The Orphan's Gift

Renita D'Silva

July 2020 · Bolinda · Narrated by Kristin Atherton

About this audiobook

1910, India. Young and curious Alice grows up in her family’s sprawling compound with parents as remote as England, the cold country she has never seen. It is Raju, son of a servant, with whom she shares her secrets, but when they get too close, Alice’s father drags them apart, sending Raju far away and banishing Alice to England ... 1944. Intelligent and kind Janaki is raised in an orphanage in India. The nuns love to tell the story: Janaki’s arrival stopped the independence riots outside the gates, as the men on both sides gazed at the starry-eyed little girl left in a beautiful hand-knitted cardigan. Janaki longs for her real mother, the woman who was forced to abandon her ... Now old enough to be a grandmother and living alone in India, Alice is haunted by the terrible mistake she made 50 years ago until a young girl with familiar eyes appears with a photograph and Alice must make a choice. Will she spend the rest of her life consumed by dreams of the past, or can she admit her mistakes and choose love and light at last?

About the author

Renita D’Silva loves stories, both reading and creating them. Her short stories have been published in ‘The View from Here’, ‘Bartleby Snopes’, ‘this zine’, ‘Platinum Page’, ‘Paragraph Planet’ among others and have been nominated for the ‘Pushcart’ prize and the ‘Best of the Net’ anthology. She is the author of ‘Monsoon Memories’, ‘The Forgotten Daughter’, ‘The Stolen Girl’, ‘A Sister’s Promise’, ‘A Mother’s Secret’, ‘A Daughter’s Courage’, ‘Beneath An Indian Sky’.

Born in Yorkshire, England, Kristin Atherton is an award-winning audiobook narrator and LAMDA-trained stage and screen actress with over 16 years of experience. Kristin’s acting credits include K-Shop, National Theatre Live: The Hard Problem, Waterloo Road and video game Elite Dangerous. She has narrated more than 20 audiobooks in many genres, including Dreda Say Mitchell’s Spare Room, Faking Friends by Jane Fallon and The Children of Jocasta by Natalie Haynes.