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ELLA, nurse and founder of DONATE, a nearly billion-dollar Women Owned Endeavor has it all, respect, prestige, and wealth. DONATE becomes a global phenomenon that everyone wants in on, then Ella’s world is capsized after she receives a blackmail letter demanding millions for something she did as a child, forcing her to delve into past trauma that marked her in the Spring of 1963, when she was just eight. Ella’s parents abandoned her and three-year-old brother Donnie, leaving them to fend for themselves on Galveston Island.
Hidden secrets in Ella’s childhood threaten to upend her picture-perfect life and carefully crafted façade. All those years ago, she did the unthinkable, a fact she has buried in her subconscious. The blackmailer sends her increasingly menacing letters and taunting emails, upping the payment demand. She is desperate, hiring Private Investigator Brian Nickson, a retired cop who quickly recognizes Ella for the cunning liar that she is.
PI Nickson gets the FBI involved and meets one roadblock after another in the decade’s old mystery to untangle a past that has more questions than answers. Ella suffers haunting dreams and flashbacks and again relies on her own childhood Psychiatrist, famed Dr. David Siegfried to help uncover a web of deceit to unlock answers in this twisty domestic thriller.
Although Orphan Girl is a work of fiction, it was inspired by Karen's orphaned childhood in Galveston’s Orphan Home:
"It was 1960, the world was changing, it was a leap year, John Kennedy was elected President, To kill a Mockingbird was published, the first successful human heart was transplanted and I was transplanted, too. I was taken from my parents and put in the Galveston Orphanage for almost two years when I was six; it was the beginning of my Imaginary Friend stage. They joined me at a time when I was desperate to survive in a world I knew nothing about but that saved me then, all those years ago, and still comforts me now.
The Galveston Orphanage was a sight for sore eyes, it was imposing, beautiful and amazing! I had come from unimaginable poverty, no running water or electricity, little food and a haphazard life with my parents, who were on the run. I stepped inside the orphanage and my life changed forever. I became what I am today because I landed there and was later adopted."