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THE BLOCKBUSTER HIT—Over two million copies sold! A New York Times, USA Today,Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller

“Poignant, engrossing.”—People • “Lisa Wingate takes an almost unthinkable chapter in our nation’s history and weaves a tale of enduring power.”—Paula McLain

Look for Lisa Wingate’s powerful new historical novel, The Book of Lost Friends, available now!

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.

Publishers Weekly’s #3 Longest-Running Bestseller of 2017 • Winner of the Southern Book Prize • If All Arkansas Read the Same Book Selection

Review

“A [story] of a family lost and found . . . A poignant, engrossing tale about sibling love and the toll of secrets.”—People

“Before We Were Yours is sure to be one of the most compelling books you pick up this year. . . . [Lisa] Wingate is a master-storyteller, and you’ll find yourself pulled along as she reveals the wake of terror and heartache that is Georgia Tann’s legacy.”—Parade

“One of the year’s best books . . . It is almost a cliché to say a book is ‘lovingly written’ but that phrase applies clearly to Lisa Wingate’s latest novel, Before We Were Yours. This story about children taken from their parents through kidnapping or subterfuge and then placed for adoption, for a price, clearly pours out of Wingate’s heart. . . . It is impossible not to get swept up in this near-perfect novel. It invades your heart from the very first pages and stays there long after the book is finished. Few novelists could strike the balance this story requires but Wingate does it with assurance. There are a lot of books that will catch your eye this summer, some from our best storytellers. Make sure this one is on your radar. It should not be missed.”—The Huffington Post

“[An] affecting new novel.”—The New York Post

“Every now and then a novel comes along that sweeps me off my reading feet. Before We Were Yours, by Lisa Wingate, is such a book. . . . It’s a great book-club read, one of those books that teaches you something, gives you lots to discuss and even more to think about. . . . Take note: This may be the best book of the year.”—Shreveport Times

“This story is heartfelt and genuine, especially as Wingate explores the idea of home and family from a youngster’s point of view.”—Historical Novels Review

“Lisa Wingate takes an almost unthinkable chapter in our nation’s history and weaves a tale of enduring power. That Georgia Tann and her Memphis Tennessee Children’s Home Society could actually exist, unraveling the lives of countless children, stealing their pasts and changing their futures, will give you chills. But the real feat of this stirring novel is how deeply Wingate plunges us into the heart and mind of twelve-year-old river gypsy Rill Foss. Rill’s utterly singular voice will stay with you long after the last page is turned, as will Wingate’s courage to follow her anywhere. . . . Vivid and affecting.”—Paula McLain, New York Times bestselling author of Circling the Sun

“A powerful tale of family, of sisters, of secrets kept and secrets shared. I absolutely loved this book. I’m still basking in the afterglow, in shock at the true-crime elements, in awe at the journey of these characters who seem to have immortal souls.”—Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

About the Author

Lisa Wingate is a former journalist, an inspirational speaker, and the bestselling author of more than twenty novels. Her work has won or been nominated for many awards, including the Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize, the Oklahoma Book Award, the Carol Award, the Christy Award, and the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award. Wingate lives in the Ouachita Mountains of southwest Arkansas.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

PRELUDE

Baltimore, Maryland

AUGUST 3, 1939

My story begins on a sweltering August night, in a place I will never set eyes upon. The room takes life only in my imaginings. It is large most days when I conjure it. The walls are white and clean, the bed linens crisp as a fallen leaf. The private suite has the very finest of everything. Outside, the breeze is weary, and the cicadas throb in the tall trees, their verdant hiding places just below the window frames. The screens sway inward as the attic fan rattles overhead, pulling at wet air that has no desire to be moved.

The scent of pine wafts in, and the woman’s screams press out as the nurses hold her fast to the bed. Sweat pools on her skin and rushes down her face and arms and legs. She’d be horrified if she were aware of this.

She is pretty. A gentle, fragile soul. Not the sort who would intentionally bring about the catastrophic unraveling that is only, this moment, beginning. In my multifold years of life, I have learned that most people get along as best they can. They don’t intend to hurt anyone. It is merely a terrible by-product of surviving.

It isn’t her fault, all that comes to pass after that one final, merciless push. She produces the very last thing she could possibly want. Silent flesh comes forth—a tiny, fair-haired girl as pretty as a doll, yet blue and still.

The woman has no way of knowing her child’s fate, or if she does know, the medications will cause the memory of it to be nothing but a blur by tomorrow. She ceases her thrashing and surrenders to the twilight sleep, lulled by the doses of morphine and scopolamine administered to help her defeat the pain.

To help her release everything, and she will.

Sympathetic conversation takes place as doctors stitch and nurses clean up what is left.

“So sad when it happens this way. So out of order when a life has not even one breath in this world.”

“You have to wonder sometimes . . . why . . . when a child is so very wanted . . .”

A veil is lowered. Tiny eyes are shrouded. They will never see.

The woman’s ears hear but cannot grasp. All slips in and slips away. It is as if she is attempting to catch the tide, and it drains through her clenched fingers, and finally she floats out along with it.

