Otis Gardiner and his simpleton son take illegitimate babies to the Coram Hospital – for money. But really, he takes the babies and buries them underground – alive or dead. His simpleton son has an angel, Melissa, yet Otis is evil.

Alexander Ashbrook is a singer in a choir, with his best friend Thomas Ledbury. When they grow up, Thomas is the music teacher at the Coram Hospital, and Alexander teaches a little boy from the Coram Hospital, named Aaron.

Melissa is Alexander’s governess’ daughter. She and Alexander have a child together. Melissa is told that it is a stillborn, and it is an illegitimate baby. So it goes to Otis Gardiner.

And it goes to Otis’s son as well, the son that worships Melissa – and her baby, the baby that he saves, the baby that he takes to the Coram Hospital…

The true gem of this book is the story twist. It involves all of the characters mentioned, of which there were so many and introduced so randomly that I began to feel that the book was beginning to get boring as none of the characters seemed related to each other. As well as this, it tied up all the loose ends. Also, before the twist was stated, you could work it out. As you did, your stomach would tighten, your insides scramble with excitement and you would sit up from your comfortable (but hunched) position on the sofa, and rapidly start to flip the pages with an eagerness never seen before (or, in my case, frantically press buttons on your kindle, willing it to react faster so that you can read on).

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did!

If you liked this, try the book ‘Garbage King’