The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson

If you don't know the work of Ellen Baker yet, you're in for a treat. "The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson" uses the author's signature prose to paint a powerful tale of love across four generations. Call it a family saga, call it historical fiction, as long as you also call it your next read.

There's so much to love about this book! The words, the world, the warmth. This book might make you cry, it might make you sigh with nostalgia, it might even make you rush out to buy circus tickets - but one thing it'll definitely make you do is think deeply about the world as it was in the 1930s and as it is today. 

Blurb:

In 1924, four-year-old Cecily Larson’s mother reluctantly drops her off at an orphanage in Chicago, promising to be back once she’s made enough money to support both Cecily and herself. But she never returns, and shortly after high-spirited Cecily turns seven, she is sold to a traveling circus to perform as the “little sister” to glamorous bareback rider Isabelle DuMonde. With Isabelle and the rest of the circus, Cecily finally feels she’s found the family she craves. But as the years go by, the cracks in her little world begin to show. And when teenage Cecily meets and falls in love with a young roustabout named Lucky, she finds her life thrown onto an entirely unexpected—and dangerous—course.

In 2015, Cecily is now 94 and living a quiet life in Minnesota, with her daughter, granddaughter, and great-grandson. But when her family decides to surprise her with an at-home DNA test, the unexpected results not only bring to light the tragic love story that Cecily has kept hidden for decades but also throw into question everything about the family she’s raised and claimed as her own for nearly seventy years. Cecily and everyone in her life must now decide who they really are and what family—and forgiveness—really mean.