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Rachel's Pick
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
"This is a powerful story about Rill Foss and her four younger siblings who are taken from their poor, but happy, houseboat home, on a stormy night, when their father must rush their mother to the hospital. It is 1939 Memphis and the children are forced into a Tennessee Children's home, assured that they will soon be reunited with their parents. Rill quickly discovers the dark truth; that poor children are being kidnapped, often ill-treated, and sold into wealthy "adoptive" homes.
In present-day South Carolina, Avery Stafford is a successful lawyer who returns home to help her father's political campaign and to care for her aging grandmother. While there, Avery unexpectedly begins to unravel a family secret, following clues that will interweave these 2 tales, in unexpected ways. The novel is based on the true story of Georgia Tann and her Memphis-based adoption agency. The 1950 investigation of Georgia's true methods and the hundreds of children impacted caused a scandal that reached far beyond the borders of Tennessee.
Wingate does a beautiful job of weaving together fact and fiction, in this, ultimately, uplifting tale; telling a story of sorrow and devotion, of the deep-rooted love of family; the one we are born into and those of which we become a part."
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