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The Foundlings Trilogy #1
Little Girl Lost Lib/E: A Foundlings Novel
From New York Times Bestselling Author Wendy Corsi Staub comes a gripping novel of psychological suspense, as a young foundling's path to her biological parents leads to a killer with a chilling agenda.
MAY, 1968
On a murky pre-dawn Mother's Day, sinister secrets play out miles apart in New York City. In Harlem, a church janitor finds an innocent newborn in a basket. In Brooklyn, an elusive serial killer prowls slumbering families, leaving a trail of blood and a twisted calling card. Cloaked in lies, these seemingly unrelated lives--and deaths--are destined to intersect on a distant, blood-soaked day.
OCTOBER, 1987
Reeling from shocking personal discoveries, two strangers navigate a world where nothing is as it seems. Amelia Crenshaw embarks on a search to discover the truth about the birth mother who abandoned her, never suspecting she's on a collision course with a killer. Detective Stockton Barnes, a brash young NYPD detective, trails a missing millionaire whose disappearance is rooted in a nightmare that began twenty years ago.
The past returns with a brutal vengeance as a masked predator picks off victims whose fates intertwine with a notorious murder spree solved back in '68--or was it?
MAY, 1968
On a murky pre-dawn Mother's Day, sinister secrets play out miles apart in New York City. In Harlem, a church janitor finds an innocent newborn in a basket. In Brooklyn, an elusive serial killer prowls slumbering families, leaving a trail of blood and a twisted calling card. Cloaked in lies, these seemingly unrelated lives--and deaths--are destined to intersect on a distant, blood-soaked day.
OCTOBER, 1987
Reeling from shocking personal discoveries, two strangers navigate a world where nothing is as it seems. Amelia Crenshaw embarks on a search to discover the truth about the birth mother who abandoned her, never suspecting she's on a collision course with a killer. Detective Stockton Barnes, a brash young NYPD detective, trails a missing millionaire whose disappearance is rooted in a nightmare that began twenty years ago.
The past returns with a brutal vengeance as a masked predator picks off victims whose fates intertwine with a notorious murder spree solved back in '68--or was it?
Audio CD
First published July 24, 2018
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About the author
Wendy Corsi Staub
81 books1,891 followersNew York Times bestseller Wendy Corsi Staub is the award-winning author of more than ninety novels, best known for the single title psychological suspense novels she writes under her own name. Those books and the women’s fiction written under the pseudonym Wendy Markham have also appeared on the USA Today, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Bookscan bestseller lists.
Her current standalone suspense novel, THE OTHER FAMILY, is about a picture-perfect family that that moves into a picture-perfect house. But not everything is as it seems, and the page-turner concludes “with a wallop of a twist,” according to #1 New York Times bestselling author Harlan Coben.
Her critically acclaimed Lily Dale traditional mystery series centers around a widowed single mom—and skeptic—who moves to a town populated by spiritualists who talk to the dead. Titles include NINE LIVES; SOMETHING BURIED, SOMETHING BLUE; DEAD OF WINTER; and PROSE AND CONS, with a fifth book under contract.
Wendy has written five suspense trilogies for HarperCollins/William Morrow. The most recent, The Foundlings (LITTLE GIRL LOST, DEAD SILENCE, and THE BUTCHER’S DAUGHTER), spans fifty years in the life of a woman left as a newborn in a Harlem church, now an investigative genealogist helping others uncover their biological roots while still searching for her own.
Written as Wendy Markham, Wendy’s novel HELLO, IT’S ME was a recent Hallmark television movie starring Kellie Martin. Her short story “Cat Got Your Tongue” appeared in R.L. Stine’s MWA middle grade anthology SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN and her short story “The Elephant in the Room” is included in the Anthony Award-nominated inaugural anthology SHATTERING GLASS.
A three-time finalist for the Simon and Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award, she’s won an RWA Rita Award, an RT Award for Career Achievement in Suspense, the 2007 RWA-NYC Golden Apple Award for Lifetime Achievement, and five WLA Washington Irving Prizes for Fiction.
