Today I’m introducing you to another one of my friends, Stephanie. She’ll be sharing reviews now and again…
By Stephanie L. Robertson
Life can change in an instant.
Federal prosecutor Avery Stafford is a political darling in Washington D.C. who hopes to follow in her father’s footsteps as an adored Senator. Avery is all set to marry her well-heeled fiance who is on the threshhold of a promising political career of his own.
But when Avery must return home to South Carolina to visit her ailing father, a chance encounter with a dementia patient in a nursing home puts the brakes on Avery’s ambition. Suddenly, she is taken back to the 1930’s where an orphan’s home cover-up will potentially destroy the Stafford political dynasty.
In a parallel plot, Rill Foss is a precocious 12-year-old living in the backwaters of the Mississippi River in 1939. Her poverty-stricken parents and four siblings are striving to survive the Great Depression, although Rill loves her pillar-to-post life on their rickety shanty boat home.
When Rill’s parents rush to a Memphis hospital for the birth of their twins, they have no qualms in leaving their five children alone on the shanty boat.
Within hours, authorities swoop in and sequester Rill, her brothers, and her sisters. Despite fighting desperately, the children are powerless to stop their abductors. The five Foss children find themselves in a children’s home run by a cruel director. Although they are assured that they will soon be reunited with their parents, one by one the children are separated and adopted out.
Will the Foss children ever be reunited? And what does the Foss abduction have to do with Avery?
Before We were Yours is a fictionalized account of a real-life scandal dealing with Georgia Tann, head-mistress of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis from the 1930s to the 1950s. The cruel woman had poor children abducted—particularly those with fair complexions and golden hair—and sold to wealthy families. For more information on the true account of the of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society scandal, see here.
My Critique: I had to place a hold and wait several weeks for Lisa Wingate’s Before We were Yours to become available at my public library.
It’s no wonder.
The astounding story of the Tennessee Children’s Home scandal is sure to twist at the hearts of everyone who has ever loved a child. Wingate places the Foss children in an evocative setting, the muddy Mississippi River, and pulls her readers into an enchanted world through the eyes of young Rill Foss. Although I grew up on stories my grandmother told of the Great Depression, life on a river boat was a new and interesting experience for me.
Likewise, I have only the slightest concept of what it would be like to grow up in the limelight of the political world as with Wingate’s character, Avery Stafford.
I love it when an author takes me somewhere I’ve never been, and shows me what it’s like. That, I believe, is one reason I love to read so much.
Often it is difficult to find a clean read that packs a punch with character, plot, setting, style, and voice; Wingate has all five in Before We were Yours.
In addition, some of my favorite novels have complex plots with parallel characters from different generations as in Before We were Yours.
I look forward to reading more from this talented author!
Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty.
Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption.
Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong.
Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=
Writer and Speaker Stephanie L. Robertson grew up on a southwest Alabama farm and now publishes a southern lifestyle blog at www.SweetgumLife.com.
A busy Christian wife and mom, Stephanie and her husband of 20 years live near Huntsville with their teenage daughter.
Stephanie is putting finishing touches on her dystopian novel and hopes to publish it one day soon. She has been published in local newspapers and magazines, and her self-published short suspense story, The Black Box, is available on Amazon.
She enjoys home décor, photography, Pinterest projects, coffee with family and friends, posting on Instagram, and immersing herself in heart-pounding suspense novels.
Lisa Wingate is one of my favorite authors and favorite people. She writes stories that take the reader to unexpected places with their emotions. I have had the privilege of meeting her in person. Lisa is a great storyteller and great person. Thank you for sharing.
It’s nice to meet you, Melissa! How amazing that you actually got to meet this talented author!