While I am grateful to the author and publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this title, a busy schedule got in the way, and I was unable to read it before it was archived on Netgalley. I will be looking for a physical copy of this title at my local bookstore!

Well written but horrifying read. You hear about places like this, but most truly don't understand and can't comprehend. Very insightful, and its about time somebody wrote about it.

Celcilia House was an interesting story and worth reading. I am giving three and a half stars. I would love to see what else this author writes.

Loved this book!  I have read stories about these homes and the abuse the children received. It is horrifying and I am glad someone wrote a good book about it. Well written.  I read it in a day, did not want to put it down!
#CeciliaHouse #NetGalley

When Pat loses her family to a car crash at a young age she is forced to live in a home for orphans and unwanted children.  
The home is run by nuns who are cruel and incompassionate and the situations she has to endure show her how strong and resilient she is.   There are some unexplained deaths and many injustices that are happening at the home but the Catholic church turns a blind eye.  

Thank you NetGalley for this book.

Three young girls are best friends. They do everything together. They play in their treehouse, they go to school together, they share their lives. They promise each other to he friends forever. They decide they will grow up and travel together. That is their dream.
As life goes on their lives change. Tragic and unfortunate things happen in their lives.
Pat, one of the three girls dies. Her daughter finds her diary about her life and things that had happened during her life. She is horrified! She never knew about the things her mother had lived through.
This is a story of friendship, love, family, betrayal, religion. Most of all it is a story of unforgettable courage and determination. 
Definitely worth reading and reading again!
Absolutely Recommended!

A strange book to read but very believable of how things can happen to children .There was a storyline about a young girl and the life she had at home then at a convent. The abuse that the inmates received from the nuns.There was a lot of sadness and horror but the story did have a happy ending.

I think with a little trimming, editing and refining, this would be an excellent story. As it was, I felt it was just okay. It took a long, repetitive while to get going and by then I was not as sympathetic to Pat as I should of been, due to the long windup being a tad too tedious.

From a relatively happy childhood with a close family and two close best friends, Patricia loses it all. While en route to her cousin’s birthday party, a terrible auto accident happens and leaves Patricia with no family and no place to go after she leaves the hospital. She is sent to an orphanage run by the Catholic Church. What happens there is despicable. I found this book difficult to read, yet couldn’t put it down. Stories like this one, set in the 1930’s, need to be told so we don’t forget the atrocities that occurred in the past.

This was such a.hard to read book for me because of the abuse.  With everything this young woman went through then thrown into a”prison” run by nuns.  I do caution the readers this may bring up the past for the abused.

I received this copy from Netgalley and BookGoSocial for my honest review.

Life is a precious gift and it can change within the blink of an eye, something Patricia discovered at a young age. After an extremely tragic event her loving family, good friends and many dreams and aspirations were all gone.   An unwanted child sent to what was supposed to be a place of lovingness and warmth. Instead, she soon discovered that those responsible for her care added so much more pain and sadness to many lives.   What occurred within the walls of Cecilia House was one of the most despicable and unimaginable acts to ever happen within an organization whose duty it was to protect innocent children....description from the publisher.

I found this book to be entirely too long.  The first half of the book was filled with absolutely nothing but mundane day to day life of a young girl. I almost stopped reading it.  The story didn’t pick up until after the death of Patricia’s friend.  The next section was more interesting until nearer to the end.  When Patricia’s story finishes and we get to her daughter’s part is the book I felt it was almost written by an entirely different author.  The story itself is tragic but it was easy to know what the outcome was going to be.

Cecilia House was a really tough read but I knew it would be so before I read the first chapter. Patricia was a likeable character which made the reading of this book even more difficult, not that anybody on this earth, regardless of character, behaviour or actions, would have to endure the torment and sufferings that those poor residents of Cecilia House had to endure. I read on picturing her and her young friends, and the many more young boys and girls who suffered at the hands of those with whom their care was entrusted, teachers, supervisors, the religious, the lay people, it was unbelievable, unspeakable, God bless them all and may those who perpetrated these crimes upon them suffer consequences in the next life if not in this one.