A man waits nearby, perhaps in the hallway just outside the door. He is stately, dignified. Unaccustomed to being so helpless. He was to become a grandfather today.

Glorious anticipation has melted into wrenching anguish.

“Sir, I am so terribly sorry,” the doctor says as he slips from the room. “Rest assured that everything humanly possible was done to ease your daughter’s labor and to save the baby. I understand how very difficult this is. Please offer our condolences to the baby’s father when you are finally able to reach him overseas. After so many disappointments, your family must have held such great hope.”

“Will she be able to have more?”

“It isn’t advisable.”

“This will be the end of her. And her mother as well, when she learns of it. Christine is our only child, you know. The pitter-patter of little feet . . . the beginning of a new generation . . .”

“I understand, sir.”

“What are the risks should she . . .”

“Her life. And it’s extremely unlikely that your daughter would ever carry another pregnancy to term. If she were to try, the results could be . . .”

“I see.” The doctor lays a comforting hand on the heartbroken man, or this is the way it happens in my imaginings. Their gazes tangle.

The physician looks over his shoulder to be certain that the nurses cannot hear. “Sir, might I suggest something?” he says quietly, gravely. “I know of a woman in Memphis. . . .”

Chapter 1

Avery Stafford
Present day. Aiken, South Carolina.

I take a breath, scoot to the edge of the seat, straighten my jacket as the limo rolls to a stop on the boiling-hot asphalt. News vans wait along the curb, accentuating the importance of this morning’s seemingly innocuous meeting.

But not one moment of this day will happen by accident. These past two months in South Carolina have been all about making sure the nuances are just right—shaping the inferences so as to hint, but do no more.

Definitive statements are not to be made.

Not yet, anyway.

Not for a long time, if I have my way about it.

I wish I could forget why I’ve come home, but even the fact that my father isn’t reading his notes or checking the briefing from Leslie, his uber-efficient press secretary, is an undeniable reminder. There’s no escaping the tagalong enemy that rides silently in the car with us. It’s here in the backseat, hiding beneath the gray tailored suit that hangs a hint too loose over my father’s broad shoulders.

Daddy stares out the window, his head resting to one side. He’s relegated his aides and Leslie to another car.

“You feeling all right?” I reach across to brush a long blond hair—mine—off the seat so it won’t cling to his trousers when he gets out. If my mother were here, she’d whip out a mini lint brush, but she’s home, preparing for our second event of the day—a family Christmas photo that must be taken months early… just in case Daddy’s prognosis worsens.

He sits a bit straighter, lifts his head. Static magnetizes his thick, gray hair, so that it’s sticking straight out. I want to smooth it down for him, but I don’t. It would be a breach of protocol.

If my mother is intimately involved in the micro-aspects of our lives, like fretting over lint and planning for the family Christmas photo in July, my father is the opposite. He is distant—an island of staunch maleness in a household of women. I know he cares deeply about my mother, my two sisters, and me, but he seldom voices the sentiment out loud. I also know that I’m his favorite, but the one who confuses him most. He is a product of an era when women went to college to secure the requisite M-R-S degree. He’s not quite sure what to do with a thirty-year-old daughter who graduated top of her class from Columbia Law and actually enjoys the gritty world of a federal DA’s office.

Whatever the reason—perhaps just because the positions of perfectionist daughter and sweet daughter were already taken in our family—I have always been brainiac daughter. I loved school and it was the unspoken conclusion that I would be the family torchbearer, the son-replacement, the one to succeed my father. Somehow, I always imagined that I’d be older when it happened and that I would be ready.

Now, I look at my dad and think, How can you not want it, Avery? This is what he’s worked for all his life. What generations of Staffords have strived for since the revolutionary war, for heaven’s sake. Our family has always held fast to the guiding rope of public service. Daddy is no exception. Since graduating from West Point and serving as an Army aviator before I was born, he has upheld the family name with dignity and determination.

Of course you want this, I tell myself again. You’ve always wanted this. You just didn’t expect it to happen yet, and not this way, that’s all.

Secretly, I’m clinging by all ten fingernails to the best-case scenario. The enemies will be vanquished on both fronts—political and medical. My father will be cured by the combination of the surgery that brought him home from the summer congressional session early and the chemo pump he must wear strapped to his leg every three weeks. My move home to Aiken will be temporary.

Cancer will no longer be a part of our lives.

It can be beaten. Other people have done it, and if anyone can, Senator Talmage Stafford can.

There is not, anywhere, a stronger man or a better man than my dad.

“Ready?” he asks, straightening his suit. It’s a relief when he swipes down the rooster tail in his hair. I’m not prepared to cross the line from daughter to caretaker.

“Right behind you.” I’d do anything for him, but I hope it’s many more years before we’re forced to reverse the roles of parent and child. I’ve learned how hard that is while watching my father struggle to make decisions for his mother.

