Synopsis of the forgotten daughter a novel joanna goodman

"The novel centers around the definition, the challenges, the triumph of family, but it also acknowledges that Elodie and Maggie's story is one of many. The ending hits a perfect emotional note: bittersweet and honest, comforting and regretful."

— Kirkus Reviews

for The Home for Unwanted Girls

"Joanna Goodman has written a beautiful novel containing the entire range of emotions experienced by the human heart... This book is the story of Maggie and Elodie, but also the chilling story of so many Quebec children who were abused at the hands of nuns and priests when they had no one to advocate for them. Goodman handles this heartbreaking topic with grace and skill. The heartbreaking exists alongside the heartwarming here, and rather than seek to “solve” this dark moment in Canadian history or gloss over it, Goodman unpacks it and sits with it, looking for hope amidst the ruins. The result is beautiful and at times breathtaking.... This is the story of a girl, of love, and of family... If you are a fan of historical fiction, sweeping family epics, or a beautifully written page turner that will rip your heart in two and then melt it back together; this one is for you. The heart wrenching beauty of this novel is not one that is easily done justice in a review: I suggest you go see for yourself."

— The Required Reading List

for The Inheritance

"Canadian writer Joanna Goodman... brings the horrors and complexities of recent Canadian history to life with vivid, realistic characters. Readers will be spellbound."

— Starred Review, Publishers Weekly

for The Forgotten Daughter

"Goodman explores two major events in recent Canadian history and how each of these expose deep wounds in the country and its people. The characters, complex and flawed, love and fight so fiercely that it’s hard not to be drawn into their passionate orbits and to feel, even slightly, a glimmer of hope as they refuse to give up on the ideal of happiness."

— Kirkus Reviews

for The Forgotten Daughter

"In this captivating story layered with love, suspense, grief, and redemption, Goodman once again creates intriguing characters that will immediately draw readers in."

— Melissa Norstedt, BOOKLIST

for The Forgotten Daughter

"Joanna Goodman, the Toronto author of The Finishing School, based this new novel in part on her own mother’s story — and you can feel that current of emotion running throughout it. The novel opens in 1950 in a small town southeast of Montreal, during the brutal Duplessis years, or “The Great Darkness,” a time of great tension between the English and French. Maggie Hughes, daughter of an English store owner and a feisty French woman, feels torn between these two worlds — until her love for a French farm boy neighbour forces her hand. Fifteen and pregnant, Maggie is shipped away to live with family, who ultimately take the baby to a convent, not knowing what will be in store for little Elodie in the coming years, as the orphanages are converted to mental institutions. A heart-wrenching saga of love and loss that’s not to be missed."

— The Toronto Star

for The Home for Unwanted Girls

"Goodman, the author of four previous novels including The Finishing School, does an exceptional job in The Home For Unwanted Girls of confronting a terrible past marked by history that is almost too shocking to comprehend, and in the process gives Maggie and Elodie something women at that time did not have, a chance for truth, happiness, and a chance at redemption. All of this makes The Home For Unwanted Girls an emotionally raw and a compelling page-turner that you can't put down."

— The Brooklyn Digest

for The Home for Unwanted Girls

"Told against the tumultuous political backdrop of 1950s Quebec is the story of Maggie, the daughter of a proper English family, becomes pregnant with the child of her first love, French neighbor Gabriel. Forced to leave Gabriel and the lower-class lifestyle he can offer her, Maggie is sent away to have the baby, who is given up for adoption so that Maggie can return to the respectable life that her parents envision. While Maggie makes an ill-fated attempt to live up to her parents’ wishes, her daughter, bright and inquisitive Elodie, grows up in a nearby orphanage until the law changes and all orphans are declared mental patients. Elodie endures life under the nuns’ cruel regime until her release into a foreign world at 17 years old. Only after Maggie and Elodie escape from the confines of their respective institutions can the family be reunited. While emotional at times, Goodman’s latest (after The Finishing School, 2017) is a study of how love persists through the most trying of circumstances. Deep and meaningful, this novel captures the reader’s attention..."

— Nicole Foti

for The Home for Unwanted Girls

"Joanna Goodman has written a beautiful novel containing the entire range of emotions experienced by the human heart... This book is the story of Maggie and Elodie, but also the chilling story of so many Quebec children who were abused at the hands of nuns and priests when they had no one to advocate for them. Goodman handles this heartbreaking topic with grace and skill. The heartbreaking exists alongside the heartwarming here, and rather than seek to “solve” this dark moment in Canadian history or gloss over it, Goodman unpacks it and sits with it, looking for hope amidst the ruins. The result is beautiful and at times breathtaking.... This is the story of a girl, of love, and of family... If you are a fan of historical fiction, sweeping family epics, or a beautifully written page turner that will rip your heart in two and then melt it back together; this one is for you. The heart wrenching beauty of this novel is not one that is easily done justice in a review: I suggest you go see for yourself."

— The Required Reading List

for The Home for Unwanted Girls