Together Forever by Jody Hedlund

Marianne Neumann has one goal in life: to find her lost younger sister, Sophie. When Marianne takes a job as a placing agent with the Children's Aid Society in 1858 New York, she not only hopes to give children a better life but seeks to discover whether Sophie ended up leaving the city on an orphan train.

Andrew Brady, her fellow agent on her first placing trip, is a former schoolteacher who has an easy way with the children--firm but tender and funny. Underneath his handsome charm, though, seems to linger a grief that won't go away--and a secret from his past that he keeps hidden. As the two team up placing orphans amid small railroad towns in Illinois, they find themselves growing ever closer . . . until a shocking tragedy threatens to upend all their work and change one of their lives forever.

Together Forever is the second novel in Jody Hedlund's new series, Orphan Train, and it focuses on the second sister, Marianne. I enjoyed this novel and learning more about the placement of young children throughout the west in the 1850's. It was sad to think about children that did not end up with good placements, as well as the lack of background checks or any other type of screening that occurred prior to children being left with new families. On the other hand, the question still remains were the children worse off than being left to wander the streets of New York alone? I thought the author did a good job discussing the morality of the issue, both with her characters' thoughts on the matter as well as in her Afterword. I enjoyed the plot of the novel, I thought it was well developed and captivating at times. The characters were interesting, though I did think that the romance between Marianne and Brady was rushed, which did make it a little less believable. However, overall, I enjoyed this novel, and I look forward to the next book, which will hopefully give us some clues about Sophie. 

I received this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.