Beneath the postcard image of Prince Edward Island lies a truth the province has long tried to forget. In The Children Who Vanished, author Kennedy Rowe excavates a harrowing yet hidden legacy: the forced adoptions, maternity homes, and church-run institutions that quietly operated for decades, but never innocently. Through meticulous research, survivor testimony, and a refusal to look away from uncomfortable truths, Rowe sheds light on how unwed mothers were silenced, how infants were taken and rehomed, and how official records were sealed, altered, or erased.

Spanning over a century, from the early 1900s to the modern DNA reunions of today, this book traces not only what happened, but what it cost. Through the voices of survivors, former social workers, nuns, and adult adoptees, we come to understand the systemic nature of the betrayal, and the aching courage of those still searching for names, records, or simply someone to believe them.

With empathy and investigative clarity, Rowe weaves together archival findings, fictionalized composites based on lived experience, and sharp historical analysis. Her writing is intimate and unflinching with a blend of social justice, oral history, and long-overdue witness.

This is not just a story about the Island. It’s about what can happen when a Church, a government, and a community all decide not to see. And it’s about what happens when survivors demand to be seen anyway.