Lilli de Jong: A Novel

Janet Benton

May 2017 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Erin Moon

About this audiobook

Pregnant, abandoned by her lover, and banished from her Quaker home and teaching position, Lilli de Jong enters a charity for wronged women to deliver her child. She is stunned at how much her infant needs her and at how quickly their bond overpowers her heart. Mothers in her position have no sensible alternative to giving up their children, but Lilli can’t bear such an outcome. Determined to chart a path toward an independent life, Lilli braves moral condemnation and financial ruin in a quest to keep herself and her baby alive.



Confiding their story to her diary as it unfolds, Lilli takes readers from an impoverished charity to a wealthy family's home to the perilous streets of a burgeoning American city. Lilli de Jong is at once a historical saga, an intimate romance, and a lasting testament to the work of mothers. "So little is permissible for a woman," writes Lilli, "yet on her back every human climbs to adulthood."

About the author

Janet Benton is a writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Glimmer Train, and elsewhere. She has co-written and edited historical documentaries for television. She holds a BA from Oberlin College and an MFA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Erin Moon, a professional AEA/CAEA/SAG-AFTRA actor, is the AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator of over 150 novels. As a narrator, Erin is celebrated for her facility with accents and singing, and has frequently portrayed characters with British, Irish, French, Italian, and Scottish accents.