The Little Orphan Girl

De: Sandy Taylor

Narrado por: Aoife McMahon

Ireland, 1901: The workhouse gates clanged shut behind us, as me and the mammy walked down the hill towards the town. I was six years old and leaving the only home I had ever known … When Cissy Ryan’s real mother comes to claim her from the workhouse, it’s not how she imagined. Her family’s tumbledown cottage has ice on the inside of its windows and is in an isolated, poverty-stricken village in the muddy Irish countryside. But when Cissy is allowed to help neighbour Colm Doyle and his horse named Blue on their milk round one morning, Cissy starts to feel as though friendship could get her through anything. It’s Colm who looks in on Cissy’s grandfather when she starts at the village school, and Colm who tells her to hold her chin high when she interviews for a position at the grand Bretton House. But in the vast mansion with its shining floors and sweeping staircase, it’s Master Peter Bretton who captures Cissy’s heart with his dark curls and easy laugh. As Cissy blossoms from a skinny orphan into a confident young girl, Colm tells her she’s as good as anyone and she begins to believe anything is possible. But not everyone with a kind smile has a kind heart, and Cissy doesn’t know that further sorrow lies in store for her. When Cissy finds herself desperate, alone and faced with a devastating choice, can she find the strength to survive?©2018 Sandy Taylor (P)2019 Bolinda Publishing

Suspense!!!

Dear Sandy Taylor,
pleas÷e keep writing great books like this one. I especially love Irish stories.. I have really enjoyed your books!!!

The beautiful narration

I thoroughly enjoyed this gentle story. It is beautifully narrated giving a strong understanding of life in a small village in Ireland.

Be ready for tears

If you’ve experienced the loss of family this book will tear at your heart. Love the characters and the wonderful ending.

Wonderful Irish Story

A wonderful story back in the early 1900 hundreds. Irish story of a young girl. I enjoyed it immensely and hope you will too.
The Farmer’s Daughter

I loved it!

I love not only the story, but the reader as well. The rhythm of the story was perfect. Brought me to tears a few times, and had me laughing out loud in others!

My favorite Sandy Taylor book!

I’ve read all of this author’s books but this is my favorite! I love how she captures the cultural nuances and intertwines historical events. I enjoy the characters’ juxtaposition, revolving around religion, and the true character of God. This book was by far my favorite, but overall this author is an exceptional writer and talented storyteller.

Lovely little story

I love this narrator so I’m partial to the whole experience. This is a nice story but somewhat predictable. Recommend.

Amazing!

The book was well read and the story just kept me listening nonstop for days. I highly recommend and I’m sad that it had to end!

Beautiful heart breaking story.

Such a wonderful story and of course a fabulous narrator! I was so sad to hear the name of Mary’s ship as she sailed away to America. There were times when I wanted to shout at Cissy to wake up and see what was happening right under her! I was truly immersed in the story and now will listen to the sequel! Do listen to this one. You will love it. I found it as I was searching for more by the narrator. Aoife MacMahon is amazing!!

I FELL INSTANTLY IN LOVE WITH THIS BOOK — THE STORY & THE NARRATOR❣️

This book grabbed me from page one and held me until the very last page. I didn’t want it to end. I enjoyed it so much that I have listened to it from start to finish twice in two days!

The narrator’s lovely Irish lilt…I could listen all day! Well, I did! Ms. McMahon truly brought each character to life and made me feel as if I knew them and as if I were living in a little cottage in Ireland.

I fell in love with a little girl who was abruptly taken from an orphanage at the age of six and was dragged by a stranger, “The Mammy,” to a dark, smelly cottage. There she met “the granddaddy,” a fearsome, hateful old man who had kicked the Mammy out of the house when she became pregnant out of wedlock with the little girl named Sissy. The Mammy stands up to the Granddaddy and tells him that if he wants her (the Mammy) to stay and care for him, then the little girl stays too, and he’d BETTER be nice to her.

Over the next few months, Sissy and her sweetness and innocent ways of a six-year-old worms her way into the old man’s heart. She tells him “she loves him even though he smells like a dead ferret.” The three live together as the young girl grows and they all develop a close relationship, but especially the Granddaddy and Sissy.

Calum is the sweet lad (six-years older than Sissy) who Sissy soon falls madly in love with from the first time they me and Calum smiled and winked at her.

Throughout their lives, they are a constant for each other; they are the closest of friends, and there is always an undercurrent of more than just friendship, but both are afraid to go further, lest the lose the friendship they’ve always had.

This is an Irish story, so there is plenty if sadness and tragedy in the book. There are also moments of great joy and happiness. You will need a box if tissue nearby as you read. I promise, by the time the Mammy and Sissy arrive at the cottage of the Grandfather, where things really start to become really interesting, you’ll find yourself drawn in by the characters too. The old man isn’t nearly as gruff and hateful as he likes everyone to believe. It takes only a little dog and and the open heart of Sissy to start melting the Old Smelly Ferret’s cold heart.😉

But, little girls must grow up and change comes, wanted or not, even to little Irish hamlets such as Ballybun.

I HIGHLY recommend this book! I can’t wait to start the sequel! I so, so, so hope Aoife McMahon will be narrating that book as well!