Description
A love story wrapped around a murder mystery, set in seventeenth-century Manhattan
In 1663 in the hardscrabble colony of New Amsterdam—today’s lower Manhattan—orphan children are going missing and residents suspect a serial killer. The list of possible culprits is long and strange. Among those looking into the mystery are a shrewd young Dutch woman, Blandine van Couvering, and a dashing Englishman, Edward Drummond, whose newfound romance is threatened by horrible accusations.
In this spellbinding work of historical fiction, Jean Zimmerman relates the harsh realities of life in early Manhattan, re-creating the sights, smells, and textures of the rough settlement surrounded by wilderness and subject to political turmoil. Compulsively readable and filled with New York history, The Orphanmaster will delight fans of Caleb Carr, Hilary Mantel, and Geraldine Brooks.
About the Author
Throughout her writing career Jean Zimmerman has published both nonfiction and fictional works that center around the changing role of women in America.In Tailspin (Doubleday, 1995) she wrote about intrepid Navy fighter pilot Kara Hultgreen. Ballsy soccer players were the subject of Raising Our Athletic Daughters (Doubleday, 1998, with Gil Reavill). She covered heroic female homemakers in Made From Scratch (Free Press, 2003). The Women of the House (Harcourt, 2006) allowed Zimmerman to portray New Amsterdam fur trader extraordinaire Margaret Hardenbroeck. She brought larger-than-life beauty Edith Minturn out of obscurity in Love, Fiercely (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012). She also created intrepid fictional heroines from earlier eras in The Orphanmaster (Viking, 2012) and Savage Girl (Viking, 2014).To promote her books Zimmerman has appeared on “The Today Show,” NBC; “Good Morning America,” ABC; “CBS Evening News With Dan Rather”; “Talk of the Nation,” National Public Radio; “The Diane Rehm Show,” National Public Radio; “New York & Company With Leonard Lopate,” WNYC; “To the Best of our Knowledge,” Wisconsin Public Radio and others. She also spoken before audiences at historic sites, libraries, museums, book clubs and other venues.An honors graduate of Barnard College, Zimmerman earned an MFA in writing from the Columbia University School of the Arts and published her poetry widely in literary magazines. Her awards and prizes include an Academy of American Poets Prize in poetry, 1985; a New York Foundation for the Arts grant in poetry, 1986; Books for a Better Life Award, finalist, 1998, for Raising Our Athletic Daughters; Washington Irving Book Selection of The Women of the House; Washington Irving Book Selection of The Orphanmaster; Westchester Library Association prize, 2007, for The Women of the House; Original Voices Selection, Borders, 2006 for The Women of the House.She lives with her family in Westchester County, New York. Zimmerman’s blog, Blog Cabin, can be found at jeanzimmerman.com.
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