Francis Lynham is an orphan with both parents dying before he was old enough to think about it. He grew up in a home run by Nuns and later a boys home run by monks. This is not, however, a tale of his abuse as he considered himself one of the lucky ones.

Francis thought he was an orphan until the day a stranger knocks on his door claiming to be his sister. She hands him some paperwork detailing their family's past & leaves.This sets in motion Francis search for his family's past.

Francis is sitting the night before a major heart operation with plans to write his history. He wants to tell the story of his life as it was and the important people in it. He also tells the story of his search for his family and discovers that he wasn't an orphan at all.

I very much enjoyed this book. It was so easy to read. You know before you start that the ending is good as Francis is sat in his kitchen telling these stories having had a good life. You learn about the characters who featured in his life, who were predominently good, although he did get caught up in some situations which were the making of others! I also enjoyed as he explored his family history. He travels around Ireland seeking out answers and discovers why he was in the orphanage and what happened to his parents.

This is not a very complicated book with many twists and turns. There are two threads intermingled which were each quite easy to follow. I had no problems in keeping these separate. As a reader I had a lot of questions and was quite irritated that they were not all answered by the author - it wasn't that he skipped them but rather than there were some parts that Francis didn't learn. However, that is the nature of family history where there are always more questions than answers. I liked the idea of Francis sitting and writing his story before the operation as a background. It worked well.

I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley

The story of a man who was orphaned searching for his fa,ily history. I usually don’t care for this type of story but I really enjoyed this one. Highly recommend this.

I really enjoyed this book! Interesting and well written, sad as well. A novel about a man that grew up as an orphan in Dublin, Ireland. At his late age, he suddenly discovers that he had a family all along, and was possibly never an orphan! Exploring his fascinating history, tinged with mystery and adventure as he peels back the hidden truth. Filled with adults that cared for him, and many that disappointed, this is flowing and engaging book. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this e-reader copy for my review. All opinions are my own.

Secrets can be hard to uncover..

When you have lived your entire life believing something, its hard to find out something else when you are 70, but Frankie is about to do just that.. and he is going to find more than he bargained for...


Great book! It was a pretty fast read, and enjoyable! Highly recommend!

"Poor lamb, poor lamb, that was what the nun said when he her asked if his parents were dead. It would take many decades before he discovered what she meant…"

This is the story of one man's search for what happened after he was left with the nun's following his birth in Ireland. However, it is the story of thousands of orphaned babies and children and was a very distressing and heartbreaking read in places. In others it was like a trawl through someone's family history with them and was fascinating because of my interest in this subject.

A wonderful book and I wanted to give the Poor Lamb Henry Hudson a big hug.