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Ellen Marie Wiseman

Biography

Ellen Marie Wiseman

Ellen Marie Wiseman is the New York Times bestselling author of the historical novels THE LIES THEY TOLD, THE LOST GIRLS OF WILLOWBROOK, THE ORPHAN COLLECTOR, WHAT SHE LEFT BEHIND, THE PLUM TREE, COAL RIVER and THE LIFE SHE WAS GIVEN, which was a Great Group Reads selection of the Women’s National Book Association and National Reading Group Month.

Born and raised in Three Mile Bay, a tiny hamlet in Northern New York, she’s a first-generation German American who discovered her love of reading and writing while attending first grade in one of the last one-room schoolhouses in New York State. Since then, her novels have been translated into 18 languages and published worldwide. A mother of two, Ellen lives on the shores of Lake Ontario with her husband and dogs.

Ellen Marie Wiseman

Books by Ellen Marie Wiseman

The Lies They Told
by Ellen Marie Wiseman - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction

When Lena Conti sees immigrant families being forcibly separated on Ellis Island, she vows not to let the officers take her two-year-old daughter. But the inspection process is more rigorous than she imagined, and she is separated from her mother and teenage brother, who are deported back to Germany. Silas Wolfe, a widowed family relative, reluctantly brings Lena and her daughter to his weathered cabin in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains to care for his home and children. After a social worker from the Eugenics Office accuses Lena of promiscuity and feeblemindedness, her own worst fears come true. Sent to the Virginia State Colony for the Feebleminded and Epileptics, Lena faces impossible choices in hopes of reuniting with her daughter --- and protecting the people, and the land, she has grown to love.

The Lost Girls of Willowbrook
by Ellen Marie Wiseman - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction

Sage Winters’ twin sister, Rosemary, died from pneumonia six years ago. Their mother perished in a car crash, and Sage’s stepfather, Alan, resents being burdened by a responsibility he never wanted. Yet, despite living as near strangers in their Staten Island apartment, Sage is stunned to discover that Alan has kept a shocking secret: Rosemary didn’t die. She was committed to Willowbrook State School and has lingered there until just a few days ago, when she went missing. With no idea what to expect, Sage secretly sets out for Willowbrook, determined to find Rosemary. What she learns, once she steps through its doors and is mistakenly believed to be her sister, will change her life in ways she never could have imagined.