Join a book club that is reading The Girls We Sent Away: A Novel!

Wake Forest Historical Museum Book Club

In 2020, the museum launched a book club for community members. Each book club meeting includes a casual discussion with museum staff about a work of historical nonfiction or fiction.

The Girls We Sent Away: A Novel

"An important and vital story"-- Donna Everhart, USA Today bestselling author of The Saints of Swallow Hill

A searing book club read for fans of Ellen Marie Wiseman and The Girls with No Names set in the Baby Scoop Era of 1960s and the women of a certain condition swept up in a dark history.

It's the 1960s and Lorraine Delford has it all - an upstanding family, a perfect boyfriend, and a white picket fence home in North Carolina. Yet every time she looks through her father's telescope, she dreams of the stars. It's ambitious, but Lorraine has always been exceptional.

But when this darling girl-next-door gets pregnant, she's forced to learn firsthand the realities that keep women grounded.

To hide their daughter's secret shame, the Delfords send Lorraine to a maternity home for wayward girls. But this is no safe haven - it's a house with dark secrets and suffocating rules. And as Lorraine begins to piece together a new vision for her life, she must decide if she can fight against the powers that aim to take her child or submit to the rules of a society she once admired.

Powerful and affecting, The Girls We Sent Away is a timely novel that explores autonomy, belonging, and a quest for agency when the illusions of life-as-you-know-it fall away.

BUY THE BOOK

Published Mar 1, 2024

352 pages

Average rating: 5.62

26 RATINGS

|

These clubs recently read this book...

Community Reviews

Lislegirl8
May 03, 2024
9/10 stars
Interesting story about family secrets. The book is a fast read.

See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.

More books by this author