The Orphan By Sylvia Maultash Warsh: Review/Giveaway

Jun 29, 2024 | 2024 Articles, Mysteryrat’s Maze, Sarah Erwin

by Sarah Erwin

Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a copy of the book and a link to purchase the book from Amazon.

The Orphan, by Sylvia Maultash Warsh, is an immersive historical mystery, unlike anything I have read before.

Set in 1844 in Washington DC around the time of the presidential election that determined whether Texas would enter the Union as a slave state, the mystery opens with 15-year-old Samuel Evans grieving the loss of his mother. Officials tell Samuel that his mother drowned herself. Not long before, Samuel’s attorney-father committed suicide supposedly because he was ashamed at being caught stealing from a local orphanage. Samuel and his mother never believed he was a thief, and Samuel’s mother had been working to uncover his innocence. Consumed with grief, Samuel becomes ill, and is saved by Dr. James Pyper and an experimental drug Dr. Pyper derived from an imported Amazonian plant.

Amazingly, the medicine not only saves Samuel’s life, but also makes him so sensitive that he can communicate with animals by envisioning their memories and sending them his own mental images. While this new skill may sound far-fetched, Sylvia weaves it into the story perfectly.

Samuel is taken in by Dr. Pyper and his wife Martha, who is such a wonderful, not-to-be-underestimated character. After Samuel recovers, he simply cannot accept the belief that both his mother and father committed such acts, and he becomes determined to uncover the truth.

What a wondrous story this is! It is a fast-paced (I read it in under two days) historical murder mystery that is full of historical details as well as aspects of speculative fiction, yet never feels overwhelming and certainly never loses the murder mystery plot.

The writing is vivid as the sights and sounds from 1844 came alive as I read. I felt myself rooting for Samuel in this coming-of-age story and for the good in the story to rule over the evil characters and deeds. I followed the hints at the villain but was never sure until the ultimate reveal and satisfying ending. Readers of historical mystery looking for a talented writer who can blend genres, need look no further––this truly is an entertaining and unique read.

You can click here to purchase this book from Amazon.

To enter to win a copy of The Orphan, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “orphan” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen July 6, 2024. U.S. residents only, and you must be 18 or older to enter. If entering via email please include your mailing address in case you win, it will be deleted after the contest. You can read our privacy statement here if you like.

THE BIG THRILL RECOMMENDS: THE ORPHAN BY SYLVIA MAULTASH WARSH

Recommended by Catherine Conmy

Sylvia Maultash Warsh’s newest novel, THE ORPHAN, takes readers on a journey through the unsettling atmosphere of America during the 1844 presidential election and the quest for emancipation. The election determines Texas’ status as a slave state, which parallels the rising tensions of our protagonist’s timeless struggle to find truth and self-discovery. Told through Samuel’s—an alienated 15-year-old boy’s perspective, Warsh portrays juxtapositions such as lonesomeness and belonging as well as vulnerability and power.

Check out the link belowhttps://www.thebigthrill.org/2024/05/sylvia-maultash-warsh/

Paige Doepke writes of Abandon All Hope

“I would sit down with a plan to quickly read a couple of chapters, but instead found myself immersed in Spires’s writing, not wanting to miss any details. From the very start of Abandon All Hope, author Scott Spires drew me in.” To read her full review on Windy City Reviews click here: https://bit.ly/3TufGLg

Joshua Cohen writes of Abandon All Hope

“Future humans will almost surely elide the brief interregnum between the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of the Internet, but then nobody ever much respected the 1990s — and the 1990s never much cared. Scott Spires did, however — and, belying all hackneyed notions of slackerdom, wrote this heartfelt and headstrong book, a masterly novel of how it felt to have friends, love, and work in the last decade that could ever be lost, when time was not to be managed but wasted, and irony was not a pose but a mode of compassion.” 

– Joshua Cohen, author of Book of Numbers and The Netanyahus

John C. Krieg writes of Mike Metzler’s memoir, My Two Journeys in the Cancer World, that Mike’s unfortunate journey through unimaginable pain and suffering is a truly amazing story, and through it all he has displayed an uncommon courage.  As he states, this is a club that nobody wants to belong to. To put it mildly, he’s been to hell and back. This book would prepare anyone for that journey, and if you have cancer and are wondering how you can survive it, Metzler’s last two sentences are his most poignant:

I started these journeys not by thinking, “I don’t want to die,” but by taking stock of all the things that were good and important in my life and deciding to fight as hard as I could to get back to them.  Sure, some of those things are now gone forever, but I’ve recovered enough of them to have my two Journeys in Cancer World well worth the high cost I’ve paid for them (p. 247).

Read the full story on http://www.twistandtwain.com here: https://bit.ly/36p4cTv

The Last Crystal completes the trilogy by talented author, Dr. Frances Schoonmaker. The Last Crystal has recently been nominated for an Agatha Award. Congrats, Dr. Schoonmaker!

“The Last Crystal” is an intriguing mixture of time travel, magic, mysteries inside mysteries, historical fiction, adventure, survival skills, the spirit world, and good old-fashioned values—Joyce Patterson, Retired Education Specialist, Denver, Colorado

Review of Of Love and Death: Young Holocaust Survivor’s Passage to Freedom by Miriam Segal Shnycer

Miriam Segal Shnycer’s Of Love and Death: Young Holocaust Survivors Passage to Freedom offers a rare insight with the first-hand account from benefactors of the great work of Oskar Schindler. Readers enter into a unique, fascinating eyewitness account of the German occupation in Poland and life inside a concentration camp during WWII. This is the inside type of important story that needs to be told. Beyond that, it is an awe-inspiring and inspirational narrative of human strength and courage against the worst of times. A must read.

William Mueller, Producer & Director Of Development, Esperanza Productions

Review of I Am Terezin by Richard Bank

With meticulous historical research and great care, Bank has painted a vivid picture of the people and personalities associated with the events that took place at Theresienstadt during the Nazi Holocaust. I Am Terezin is a revolutionary memoir – unlike others, it is written from the point of view, not of a person but, of a physical entity, the camp itself – an omniscient narrator. The voice of the camp comes alive to relay the ominous reality of itself, and it tells the reader what Theresienstadt really was, a concentration camp and not the paradise ghetto for elderly Jews the Nazis claimed it was. Bank is masterful in his knowledge of the history of Theresienstadt, and I Am Terezin is a must read for scholars of the Holocaust, as well as those interested in bettering the human condition. Reading this book will help the vigilant to reaffirm the oath of never again. 

Ayesha F. Hamid, Author of The Borderland Between Worlds.