Camron Wright
Seven-year-old Chellamuthu’s life is forever changed when he is kidnapped from his village in India, sold to a Christian orphanage, and then adopted by an unsuspecting couple in the United States. It takes months before the boy can speak enough English to tell his parents that he already has a family back in India. Horrified, they try their best to track down his Indian family, but all avenues lead to dead ends.
Meanwhile, they simply love him, change his name to Taj, enroll him in school, make him part of their family—and his story might have ended there had it not been for the pestering questions in his head: Who am I? Why was I taken? How do I get home?
More than a decade later, Taj meets Priya, a girl from southern India with surprising ties to his past. Is she the key to unveil the secrets of his childhood or is it too late? And if he does make it back to India, how will he find his family with so few clues?
From the best-selling author of The Rent Collector, this is a deeply moving and gripping journey of discovering one’s self and the unbreakable family bonds that connect us forever.
Please Pass The Books Review
The Orphan Keeper is a wonderful story about a young boy who is sold as an orphan, and then adopted into a well meaning and devoted family. The plot thickens quickly, as little Chellamuthu/Taj isn't actually an orphan, and has a biological family that he's torn away from. Camron Wright has written, really, two books here—the first half about Taj as a child, the second as an adult, in search of his "real" family. It's the latter half of The Orphan Keeper that was the most engaging, as the voice becomes stronger and the storyline gains momentum. I think the construction could have been organized a bit better, but overall, this is a tightly written, heartwarming (and breaking!) book that I had a great deal of pleasure reading.
FOUR STARS
I'd like to thank Net Galley and the publisher, Shadow Mountain, for providing a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion, which this certainly is.
Camron’s first book, Letters for Emily, was a Readers Choice award winner, as well as a selection of the Doubleday Book Club and the Literary Guild. In addition to North America, Letters for Emily was published in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Korea, the Netherlands, and China.
His book, The Rent Collector, won Book of the Year, Fiction, from ForeWord Reviews; Best Novel of the Year from the Whitney Awards; and is a nominee for the prestigious 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
His latest novel, The Orphan Keeper, will be released September 6th, 2016.
Camron currently lives with his wife, Alicyn, in Alpine, Utah. He is the proud father of four children (all girls but three).
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