Rosemary and Sage Winters are identical twins. At the age of ten Rosemary dies of Pneumonia.

When Sage is sixteen her mothers dies and her stepfather shares an unthinkable secret. Her sister Rosemary is alive!

Where has she been? Rosemary was committed to Willowbrook State School where mentally I’ll patients stay. Can Sage find her sister and will she recognize her?

An incredible look at the cruelty and conditions of the faculty are brought forward. Wiseman does an incredible job of giving us a realistic look of the facility and challenges of those times.

I honestly can't believe this was published. The writing is spectacularly cliched, and the story is bizarre.


Review copy provided by publisher.

Thanks to Recorded Books for the ALC!

A gripping historical fiction mystery marvelously narrated by Morgan Hallett about the Willowbrook State School in Staten Island, New York.

Yes, this was a real location that was actually a dumping ground for unwanted children with intellectual disabilities in the United States from 1947-1987. Ellen Marie Wiseman uses fact mixed with fiction to create a truly disturbing, atmostpheric read about Sage, a twin who was told that her sister Rosemary died of pneumonia... until a call comes that her sister is missing from Willowbrook. Sage shows up at the School, hoping to help find her missing sister - but Willowbrook is a place where missing people aren't often found. Mistaken for her sister, Sage is forced to stay at Willowbrook as one of its residents. This is a REALLY good read for lovers of historical fiction and thrillers. It was engaging, fascinating, and completely horrifying. One to add to your Fall TBR.

In 1970’s New York, Sage is on a desperate search for her twin sister, Rosemary. For years, she’s been told Rosemary is dead, but now she’s discovered her sister had instead, been committed to the Willowbrook State School. But now Rosemary has disappeared and 16 year old Sage has set out for the institution to try to find her. Things go terribly wrong when Sage is believed to be Rosemary and finds herself locked up in a hospital that shows only cruelty to its patients. Sage is now in the position to find out just what happened to Rosemary, and all the other patients at Willowbrook. A sobering look at how the mentally ill (or those treated like they were) were treated in this country just a few decades ago

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to listen to this before release.
I started this audiobook about three days ago and I’ve been addicted to it. If I could have finished it in one day I would have. This was such a good audiobook. Would also be great reading as well.
I’ve always been interested in the old “schools” for the “feebleminded” as there are several old ones near where I live. The things that went on in them were usually horrid. This book was so accurate with descriptions and the goings on inside of them at that time. The understaffing, abuse of the residents, overcrowding and the fact that they really weren’t schools.
The narrator was great. Writer did a good job with research and including and interesting and horrifying mystery woven together.
I can’t imagine getting stuck in a place like that like Sage did. This was an awesome audiobook. It’ll definitely be a favorite and one I recommend. And I kept wondering till the end of who Sage should trust and who she should not.

Ooooooooofta. This was a heavy subject but well written. I would classify this as historical fiction - taking place in the early 1970s.

Sage believed her identical twin sister, Rosemary, had died of pneumonia six years ago but overhears a phone conversation that her step father is having with the Willowbrook State School that Rosemary had been missing. Her step father admits that they lied about Rosemary and that she was admitted into Willowbrook due to her schizophrenia and other mental health issues. Sage decides to go to Willowbrook to help find her sister but a case of mistaken identity had her stuck inside Willowbrook with everyone thinking she is her sister. What she finds while trying to figure out where her sister went is unbelievable. The school is not a school - patients are experimented on, left in their own filth, treated horribly.

Sage needs to find out what happened to her sister while also making sure she gets out. Did she escape? Was she taken by Cropsy, the rumored serial killer that parents warned their kids about to account for all the missing people? Was she a medical experiment gone wrong? There is a slight thriller element to this book that kept me very engaged.

I highly recommend looking up Willowbrook. While this was a work of fiction, it is based on the actual facility that operated through the 80s. The author goes into extreme detail about the awful treatment the patients experienced during their time at Willowbrook, mainly based off a expose that made national headlines in 1972 that exposed the conditions of the school.

Lots of trigger warnings in this book, but it was a very eye opening read and I think very well done for such a tough topic. My only critique is that there was almost too much detail about the horrible conditions that at some point you almost become immune to it.

I listened to the audiobook - the narrator did a great job of telling the story. It was well paced and the emotions in the story were well portrayed.

This appalling yet captivating audio-book took me less than twenty-four hours to listen to, keeping me up until 4am!  

Strong characters and a heart wrenching story that brings us behind the walls of the Willowbrook State School where all aged residents were treated so much less than the poor broken humans that they were.   Willowbrook was a real mental facility in Staten Island, New York, that was exposed in the 70’s so this story has a mean bite to it knowing that the horrors described in this book had actually happened to its residents.

