I always enjoy Ellen Marie Wiseman's storytelling. I end up getting totally engrossed by her stories and this book will capture you right from the first page. The story is very timely, as we are currently faced with the Coronavirus. Thirteen year old Pia Lange's family emigrated from Germany just before WWI and they are living in the tenements in Philadelphia in 1918. Pia is a special girl, as she has the ability to sense illness in people, which she does not understand and thinks makes her a freak. There is a lot of anti-German sentiment at that time. Her father joins the army, hoping to prove his allegiance to his adopted country and ships off to fight in Europe. He leaves Pia, her mother, and infant twin brothers behind. Almost immediately in the story the city gets gripped by the throes of influenza. People are overcome with the illness, hospitals are over run, with people dying rapidly. Pia's mother succumbs to the flu and Pia's left trying to take care of her baby brothers. She is overwhelmed, runs out of food, and leaves her brothers safely in a cubby while she runs out to find supplies, intending to be gone only for a short time. Pia wakes up in a church, finding out nearly a week has passed, as she has been felled by the flu. Panic sets in, not knowing what happened to her brothers. Nurses assure her a neighbor must have found her brothers, but because Pia's father is off fighting, she gets sent to an orphanage run by the Catholic church. It was such a tragic time, so many children orphaned, and the system was overwhelmed. Pia endures the terrible conditions at the orphanage. She never gives up looking for her brothers. Pia is eventually sent to live and work as a nanny to a doctor's family. Finally her life begins to turn around and the doctor's family help her to seek out information on what happened to her brothers. You will be as immersed in the story as I was, with each chapter, each twist and turn, all the way to the satisfying end. Thank you to the author and publisher for the ARC.