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Ellen Marie Wiseman

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9 min read

Our age bandAdult
Reader rating
4.4 · 6,240 Amazon ratings
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The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman front cover

Our review

The Lies They Told

The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman Review: A Harrowing Eugenics-Era Historical Novel

by Ellen Marie Wiseman

Ellen Marie Wiseman's The Lies They Told follows Lena, a young German immigrant who arrives in 1930s rural Virginia with her baby and collides with America's eugenics movement. Praised for its immersive period detail, it moves slowly but lands hard.

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Our age band: Adultforced sterilization and eugenics-era state coercion · institutional abuse targeting immigrants, the poor, and the disabled

LuvemBooks Verdict

Best for

Historical fiction readers — especially fans of Wiseman's earlier novels and book clubs — who want slow-burn immersion in an under-examined chapter of American history (Virginia's eugenics-era forced sterilizations) rather than a propulsive plot.

Worth it if

Worth reading if you value dense, sensory period reconstruction and morally urgent stories of institutional cruelty — and you're willing to push through a deliberately slow opening for the payoff that available commentary says follows.

Skip if

Skip it if you need a fast-moving plot or a comforting read — reviewers flag an unhurried first stretch where atmosphere outweighs momentum, and the subject matter (state coercion, forced sterilization) is genuinely harrowing.

Shelf Promotion called it "one of the most immersive books I've ever read," praising Wiseman's dialect detail while cautioning that the slow pace may test readers around the 130-page mark. The Historical Novel Society described an "unsettling, emotionally devastating story" with present-day resonance, and Penguin Random House's publicity page relays a critic's verdict of "Harrowing… a clear-eyed and resonant portrait of an ignominious era."

Sources: Shelf Promotion, Historical Novel Society, Toby A. Smith, Bookishelf, Penguin Random House
4.4from 6,240 Amazon ratings— reader ratings, not a LuvemBooks score

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The Lies They Told follows Lena, a young German immigrant who arrives in 1930s rural Virginia with her baby daughter and collides head-on with America's eugenics movement and the state's forced-sterilization machinery. LuvemBooks finds it a meticulously researched, morally urgent slow burn — strongest in its immersive period atmosphere and linguistic detail, weakest where readers demand speed. It suits historical fiction readers who want to inhabit an era fully; those after a propulsive plot should expect a deliberately unhurried first stretch and genuinely harrowing subject matter.
Is it worth reading?
For the right reader, yes. The consistent caveat is pacing: the same reviewer flagged flagging momentum around the 130-page mark, where plot takes a back seat to atmosphere. The consensus of available commentary is that the book rewards readers willing to settle into a slow burn.
Similar books
Readers drawn to Wiseman's terrain — institutional cruelty visited on the powerless — have strong options. The Girl Behind the Gates by Brenda Davies tackles the same eugenics-era scandal of women institutionalized as "unfit," while Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain dramatizes forced sterilization in the American South. Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate offers another fact-based story of a state system preying on vulnerable families, and The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah delivers the same immersive, injustice-driven Depression-era atmosphere. Wiseman's own The Orphan Collector is the natural next stop for readers who want more of her work.
Who should read this?
Book clubs and readers of Wiseman's earlier novels (The Orphan Collector, The Lost Girls of Willowbrook, Coal River, The Plum Tree) are the natural audience.
Is it a good book club pick?
Yes — book clubs are explicitly identified as a natural audience. The novel offers rich discussion material: a documented historical injustice many readers never learned about, plus timely questions of who gets to decide whose life has value and how the state treats the foreign-born poor. The one practical caveat for clubs is pacing — groups should set expectations about the deliberately slow first stretch so members don't stall around the 130-page mark.
How historically accurate is it?
The novel's backdrop is documented history, faithfully rendered. Virginia's 1924 Eugenical Sterilization Act authorized the forced sterilization of people deemed "feebleminded," a law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the notorious 1927 Buck v. Bell decision; tens of thousands of Americans were sterilized under such state programs, and Virginia's remained in force into the 1970s.
Where should I start with this author?
The Lies They Told fits a clear pattern in Wiseman's body of work, so there are several strong entry points. The Orphan Collector is her best-known novel and the most popular starting point; her debut The Plum Tree established her signature terrain of ordinary people caught in historical cruelty. Coal River and The Lost Girls of Willowbrook round out a catalogue built on institutional injustice visited on the powerless. Readers drawn specifically to the eugenics subject matter can start here without missing anything — the novels are standalones.
Summarize this book

Summarize this book

Published by Kensington in July 2025, Ellen Marie Wiseman's novel follows Lena, a young German immigrant who travels to rural 1930s Virginia with her baby daughter, Ella, at the height of America's eugenics movement. With little English, little money, and few legal protections, Lena finds herself in the crosshairs of a state apparatus that classified immigrants, the poor, and the disabled as "unfit" — putting both custody of her child and command of her own body at stake. The story dramatizes a documented injustice: Virginia's 1924 Eugenical Sterilization Act and the forced-sterilization program upheld by the Supreme Court's 1927 Buck v. Bell decision.

