Orpha Buchanan has been brought up in a privileged background with a father who loves her and spoils her, but with a mean and vindictive mother who beats Orpha and belittles her at every turn.

So at 14 Orpha mother beats her and kicks her out of the family home with nothing and threaten to kill her is she returns.

All this happens without Orpha's dad Abel not knowing a thing.

This is Orpha's story of finding her place in the world growing up and and becoming a very busy business women.

This was a very well written story, which started off very promisingly but the storyline just becomes so totally unbelievable which sadly becomes even more far fetched the further you read into the story!!

I would like to read other Lindsey Hutchinson books to see if the storylines are more realistic or are they all over the top??

When her cruel, abusive mother throws her out, fourteen year old Orpha must make her own way in the world. Though at first she is met with the harshness of the world, she encounters friendly people who take her in. Will she ever be reunited with her family? 

I'm going to be honest, this book was impossible to take seriously. From the start, this fourteen year old girl has non-stop luck. A kindly young man and his mother take her in, another family allows her to stay with them and teach her a trade, which she then uses to build her own business. Nothing she does ever fails, and thus I could not relate with her.

The motivation behind her mother's actions was equally difficult to comprehend. In the beginning there is a single paragraph that says her own mother abused her and that she was glad to be in that position. But it's not mentioned again. How did she get away with everything she did? 

The book also moves at a very fast pace, presumably to cover every point the author thought necessary for the plot. We also jump around from person to person: Orpha, her father, her mother, the servants, random people she meets. It makes it difficult to read and the progression of time is impossible to follow. We are told many things but not allowed to experience it at all.

Overall, I was not impressed by the style of this book. Perhaps there are readers who do enjoy this author's works, but I'm afraid I am not one of them.

3.5/5 Stars.

This was a lovely story about a young girl who overcomes everything stacked against her during Victorian times. It's quite well written.

I enjoyed the main characters of Orpha and Peg. There could of been a little bit more character development with them giving them a bit more depth. I liked that Orpha seemed to be successful in everything she did but that would have been extremely rare back then, so I found it a bit too Mary Poppins in a way. Hortense on the other hand fit the bill of a villain perfectly, as did Ashley, but I felt that Ashley was not necessary to the story and that he was just there to lengthen the story.

The ending was interesting and I enjoyed the character of Simmons throughout the storyline which does tie into the ending and I liked that, but I also found that the ending seemed to be tied up to tidily for me.

I really did enjoy the story and if you like a mostly feel good historical novel then you will enjoy this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC for a fair and honest review.

I was very anxious to read “The Lost Sisters” by Lindsey Hutchinson.  The story begins with Orpha Buchanan’s mother physically and verbally abusing her, finally throwing her out of the house.  Albert, Orpha’s father, obviously has no idea that this treatment is happening to his daughter and she is afraid to tell him.  Not only that, but previously and infant daughter was “stolen by Gypsies” as an infant, never to be found.  After roaming the countryside, Orpha meets up with Peg and is taken in by her.  Lo, and behold, they find that they are sisters.  Peg is the long lost infant.  Although I admired the ability of the author to conjure up these instances, the longer I read, the more inconceivable it became.  Hortense Buchanan was an evil woman and how she got away with all she did, abuse, arson, murder…is beyond me.  Although I read the book in its entirety, I questioned every new coincidence that occurred.  Albert’s inability to see the truth, his apathy in bringing his wife to justice, his “other’ life that was brought to light… just really irritated me.  And through it all Orpha becomes a successful entrepreneur.  The ending was unbelievable.  I’m sorry, but I would not recommend this book.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley.com and was under no obligation to post a review.