Author, lecturer, storyteller. There I was minding my own business when suddenly the voices showed up. I finally have a job I truly love.
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A note from the author:
When deciding which books to read… The Orphan Train Saga is a clean read with a wide reading audience ranging from 9 to senior citizens.There are no swear words and no gratuitous violence. The ugly part of life is implied rather than shown in graphic detail. The reader will know what is going on and feel the character’s emotions as they deal with the situation. My romance are not clean reads. I like to tell people if you are like my mom you will probably be more comfortable skipping over a couple chapters. If you are like my aunt Barb, you’ll probably read those chapters twice. There are also swear words in the books. My time travel romance “Seems Like Yesterday” has language but no sex. My Jerry books have some profanity Surviving the Storm has both language, sex and may be a bit intense for some readers. 
In the mid-1850s, there were over 30k children living on the streets of New York City. Children as young as four and five who had to lie, cheat, and steal just to survive. Some of the children were true orphans, others were not. Either way, their situation was dire and something had to be done. So, between 1855 and 1929, over 250k children from New York and Boston were sent west on what was later referred to as ‘the orphan trains’ to find new homes. Children most people haven’t heard about. My Orphan Train Lecture explains why there were so many homeless children and the people who were instrumental in helping them.
My goal with this eighteen book saga is to keep those children’s memories alive. While the children in my books are fictional, I use history to tell their tales. I introduce seventeen of the eighteen children in Discovery, book one of The Orphan Train Saga. Discovery tells Mileta’s story and each book after that will tell one of the children’s tale. The reader will follow each child from their earliest memory and find out what caused them to be without a home. The reader will journey with the children on the train and follow as they grow. When I began writing this historical fiction saga I thought I was writing towards adults. While each book starts with the person’s first memory, the children grow up, and there are real-life situations. With that said, the books are void of swearwords and there is no overly graphic content. Since Discovery’s release in December of 2018, I’ve received e-mails from children as young as nine, letting me know how much they are enjoying this saga, and the history that surrounds it. So, now when I‘m asked I just say it’s for ages 9 to 99+. Lastly, while Discovery can be read and enjoyed on its own, if you decide to keep reading –which I hope you do- you’ll want to read the books in order. Some of the children’s lives are so intertwined that a subsequent book will give you a greater understanding of something from a previous book when told from a different perspective. |