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What real history is it based on?
Who is Lena?
How does it end?

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Our Review

We review the evidence: published critics, reader verdicts and BookTube reviews, gathered and weighed with AI assistance and edited by LuvemBooks, rather than one reader's first-hand take.

The Lies They Told is an atmospheric, morally urgent historical novel that rewards readers willing to settle into its slow-burn immersion in America's eugenics era.
The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman front cover
The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman front cover

A Young Mother Collides with the Eugenics Movement

Ellen Marie Wiseman's novel, published by Kensington on July 29, 2025, is set in rural 1930s Virginia and follows Lena, a young German immigrant who travels to the region with her baby daughter, Ella, at the height of America's eugenics movement. According to the publisher's synopsis, Lena finds herself fighting for her dignity and for those she loves against a system built on the era's pseudo-scientific doctrines.
The premise places an outsider — a newcomer still learning the language and customs of her adopted country — directly in the path of a state apparatus that classified immigrants, the poor, and the disabled as "unfit."
That setup gives the novel its central tension: a mother with little English, little money, and few legal protections confronting an institutional machine that held enormous power over the lives of vulnerable women. It is a story of powerlessness and resistance, and the stakes are intimate — a woman's custody of her own child and command of her own body.

Rooted in a Real and Shameful American Chapter

The novel's backdrop is documented history. Virginia's 1924 Eugenical Sterilization Act authorized the forced sterilization of people deemed "feebleminded," a law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the notorious 1927 Buck v. Bell decision.
Tens of thousands of Americans were sterilized under such state programs over the following decades, and Virginia's remained in force into the 1970s. Wiseman's novel dramatizes this machinery from the perspective of someone squarely in its crosshairs.
The book also fits a clear pattern in Wiseman's body of work. She has built her reputation on historical novels about institutional cruelty visited on the powerless — The Orphan Collector, The Lost Girls of Willowbrook, Coal River, and her debut The Plum Tree.
The publisher's publicity quotes reviewers calling The Lies They Told "Harrowing" and describing it as a lucid, emotionally powerful depiction of a shameful period in history, with a fast-paced plot as Lena grapples with her sense of powerlessness. For readers who have followed Wiseman's career, this is familiar territory rendered with her characteristic focus on women crushed by, and pushing back against, the systems meant to control them.

Immersion and Language as Craft

The most specific craft praise available comes from a reviewer writing for Susquehanna University's student newspaper site, who said The Lies They Told was among the books that had drawn them in most completely of any they had read, and noted that "Wiseman nails every detail down to the characters' differing dialects." The same review highlights how Wiseman blends languages on the page to convey Lena's struggle to blend into American life — a formal choice that makes the protagonist's alienation something the reader experiences rather than merely observes.
That attention to linguistic texture and period atmosphere is the novel's distinguishing strength as described by its early readers. Rather than racing through its historical material, the book takes care to introduce Lena and her world, building the authentic texture of a newly arrived immigrant's rural Virginia.
Readers who value that kind of dense, sensory historical reconstruction will find the novel engineered for them.

Where the Pacing Demands Patience

The same qualities that make the novel immersive also create its most noted weakness. The Susquehanna reviewer cautioned that "the novel has a slow pace that would appeal to those wishing to spend intimate time alongside the characters," describing trouble picking the book back up around the 130-page mark when forward momentum flagged.
In that reviewer's account, plot takes a sidestep to Wiseman's dedication to atmosphere, and finishing the book requires a willingness to stick with it through a deliberately unhurried first stretch.
This is worth stating plainly for prospective buyers: readers who prioritize a propulsive plot over period immersion may find the early going frustrating, even if the consensus of the available commentary is that the investment pays off. The subject matter is also genuinely heavy — forced sterilization, state coercion, and the targeting of an immigrant mother — and readers should come prepared for a harrowing rather than comforting experience.