This well written novel pulls at your heart strings as we follow Sage trying to locate her missing twin sister who was a resident at the home.   On her arrival, having no identification since her purse was stolen on the bus ride, she is mistaken for her twin sister, Rosemary, and is locked up and given the meds that her sister had required to keep her calm.   Sage lives through the degradation and rough treatment of the residents when she befriends Eddy, a young janitor, who offers her help in locating her missing sister.

The author describes the disturbing treatment of the residents as well as the deplorable conditions that they lived in so well that I could almost smell the putrid scents that Sage described as she moved throughout the facility.  

Well researched, true to life descriptions, complex and well-developed characters, this book will stay with me for some time.   You may find yourself sleeping with one eye open after reading.

The narration was well done, easy to listen to, and each new chapter was announced.   She definitely added to the suspenseful atmosphere of the audiobook.

My thanks to #NetGalley and RB Media, Recorded Book for this arc. This opinion is my own.

Sixteen year old Sage Winters lives with her stepfather. Her dad left, her mother and twin sister dead. Until she finds out that her twin sister, Rosemary, is not dead. She overhears her stepdad tell his friend that Rosemary is missing. She has been at Willowbrook State School for years and her mom and stepdad lied to her.

The next morning, Sage gets on a bus to Willowbrook, wanting to help search for Rosemary. When she arrives, they think she is Rosemary and she is sedated and sent back to "her" (Rosemary's) ward. She desperately tries to get someone to believe her, but Rosemary suffered from multiple personalities and the staff and patients are used to "Sage". Willowbrook is worse than anyone could have imagined and she is desperate to escape.

I love historical fiction. This was a nice change because it is really more horror than anything else, which is not your typical historical fiction book. The fact that Willowbrook was a real place makes the story even more disturbing. I will be doing some more reading on Willowbrook in the immediate future, as I am intrigued.

While I enjoyed this, I felt it was a tad long. The middle seemed to drag on and was repetitive. I am also not sure if the end was supposed to be a surprise twist, but it was not for me. I knew very early on what was happening.

Morgan Hallett narrates the audiobook and does a good job. It is paced kind of slow though, so I had to speed it up. (I typically listen to most audiobooks at 1.25 and listened to this at 1.5).

I received an audio copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Net Galley for an audio ARC of The Lost Girls of Willowbrook by Ellen Marie Wisman. This is a fantastic thriller that is about a pair of identical twin sisters. One or into a sanitarium and the other searching for the truth.

I was disappointed by the Lost Girls of Willowbrook. I wanted so much to love it and the premise sounded like something I'd really enjoy, but it just didn't work for me. It was repetitive and it felt more like YA than adult fiction. I also don't love reading books with mistaken identity, so this just wasn't for me. It did make me want to read more about Willowbrook School though. The narrator, Morgan Hallett did an excellent job! Thanks to Kensington Books and Netgalley for providing a digital review copy of this book.

This is my first time reading a book written by Ellen Marie Wiseman and I can 100% say I would read another. The way she crafter this story is one to admire and appreciate.

I don’t know that I’ve read a historical fiction that is laced with suspense as well. I couldn’t put this book down and when I had to, I kept thinking about it and found myself running back to it whenever I could even if it was for 3 minutes.

This book shines a bright light on the horrific experiences of all those who were committed to Willowbrook. It’s a heavy story but one done so well where you walk away with so much knowledge of an event of the past.

I could tell the Ellen Marie did extensive amount of research for this book and I can appreciate the book that much more. She also did a phenomenal job with the character development of Sage Winters, I loved her tenacity and bravery! I loved the last couple chapters that allowed me to read what happened to Edward & Sage.

I loved the narrator and the story here. My grandmother was an identical twin with an IQ of 70 (according to my mother adoption records). My mother was born when she was 15. There are years of her life missing at that point. I always wonder if she ended up in one of these asylums. This made it all too real for me. They used to lock up anyone different or defiant. Was this based on a true story? I did not look into any background info. I just grabbed the ARC as fast as I could.
This was terrifying. I loved it. I loved the narrator too.

Five stars.

The Lost Girls of Willowbrook by Ellen Marie Wiseman and audiobook Narrated by Morgan Hallett is an entertaining historical fiction that has mystery, suspense, and based on a true institution.

The author does an amazing job bringing some of the horrific true events to light involving Willowbrook State School on Staten Island through this narrative. By placing Sage “undercover “ within the institution trying to find out what happened to her twin Rosemary, we can see first hand how the patients were neglected, mistreated, abused, and traumatized.

This is a very difficult book to read, only because it is based on true occurrences. It is so sad, and disappointing to say the least, that this was allowed to go on for so many decades. I thank the author for bringing this piece of history to light.

I enjoyed the audiobook version. Great pacing, and great narration.

4/5 stars for the book. 5/5 stars for the audiobook

Thank you NG and RB Media for this wonderful arc and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon, Instagram, and B&N accounts upon publication on 8/30/22.