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The Hidden Child

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About this listen

From the outside, Eleanor and Edward Hamilton have the perfect life, but they're harbouring a secret that threatens to fracture their entire world.

London, 1929. Eleanor Hamilton is a dutiful mother, a caring sister and an adoring wife to a celebrated war hero. Her husband, Edward, is a pioneer in the eugenics movement. The Hamiltons are on the social rise, and it looks as though their future is bright.

When Mabel, their young daughter, begins to develop debilitating seizures, they have to face the uncomfortable truth - Mabel has epilepsy: one of the 'undesirable' conditions that Edward campaigns against.

Forced to hide the truth so as not to jeopardise Edward's life's work, the couple must confront the truth of their past - and the secrets that have been buried.

Will Eleanor and Edward be able to fight for their family? Or will the truth destroy them?

©2021 Louise Fein (P)2021 W F Howes Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Marriage
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The story reminds one how popular the notion that a person’s life was preordained by genetic inheritance. In the early decades of the 20th century many prominent and influential people were strongly in favour of draconian measures to isolate and even sterilise those deemed to have inferior genes and that nurture played little part in how a person’s life developed let alone helping those with lower abilities or whose brains had been damaged by disease or accident. This book is fiction but it really brings home the damage done by extreme views. A diverting listener
The narrator is mainly good but she does have a tendency to deliver some dialogue in too screeching a voice which is painful to listen to through headphones.

Thought provoking story about rise of eugenics

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