She previously published a dozen adult suspense novels with Kensington Books and the critically-acclaimed young adult paranormal series “Lily Dale” (Walker/Bloomsbury). Earlier in her career, she published a broad range of genres under her own name and pseudonyms, and was a co-author/ghostwriter for several celebrities.
Raised in Dunkirk, NY, Wendy graduated from SUNY Fredonia and launched a publishing career in New York City. She was Associate Editor at Silhouette Books before selling her first novel in 1992. Married with two sons, she lives in the NYC suburbs. An active supporter of the American Cancer Society, she was a featured speaker at Northern Westchester’s 2015 Relay for Life and 2012 National Spokesperson for the Sandy Rollman Ovarian Cancer Foundation. She has fostered for various animal rescue organizations.
Her current standalone suspense novel, THE OTHER FAMILY, is about a picture-perfect family that that moves into a picture-perfect house. But not everything is as it seems, and the page-turner concludes “with a wallop of a twist,” according to #1 New York Times bestselling author Harlan Coben.
Her critically acclaimed Lily Dale traditional mystery series centers around a widowed single mom—and skeptic—who moves to a town populated by spiritualists who talk to the dead. Titles include NINE LIVES; SOMETHING BURIED, SOMETHING BLUE; DEAD OF WINTER; and PROSE AND CONS, with a fifth book under contract.
Wendy has written five suspense trilogies for HarperCollins/William Morrow. The most recent, The Foundlings (LITTLE GIRL LOST, DEAD SILENCE, and THE BUTCHER’S DAUGHTER), spans fifty years in the life of a woman left as a newborn in a Harlem church, now an investigative genealogist helping others uncover their biological roots while still searching for her own.
Written as Wendy Markham, Wendy’s novel HELLO, IT’S ME was a recent Hallmark television movie starring Kellie Martin. Her short story “Cat Got Your Tongue” appeared in R.L. Stine’s MWA middle grade anthology SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN and her short story “The Elephant in the Room” is included in the Anthony Award-nominated inaugural anthology SHATTERING GLASS.
A three-time finalist for the Simon and Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award, she’s won an RWA Rita Award, an RT Award for Career Achievement in Suspense, the 2007 RWA-NYC Golden Apple Award for Lifetime Achievement, and five WLA Washington Irving Prizes for Fiction.
She previously published a dozen adult suspense novels with Kensington Books and the critically-acclaimed young adult paranormal series “Lily Dale” (Walker/Bloomsbury). Earlier in her career, she published a broad range of genres under her own name and pseudonyms, and was a co-author/ghostwriter for several celebrities.
Raised in Dunkirk, NY, Wendy graduated from SUNY Fredonia and launched a publishing career in New York City. She was Associate Editor at Silhouette Books before selling her first novel in 1992. Married with two sons, she lives in the NYC suburbs. An active supporter of the American Cancer Society, she was a featured speaker at Northern Westchester’s 2015 Relay for Life and 2012 National Spokesperson for the Sandy Rollman Ovarian Cancer Foundation. She has fostered for various animal rescue organizations.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews
July 15, 2018
Twenty years ago a vicious killer started killed entire families ... all except the teenage daughters of each family. They were brutalized but left alive.
A janitor finds an abandoned baby in the church where he works. To him, this is a message from God. The only thing that this man and wife had been denied was a child. He smuggles the baby out and takes her home.
Today.. someone is killing off the daughters that were spared so many years ago. The infant foundling is searching for her birth parents .. and heading into a collision course with a killer. Detective Stockton Barnes is searching for a missing millionaire who also has ties to the past crimes.
All these events leave Detective Barnes in the dark ... until they start merging. This is a killer like he has never seen before and he prays he never will again.
Lots of suspense ... many characters to keep track of ... and an absolute surprising ending. This is a cleverly written psychological thriller with an edginess that keeps the reader riveted.
Many thanks to the author / William Morrow Books / Edelweiss for the advanced digital copy. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.
September 7, 2018
This book was such a mess. I didn't know if I was coming or going or if I've gotten there already! Yes, that confusing.
