Review: The Orphan Factory
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 15, 2014
The Orphan Factory is book 2 in the Orphan Trilogy by James Morcan and Lance Morcan.  This is a prequel to The Ninth Orphan.  Although it takes place before The Ninth Orphan, I think that reading first might not have been a good idea.  Introducing us to the orphans and Nine and having Nine find a way to get out brings up the questions about where he came from and how.  I found reading the other one first, made reading this one so much better.  All the questions were answered in this one.  Once more the characters have been created fully and delightfully candidly.  The plot is more straight forward than in the first book.  They manage to get some humor into the story too.  I loved how he bested the Spelling Bee champion out of his shoes.  Trey and his dog were hilarious too.  The author does get a littler serious towards the end when they begin to talk about topics that are in the political field.Nine is portrayed more as a mixed-up pre-teen boy with a crush.  There is nothing more that he wants than to be with Helen.  He watches her from the tree house for a long time until Helen and her father move to California.  He figures a way, using the Gold Powder, to disrupt the signal thee scientists put in his arm. As long as he has the Gold Powder attached to his arm, the Oracle people will never know he is there.  He leaves in the middle of a blizzard that shuts Chicago down.  This helps him get a head start on K which gives him time to arrange for help.Helen is a beautiful young girl who lived in the apartment house next door to the orphanage.  She is Greek and lives with her father who works for the US Postal Service.  He gets transferred to Santa Monica, California.  Helen tries very hard to fit into the school in California and is doing a pretty good job of it.  She meets Nine and he gives his name as Luke.  She invites him to her Salsa lesson and is impressed when he comes.  She likes him for himself and for his mind.Tommy  is the special agent who is hunting for Nine.  He lost him in Chicago and is desperate to find out where he is.This book combines adventure, suspense, and romance in one book.  Like the first one, this one is hard to put down.  It is now on to book 3.