Who This Novel Serves Best

The Lies They Told is best suited to historical fiction readers who want to inhabit an era fully and who are drawn to stories of injustice that mainstream history often skips. The Susquehanna review frames it as ideal "for those wanting to immerse themselves in a particular time period alongside a terrible injustice," and argues that novels like Wiseman's make a dark chapter of American history "painfully relevant to today's divided climate."
That contemporary resonance — questions of who gets to decide whose life has value, and how the state treats the foreign-born poor — gives the book an edge beyond period recreation.
As an editorial assessment based on published coverage rather than a firsthand reading, the picture that emerges is consistent: a meticulously researched, deliberately paced novel from an author with an established record in this niche, strongest in its atmosphere and moral clarity, weakest where readers demand speed. Book clubs and readers of Wiseman's earlier novels are the natural audience; newcomers should know they are signing up for immersion, not a thriller.

Sources & Further Reading

The key facts and claims in this review are grounded in the retrieved, verified sources listed below.

  1. Cited in this review
  2. 1
    The Lies They Told - Ellen Marie Wiseman

    ellenmariewiseman.com

  3. 2
    The Lies They Told - Historical Novel Society

    historicalnovelsociety.org

  4. 3
    The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman - Review | CritiReads

    critireads.com

  5. 4
    The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman | Jane Healey

    janehealey.com

  6. Further reading
  7. 5
    Book Review: The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman – Shelf-Promotion

    wordpress.susqu.edu

  8. 6
    Summary and Reviews of The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman

    bookbrowse.com

  9. 7
    The Lies They Told – by Ellen Marie Wiseman – independent book review – Historical Fiction (United States)

    tobyasmith.com

  10. 8
    Book Review: The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman – Shelf-Promotion

    shelfpromotion.com

  11. 9
    The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman: 9781496758064 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

    penguinrandomhouse.com

  12. 10
    Bookishelf

    Bookishelf

Age & Reading Level

Our age band

Adult

Our age band groups books for browsing; it isn't an age a review gave.

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Content to know about

forced sterilization and eugenics-era state coercion
institutional abuse targeting immigrants, the poor, and the disabled
threatened loss of child custody

Best for: Adults — the novel centers on forced sterilization and state coercion of a vulnerable immigrant mother, written for an adult historical fiction readership

Skip if you prioritize a propulsive plot over period immersion — the first stretch is deliberately slow, and the subject matter is harrowing rather than comforting

Ellen Marie Wiseman on The Lies They Told

Author Ellen Marie Wiseman joins Jane Healey on Historical Happy Hour to discuss her novel The Lies They Told and the history behind it.

Uploaded by The Jane Healey Happy Hour Podcast, 2025 · Watch on YouTube ·

More from this interview on Ellen Marie Wiseman's page →

Inspiration and premise for The Lies They Told

Wiseman explains that the novel follows an immigrant mother arriving at Ellis Island who relocates to the Blue Ridge Mountains, where families were being forcibly displaced to build Shenandoah National Park.

Institutions deceived patients during forced sterilizations

Wiseman describes how authorities removed children from poor rural families to sterilize them in institutions, frequently lying by telling patients they were having their appendix removed.

Mastering the Blue Ridge Mountain dialect

Wiseman found writing the authentic regional dialect very challenging and relied on consulting local readers to get the mountain sayings right.

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On Amazon

The Orphan Collector

Ellen Marie Wiseman

Same author, different crisis: an immigrant girl in 1918 Philadelphia survives the flu pandemic while a grieving woman preys on orphaned children.

Wiseman trades the 1930s Virginia of The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman for pandemic-era Philadelphia, following Pia, a thirteen-year-old German immigrant whose father has enlisted in the Army and who must venture into the quarantined city for food after leaving her baby brothers behind. The anti-immigrant sentiment that shapes Pia's world echoes the suspicion Lena faces in The Lies They Told, and Bernice Groves is one of historical fiction's most chilling antagonists. It suits readers who want Wiseman's immersive detail with a slightly more propulsive plot.

If you liked The Lies They Told

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Before We Were Yours

Lisa Wingate

Another real American scandal: children stolen from poor families and sold through the Tennessee Children's Home Society, told in dual timelines.

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The Four Winds

Kristin Hannah

Depression-era America, a mother fighting to keep her children alive, and a country that has largely written people like her off.

On Amazon

Necessary Lies

Diane Chamberlain

Set inside North Carolina's real state eugenics program, where a young social worker must choose between her job and a client marked for sterilization.

Not your thing?

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The Alice Network

Kate Quinn

If the slow pace lost you, this WWI spy thriller runs on short chapters, cliffhangers, and a revenge plot that never sits still.

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