August 16, 2018
I thought it was waaayyy too complicated in terms of “plot twists” on account of the vast array of main characters, settings, time jumps, etc! I seriously can’t be 100% sure I even understood the ending and who was who! And, tbh, I didn’t care enough to read back thru it and figure it out... Because that’s what I felt I had to keep doing - flipping back and rereading whole chapters - the entire time I was reading it! So to find out that I hadn’t missed the context , but that the writer just CHOSE to be so deliberately vague in a lame attempt at creating a complex mystery that fell flat by the end.
I listened to the audiobook via Hoopla and have nothing but positive thoughts on the narrators rendition of the novel, but really needed the eBook to keep track of the extensive character list. Usually when I chose to get both - audio and print - it’s bc the book is so well written, I don’t want to miss a thing....This time, it was a giant waste of time that I could’ve spent on good literature instead of this..
I listened to the audiobook via Hoopla and have nothing but positive thoughts on the narrators rendition of the novel, but really needed the eBook to keep track of the extensive character list. Usually when I chose to get both - audio and print - it’s bc the book is so well written, I don’t want to miss a thing....This time, it was a giant waste of time that I could’ve spent on good literature instead of this..
August 23, 2018
This was just OK. The story was confusing the first several chapters and dragged on for several more. It was never really explained how the killer happened to be involved with the victims and another character involved is never explained as to why. Then at the end, come to find out this book is the first of a series and the next sequel (there is an excerpt of book 2, LITTLE BOY BLUE) won't be out for a year (summer of 2019) so that pretty much ticked me off. If a book is the beginning of a series, it should be stated as such on the back cover or front flap so readers can decide if they want to get involved with a series, not be tricked into one. Shame on all authors and publishers, including this one, who play those silly games with their readers.
All in all, I wasn't impressed and I doubt I'll even remember it has a sequel in a year.
All in all, I wasn't impressed and I doubt I'll even remember it has a sequel in a year.
August 19, 2018
This could have been a great book due to the suspense but there are so many unanswered questions and it seems like the book just ended. A killer known as the Brooklyn Butcher slaughtered four families except for the teenage girl. Each of the girls was raped and impregnated by the Butcher. Now these four women and their child are being hunted and killed by a scarred young woman known as Red. Why are they being killed? How is Red connected to Oran Matthews, the Butcher? Why is the missing millionaire known as Black? Why did the mysterious woman known as White say she was going night fishing? Did she kill Black? Too many unanswered questions for the book to be rated higher.
I have read most of Staub's books and was very disappointed in this one.
I have read most of Staub's books and was very disappointed in this one.
September 22, 2018
I believe that I may have read everything this author has ever written...if I'm wrong in that then I can say that what I have read has never disappointed me. This may not be to everyone's liking as it quotes a great deal of scripture from Revalation in support of the many gruesom acts that occur. It's a dark, complicated story of psychological suspense with several interrelated threads and subplots that are eventually woven together. The only drawback I could see to the book was that the ending was very abrupt.
January 3, 2020
Little Girl Lost
(The Foundlings Trilogy #1)
by
Wendy Corsi Staub
4 Stars
As Amelia Crenshaw’s mother lays dying in 1987, Amelia learns that she was not her birth mother. The man she has always called her father found her as a baby abandoned in the church where he worked as a janitor, and the people she has always thought her parents kept her and raised her as their own, thinking she was the answer to their prayers. At about the same time back in 1968, a serial killer was in the midst of a killing spree that would leave four families dead and four young women pregnant with his children. Now in 1987 Amelia’s search for the truth about her past is about to entangle her with another killing spree linked to that time nearly twenty years before.
Little Girl Lost is a terrific, suspense-filled read. It starts a little slowly and it’s tough to connect the many disparate parts to the story, but it’s well worth sticking it out. The story all comes together in the end and by then it’s impossible to put down!
