Ellen Marie Wiseman

Ellen Marie Wiseman builds historical fiction around documented institutions, social injustice, family secrets, and people excluded from official narratives. The Lost Girls of Willowbrook is set in 1970s Staten Island and follows a young woman whose search for her missing twin leads to a case of mistaken identity inside Willowbrook State School. Kensington issued the book in 2022, describing it as a blend of fact, fiction, and the Cropsey urban legend. Wiseman’s earlier books include The Plum Tree, Coal River, The Life She Was Given, and The Orphan Collector. Her family history as a first-generation German American has informed novels rooted in twentieth-century upheaval and survival. She researches the historical settings closely but uses fictional characters to enter experiences that institutional records may leave incomplete.