My once quick-witted, fun-loving Grandma Judy is now only a ghost of her former self. As painful as that is, Daddy can’t talk to anyone about it. If the media clues into the fact that we’ve moved her to a facility, especially an upscale one, on a lovely estate not ten miles from here, it’ll be a lose-lose situation, politically speaking. Given the burgeoning scandal over a series of wrongful death and abuse cases involving corporate-owned eldercare facilities in our state, Daddy’s political enemies will either point out that only those with money can afford premium care, or they’ll accuse my father of warehousing his mom because he is a cold-hearted lout who cares nothing for the elderly. They’ll say that he’d happily turn a blind eye toward the needs of the helpless, if the profits of his friends and campaign contributors are involved.

Review:

4.8 out of 5

95.00% of customers are satisfied

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful book about family love and the evil that tries to take it away....

m. · November 14, 2024

When I first started reading this book, it didn't grab me and it was not because it wasn't well-written, it just somehow lacked what I call: The "hook". But I picked it up again and started to realize that my impatience almost kept me from reading a truly wonderful book. The novel shifted between 2 characters and each of their chapters grew more interesting . Some were heartbreaking , sad, angering and even educational because this author's theme had a true and historical premise to it. It is a book of many characters and families intertwined in past history and secrets and the ending reveals a fact that family love and its strong bond never dies. I highly recommend this book not only because it is well-written, but well researched to deliver an incredible and fulfilling read.

5.0 out of 5 stars Unveiling the Past

G. · May 27, 2024

"Before We Were Yours" by Lisa Wingate is a poignant journey through one of the darker corridors of American history, woven into a compelling narrative that captures the essence of hope and survival against all odds. This novel, set against the backdrop of the 1939 Memphis scandal involving the Tennessee Children's Home Society, not only sheds light on a grievous chapter in history but does so through the powerfully drawn lives of its characters.Lisa Wingate's narrative technique seamlessly alternates between the past and the present, telling the story from two perspectives: the historical plight of the Foss children and the contemporary quest for truth by Avery Stafford. This dual storyline enriches the narrative, offering a layered exploration of family, identity, and the impact of secrets carried through generations.The characters are exquisitely crafted, with Rill Foss standing out as a memorable protagonist whose resilience and protective instincts make her tale heartbreakingly compelling. The modern-day storyline featuring Avery adds a layer of investigative intrigue and connects the past to the present, making the reader ponder the long-lasting effects of familial bonds and decisions made under duress.The emotional depth of "Before We Were Yours" is its strongest suit, meticulously capturing the pain, betrayal, and eventual healing of the characters involved. Wingate's respectful approach to the historical elements and her skillful weaving of fiction and fact ensure the novel is both educational and engrossing.However, readers should be prepared for the emotional rollercoaster this book presents. The harrowing experiences of the children are difficult to read but essential for understanding the depth of their courage and the strength of their hope.Lisa Wingate's "Before We Were Yours" is a must-read for those who appreciate historical fiction that speaks to the heart as well as the mind. Its beautifully tragic narrative and strong emotional core make it a memorable addition to the genre, worthy of its critical acclaim and the extensive readership it has garnered.

4.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing story

E.W. · August 29, 2024

Rills story is much stronger than Avery's, so much happened to her and Avery is basically a catalyst for finding out what that was. Rill is also a much stronger character she is feisty and smart and you can't help but connect with and support her. Avery is likeable enough and she is in an interesting situation with her life, and the choices she has to make but for me it was Rill and her siblings all the way.I liked the setting for Rills story, I knew nothing about river shantyboats, 'river rats' as they were called, or life on the river in this era and I found this to be very engrossing. I also knew nothing of the scandal involving the Tennessee Children's Home Society or Georgia Tann and it was a revelation and a shock to say the least. Life can turn on a dime, no doubt about it.This was a book club selection and like many of the books selected by my fellow Page Turners I would not have read this except that one of them picked it. I enjoyed this one and many others for that reason.

Heartbreaking and Inspirational

A.C. · October 27, 2023

This book would not allow me to put it down on several occasions. The fact that it's loosely based on a very real and problematic time in history makes it all the more interesting. The author did an excellent job of allowing us to "see and hear" all the characters very clearly. Many times I found myself holding my breath at what I was afraid might happen next. So well written. Such an awful history.

Before we were yours

t.r. · December 3, 2017

Una lectura increible y muy interesante, que te hace pensar en el por que de los acontesimientos ocurridos. Muy recomendable

Family

L.T. · July 9, 2024

Brilliant writing. Fadt paced & based on a true story. Highly recommended

Heartbreakingly beautiful

J.J. · March 27, 2018

After such a long time, I have come across a book I couldn’t put down! And it is so beautifully written and heartbreaking, to imagine the horror of the situation and the children’s plight. This is a book that’ll shake you, but also make you fall in love with it, with each of the carefully drawn characters. One of my best reads in what I feel has been ages!

Great read!

A. · December 19, 2017

I really enjoyed reading this book. It is a well told story with relevant historical facts. Would definitively recommend this book!

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Before We Were Yours: A Novel

Name: Before We Were Yours: A Novel
Brand: Ballantine Books
SKU: U0425284689
Price: 25.39 BHD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.6 (8 reviews)

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