(The Foundlings Trilogy #1)
by
Wendy Corsi Staub
4 Stars
As Amelia Crenshaw’s mother lays dying in 1987, Amelia learns that she was not her birth mother. The man she has always called her father found her as a baby abandoned in the church where he worked as a janitor, and the people she has always thought her parents kept her and raised her as their own, thinking she was the answer to their prayers. At about the same time back in 1968, a serial killer was in the midst of a killing spree that would leave four families dead and four young women pregnant with his children. Now in 1987 Amelia’s search for the truth about her past is about to entangle her with another killing spree linked to that time nearly twenty years before.
Little Girl Lost is a terrific, suspense-filled read. It starts a little slowly and it’s tough to connect the many disparate parts to the story, but it’s well worth sticking it out. The story all comes together in the end and by then it’s impossible to put down!
October 12, 2018
This book was a total disjointed mess, and I feel like I wasted a lot of my time that I will never get back. I’ve read several books by this author before that I enjoyed, but this one majorly missed the mark. I normally breeze through suspense thrillers, but this book took me literally two months to get through. The jumps in timeline and from character to character were so confusing and hard to keep track of, I’m not sure I even understood what I just read. Very disappointing.
August 14, 2018
At the beginning I found this a bit confusing with many characters. However, I finally figured it out and it was very good for most of the rest of the book. However, then it ended, and maybe I am stupid, but it didn’t all get resolved. So I now have to wait a year to find out what happened? By that time, I’ll have totally forgotten this book.
August 28, 2018
Way too many unanswered questions. Very disjointed with so much I couldn’t keep all the characters straight, some of which felt very random and just thrown in with no connection. Had suspense and twists but just so unfinished I feel disappointed and unfulfilled.
August 10, 2018
Couldn’t get into this book.
August 15, 2018
Building to a climax and then, it's over! I can't wait for the next book Little Boy Blue.
August 23, 2018
Did not finish....bad
October 7, 2018
Grabbed me from the beginning! I could hardly put this down. BUT, there was so much potential for the ending and I think it was weak.
February 14, 2021
My goodness - the little girl lost also lost me. I had no idea if I was coming or going..... nope , sorry
April 24, 2020
I read this and the 2nd in the series out of order. Reading this now, I do understand a few things that didn't quite make sense when reading the other. Character development was a little better in Little Girl Lost. This is definitely an interesting series. Now on to the last book in the series. 3.5 stars.
July 20, 2018
Wow. Evil persists over 20 years. Amelia has no idea when she sets out to find her birth mother that she is a child of rape and murder and that the criminal is still out there. I have to wonder about how Staub, a veteran of psychological thrillers, came up with a plot where the innocent children are visited by the horror that led to the deaths of their families so many years ago. Trust that NYPD Detective Stockton Barnes is going to help her, even though the connections don't seem clear at first. This has a large cast of characters, some better fleshed out than others, a complicated plot, and good twists. Thanks to edelweiss for the ARC. Staub readers will be happy with this one. If you, like me, haven't read all her books (or even any), be prepared for a pretty darn good thriller. You're going to root for Amelia.
April 16, 2018
I really enjoy Wendy Corsi Staub's books and this didn't disappoint. Back in the 60's, several families were murdered in their homes and only the teenaged daughters survived. They were raped by the killer and later found to be pregnant. Many years later the children of these girls are now being targeted, even though the original killer is behind bars.
I am assuming this will be a new collection of books by Staub, and I look forward to reading this series.
Thank you to Edelweiss for the Advanced Copy
I am assuming this will be a new collection of books by Staub, and I look forward to reading this series.
Thank you to Edelweiss for the Advanced Copy
April 30, 2018
Thank you Edelweiss and William Morrow for an advance eBook copy in exchange for an honest review. I was very excited to read Wendy's newest book. I'll admit, I had hoped it would be another Mundy's Landing book but it wasn't. With that being said, I still thoroughly enjoyed it, the characters are well developed and even though it goes back and forth between multiple characters, I still found it easy to follow. The story line engaged me from start to finish, now we have to wait till next year for the next one!
