Rosanne Higgins

Biography

Rosanne Higgins was born in Enfield Connecticut, however spent her youth in Buffalo, New York. Her experiences traveling in both the United States and in Europe as a child resulted in a love of history from an early age. She knew from the time she was in fourth grade that she wanted to be an Anthropologist and went on after earning her BA to graduate school at the University at Buffalo. Combining her two interests she studied the Asylum Movement in the nineteenth century and its impact on disease specific mortality. This research focused on the Erie, Niagara, and Monroe County Poorhouses in Western New York and earned her a Ph.D. in Anthropology in 1998 and several scholarly publications.

After six years as an assistant professor, Rosanne focused on her family, husband Bob Higgins, and sons, Max and Charlie. She also opened a successful business, tapping into her love for animals with a doggy daycare. This led to charitable efforts in animal rescue. During this time, she also turned her attentions to a more personal fundraising effort following the tragic death of her older son, Max, from a rare pediatric cancer at age 11. This event inspired in her the ability to imagine the previously untold stories of personal and private sufferings.

In the Spring of 2012, she was invited to join the Erie County Poorhouse Cemetery Project, undertaken by the Department of Anthropology at the University at Buffalo. While writing her dissertation in the mid 90's, Rosanne had gotten to know many of the inmates of the institutions mentioned above as she pieced together what little could be told of their lives while researching their deaths. For over 20 years, she had a desire to tell the other side of the story in a way that would be accessible to more than just the scholarly community. Rosanne's need to tell their tale has resulted in her first novel, Orphans and Inmates, which is the first in a series chronicling fictional accounts of Poorhouse residents inspired by the historical data.

Where to find Rosanne Higgins online

Books

In the Shadow of the White Oak
Price: $5.99 USD. Words: 87,300. Language: English. Published: December 6, 2020 . Categories: Fiction » Mystery & detective » Historical, Fiction » Visionary & metaphysical
Maude Travers combines her skills as a psychic medium and a research historian to unravel three visions spanning the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Buffalo, New York. Widening her circle of gifted seers to send healing across time, she prays their collective efforts will be enough.
A Mind's Eye Witness
Price: $5.99 USD. Words: 85,640. Language: English. Published: March 25, 2019 . Categories: Fiction » Historical » USA, Fiction » Mystery & detective » Historical
Digging into the details of a murder in her old house, Maude Travers uses her recently honed supernatural abilities. She unravels a tale of 1920’s Buffalo, New York, seeking to understand the connection between bank robbing gangsters, a witness stashed in the insane asylum, and a spy within the ranks of the Buffalo Police Department.
The Girl on the Shore
Price: $5.99 USD. Words: 72,530. Language: English. Published: December 18, 2017 . Categories: Fiction » Historical » Paranormal
The fifth installment of the Orphans and Inmates series takes Maude Travers across the wild Atlantic to Ireland as she seeks to understand a ghostly message and dreams of the Sloane sisters in Buffalo, New York during the nineteenth century. Modern Spiritualism and Celtic fairy legends intertwine as Maude unravels long forgotten secrets that have once again resurfaced.
A Lifetime Again
Price: $3.99 USD. Words: 79,360. Language: English. Published: January 12, 2017 . Categories: Fiction » Historical » USA, Fiction » Women's fiction » General
The Orphans and Inmates series chronicles three sisters who are orphaned on the journey from Ireland to Buffalo, New York. The history of Buffalo unfolds as the girls become women, each making their mark on the burgeoning city. A Lifetime Again, book four, focuses on Buffalo's earliest insane asylum and the relationship between the gift of clairvoyance and insanity.
The Seer and the Scholar
Price: $5.99 USD. Words: 85,360. Language: English. Published: November 8, 2015 . Categories: Fiction » Historical » USA, Fiction » Young adult or teen » Paranormal
A chance discovery takes anthropologist-turned-novelist Maude Travers through a centuries-old missing person's investigation. Each piece of evidence triggers vivid dreams of the Sloane sisters as they help Buffalo's poorest residents during the cholera epidemic of 1849. A psychic medium and the spirit of a nineteenth century school teacher enable Maude to reconcile the past with the present.
A Whisper of Bones
Price: $5.99 USD. Words: 90,100. Language: English. Published: November 9, 2014 . Categories: Fiction » Historical » USA
A Whisper of Bones is book two in the Orphans and Inmates series. The past and present intertwine as modern day anthropologist, Maude Travers, pieces together evidence from an exhumed poorhouse skeleton and the journal of the Keeper of the Buffalo Orphan Asylum, Ciara Sloane Nolan. Paranormal visions lead Maude to a horrifying secret that threatened Ciara's own life.
Orphans and Inmates
Price: $3.99 USD. Words: 85,070. Language: English. Published: April 26, 2014 . Categories: Fiction » Historical » USA, Fiction » Historical » USA
(5.00 from 1 review)
Orphans and Inmates is the first novel in a series about the Sloane sisters and their experiences at the Erie County Almshouse and the Orphan Asylum In Buffalo, New York. The story explores the largely ignored origins of the social welfare system in the United States through the experiences of those who were most profoundly affected by poverty, namely women and children.