, or was their fate decided the day they were born poor…
Review
The Forgotten Children is the forth novel by Anita Davison
in the Flora Maguire series, something I wish I’d known before I started
reading this book as I would have loved to have read this series from the start
as I enjoyed The Forgotten Children immensely.
Flora and her husband Bunny are invited to visit the St. Philomena’s
Children’s hospital in a less desirable part of London. While on their visit
one of the young student nurses Lizzie Prentice is found dead in the hospital
courtyard, many are quick to assume she slipped and hit her head but Flora’s
investigative nature feels there’s something not right about the young woman’s
death. Later Flora meets with hospital Matron Alice Finch who confides in Flora
that some recent patients from the hospital have not returned for check-ups and
she fears they have gone missing. Loving
a mystery Flora vows to help Alice find out what happened to these missing
children and if there is any connection to the young nurse.
I loved Flora as a main character, she tries to appear as a
woman of the world with all her investigation skills but her she still showed
some naivety, especially when visiting the homes of the poor children who have
gone missing. This made her more real for me as showed she has some things to
learn and isn’t perfect like many society ladies are portrayed to be.
There is also a real mix of other characters from both ends
of society and it was surprising just how many of them had their own secrets to
hide. This added more enjoyment to the already twisty mystery which Anita
Davison has written. She has also managed
to bring all aspects of the story to a suitable conclusion, which is good but I
hope that this is not the end of Flora as I would love to go on another
investigation with her.
For me this was a fantastic read and one I can’t fault, it
had great characters a good sense of place and a believable plotline that
flowed well and was resolved completely. It would be a great read for fans of
Frances Brody or Lindsey Hutchinson.
Thank you so much to Aria for sending me a copy to review
and inviting me on the blog tour. I look forward to reading more from Anita Davison
very soon.
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