July 16, 2018
Great read. Always excited when this author comes out with new books. Never disappoints
August 15, 2018
Love her books. This one I just didn't get. Didn't understand the ending. Really a boring read.
September 2, 2018
I loved this book no spoilers
September 10, 2018
Starts put promising in the streets of NYC but there are so many characters I lost interest!
October 15, 2018
Very disappointed with this read. The author ran the readers around without any closer. I felt like I read this entire book and liked the plot, then the let down.
January 7, 2019
I like this author, but this book was a bit too confusing.’
Hated the ending; many unanswered questions. But it is a series, maybe that’s it.
Suspenseful, for sure!
Hated the ending; many unanswered questions. But it is a series, maybe that’s it.
Suspenseful, for sure!
February 10, 2019
Jackie——I just finished it and LOVED it, no doubt—but I came to Goodreads because I’m scratching my head right now about the ending—who was related to Who, exactly....WHO was Marceline? I got Jessie’s parents (I think) but I am totally bewildered—the ring with the “C”? DID Ms. White GO with Wayland Parkland? Can anybody help me here? I’m serious. Normally I’m not THIS dumb. GREAT NOVEL—GREAT WRITING. Will leave here and check comments for spoilers, hopefully.
Changed my rating to a ONE—-and a BIG FAT SHAME on you to the author!! I am OLD dear, I, as ALL of us do...have a FINITE amount of time left on the planet; that is why it saddens me to see someone with your talent SCREW their readers the way you’ve done with this novel. SHAME ON YOU! I’ve an idea for your next novel, however. It could center around a disgruntled reader wanting their HARD EARNED money back! Oh wait....”Misery” leaps to mind. Don’t worry, I’m a Senior citizen and I don’t own an axe and get queasy over the body of a raw chicken, so you’re safe from me.
I’ve an idea! To make us BOTH feel better, you could send a nice, fat CHECK to ME—$$$$! It still wouldn’t buy a higher rating, but I promise I’d spend part of it on buying your sequel!! Think of it...you could supplement my Social Security payment AND ease your conscious about fleecing money from your readers with not warning them they’re purchasing “the first in a series of sequels!” Sure, this request of mine comes painfully close to, Ill be frank here, “whoring”? But no more so than those authors who write ONE good book but make the reader pay 3 times to read the entire novel. Just sayin’.
Changed my rating to a ONE—-and a BIG FAT SHAME on you to the author!! I am OLD dear, I, as ALL of us do...have a FINITE amount of time left on the planet; that is why it saddens me to see someone with your talent SCREW their readers the way you’ve done with this novel. SHAME ON YOU! I’ve an idea for your next novel, however. It could center around a disgruntled reader wanting their HARD EARNED money back! Oh wait....”Misery” leaps to mind. Don’t worry, I’m a Senior citizen and I don’t own an axe and get queasy over the body of a raw chicken, so you’re safe from me.
I’ve an idea! To make us BOTH feel better, you could send a nice, fat CHECK to ME—$$$$! It still wouldn’t buy a higher rating, but I promise I’d spend part of it on buying your sequel!! Think of it...you could supplement my Social Security payment AND ease your conscious about fleecing money from your readers with not warning them they’re purchasing “the first in a series of sequels!” Sure, this request of mine comes painfully close to, Ill be frank here, “whoring”? But no more so than those authors who write ONE good book but make the reader pay 3 times to read the entire novel. Just sayin’.
January 12, 2019
Incomprehensible
August 29, 2018
There were at least four stories in this book. I kept trying to connect them but that wasn't really possible. I finished the book completely confused and very dissatisfied.
I received this book from a Goodreads giveaway.
I received this book from a Goodreads giveaway.
July 30, 2018
I'm done writing reviews. Wtf goodreads, get it together! Ever since the update every review I write gets erased the first time.
3 1/2 stars. Well written and interesting. I just prefer cozies without so much violence. I love her Lily Dale series. I will read the next one because I have to know how it ends.
3 1/2 stars. Well written and interesting. I just prefer cozies without so much violence. I love her Lily Dale series. I will read the next one because I have to know how it ends.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews