On September 11, 2001, police find an unidentified woman’s dead body on a beach near Kongslund Orphanage in Copenhagen, surrounded by seemingly random objects meticulously placed in a strange pattern. They begin to investigate the bizarre case, only for the Twin Towers in New York to fall later that morning – leaving the case unsolved as the tragedy across the world overshadows the mysterious death. The dead woman is forgotten and the case turns cold – that is, until several years later when identical anonymous letters are sent to six of the orphanage’s former residents. 

The letters hint at a cover-up involving the orphanage, in which the organization is accused of helping the famous and powerful hide evidence of their affairs (AKA children of mistresses). They include a photograph of seven infants, five boys and two girls, dressed up as the seven dwarves as a campaign to help get them adopted. All the children are now middle-aged adults and seemingly accounted for, except the name John Bjergstrand pops up on adoption papers that accompany the letters, and one of these orphans is this mysterious child. But how are the unidentified child and the dead woman on the beach connected? Unfortunately it takes about a third of the book to get there. 

Throughout The Seventh Child, portions of the story are told through a first-person account of one of the seven children named Marie. She is a special “foundling” who was born severely deformed and left on the orphanage’s doorstep. No families were deemed good enough to adopt Marie, so the matron of Kongslund decided to adopt her herself. Other portions of the story, however, are told in third-person. This is just one of the annoying aspects about The Seventh Child. 

Some of these orphans are well-known in Denmark, and some powerful players become involved in hiding the truth, seeing as their reputations would be ruined otherwise. So naturally, the letters turn out to be quite the scandal, and a disgraced reporter is determined to solve the mystery. Unfortunately for readers, the story is unnecessarily drawn out. The backstories of these adults are all over the place, with no real obvious connection among them – or at least, the connection is revealed agonizingly slow. I want to give the book a couple of stars for the layers Valeur builds within the story, but that’s all of the credit I can give. 

This book seems intriguing to the naive reader, but I almost did not finish this book. I wasted countless hours of my life that I will never get back on a book that was about 400 pages too long (and I do not hate long books). Marie’s actions throughout the novel are the only force driving the plot – only because she is deceitful, malevolent, and manipulates the other orphans in the story. 

For example, she follows each of them for years before meeting them face-to-face. When she does contact them, she shares their biological parents’ contact information with them, unprovoked, thinking they deserve to know. Keep in mind that orphans either know they’re adopted or they don’t – and if they do, they have likely come to terms with never knowing or meeting their biological parents. Cue trigger warning. You almost want to forget that she has grown up deformed and isolated, because you don’t want to feel bad about disliking her. Although I’m sure some readers don’t care. I might be one of them.  

Besides this, I didn’t feel any emotional attachment to any of the other characters – even though each of them are somewhat interesting in their own way. Valeur’s writing style in The Seventh Child left more to be desired in terms of character development and being able to relate to them. I really didn’t care what happened to any of them. When a tragic event happened, I didn’t feel any stirred emotions that I usually feel when reading a decent book. 

Another problematic theme with the novel is the association with adopted children. Throughout the story, the orphans are described as having a “Darkness” or some other sort of psychological ailment. I do not have any experience whatsoever with adoption – however, Valeur was indeed orphaned and adopted at a young age, so his descriptions are likely more accurate and relevant than what I might assume. Although, I refuse to believe that all adopted children are lonely, reclusive, disturbed, etc., or that adoptive parents are cruel, maladjusted liars. If this is Valeur’s experience, that is sad, but his surely isn’t the only kind. 

It’s possible that I missed some key themes and plot points or that some aspects went over my head. Perhaps my reading comprehension was obstructed by the dread I felt whenever I had to pick this book up again. Or maybe I resented having to read this book so much that I didn’t care to follow along with anything. Some of the key elements might not have translated to English very well. In any case, the large character list, relationships among secondary characters, and time jumps make the book hard to follow if you aren’t paying close attention or reading for long periods at a time. But I honestly don’t think I missed much, because there were large portions of the book where absolutely nothing happened. The last quarter of the story delivers most of the suspense and a few twists – although some of it was predictable. 

I’m guessing this book was meant to be suspenseful but the writing style, unlikable characters, and misplaced backstories made it fall short. Even so, readers will power through this horrible book because they want to know the identity of The Seventh Child (if they haven’t figured it out halfway through). If Valeur wanted to make readers care about anything in particular, his book could have used a few more rounds of editing to drive the point home.