Well written book. Life is a precious gift and nobody know this more now but Pat.Pat was in a bad car wreck that kills her parents and big Sister . She spends a very long time in hospital. When they let her out they take her to this home forunwanted children and  orphans. Its called Ceicilia House. Nuns run it. She can no longer see her best friend or her new friend Cath. Cath  she had met through her best friend Wendy. But Wendy's father murdered her . Cath helps Gladys and Pat through Wendys death . Then when Pat looses her whole family Cath helps when they let her. Nobody will let Cath keep Pat. 
    When Pat is moved to Cecilia houce they block Gladys and Cath  from Pat. The nuns are very mean. They have killed a 7 year old and make the other girls burry her. So much more. Thank you Netgally for this book.

Excellent writing and so informative about a shameful Catholic run orphanage in the 1940's.  While the story starts out slowly, if you stay with it, you will find yourself immersed in what actually happened to the author's mother. It is heartbreaking in the extreme to read an account of the shameful acts occurring in this orphanage run by Catholic nuns.  These young girls suffered such extreme cruelty in so many varied ways, that it will not fail to disturb you.   Only in reading and bearing witness were these priests and nuns stopped all over the world from continuing their abuses.  The ending confirms my faith in the kindness of ordinary people.

After watching the video trailer on YouTube I decided to buy this book and what a dark book it is. Written from the view of a young girl which is reflected in the writing style. I truly put it down after 10 chapters and went onto google to see if such a thing like this could happen, I found a few documentaries and then I went back to reading.
This was really very brave of the author to write such a book, you are a fly on the wall watching over everything that is happening to her and wishing you could do something to help them all. A brilliant and creative piece of historical fiction.
I am currently reading his 2nd book. Well done !

Came across this on Amazon looking for Australian authors and I am not sure why there is such negativity surrounding it. It is difficult to say I enjoyed it because of the actual storyline. It is a unique writing style that follows the authors 2nd book. I appreciate a book that makes you want to keep reading and I would consider this book that.  The characters we were well developed and even though I knew what was going to happen I thought each chapter flowed nicely which in turn has provided a compelling story.

This book is a horror story of what happens to a young woman when her entire family is killed in a car accident. As the lone survivor, her life becomes one unending unspeakable horror. That is the gist of the story. 

I would not recommend this book to anyone. I’m astonished that I stuck with it as long as I did., naively hoping things would change for the better. The writing is flat, as are the characters. I had high hopes for this book, which, alas, were dashed. 

I received this book as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley.

The main thing about this book is that most of it is written in the main characters own words. Shes a young teen and as such when you read it you immediately become one with her. This is not a pleasant subject to read about but it is a must read. I have never read anything like it, a book that really did upset me. I am going to read the authors previous books soon.

I purchased the softcover and gave this eBook to my wife. I thought this book was very good it's obviously sad and disturbing but also the way the story progresses it makes you want to keep reading. I have grownup children but I cannot imagine them even remotely going through something like that when they were the same ago.  If you are easily shocked then this is not the book for you.

The main character Patricia comes into contact with a lot of people during the story and I found that each time she does she at most times seems resilient despite the situation. I loved the flow of the book, every scene was well described. This is Patricia's journey through hell and she takes you with her through every page. Recommended!

When life for the entire universe and planet turns on its end and like everyone else you "have nothing to do" while your place of work is closed,  superspeed readers like me can read 250+ pages/hour, so yes, I have read the book … and many more today.

I requested and received a temporary digital Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley, the publisher and the author in exchange for an honest review.  

From the publisher, as I do not repeat the contents or story of books in reviews, I let them do it as they do it better than I do 😸.

Life is a precious gift and it can change within the blink of an eye, something Patricia discovered at a young age. After an extremely tragic event her loving family, good friends and many dreams and aspirations were all gone.   An unwanted child sent to what was supposed to be a place of lovingness and warmth. Instead, she soon discovered that those responsible for her care added so much more pain and sadness to many lives.   What occurred within the walls of Cecilia House was one of the most despicable and unimaginable acts to ever happen within an organization whose duty it was to protect innocent children.

This book and its story had a lot of potential. but the writing was not up to snuff: it was clunky and amateurish and sometimes annoyed me with its simplicity and originality. (Yes, I know, honesty can sometimes backfire in reviews!)  I am not Catholic but the whole story seemed probable given the church's history of abuse against girls and especially boys by priests I just wish that the book was more "readable".