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 that the truth is much darker. 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 redemption.
It’s a child’s worst nightmare: being ripped from their home and loving parents and thrust into a system that prioritizes profit over welfare. It is also the subject of one of the two parallel stories told in Before We Were Yours.
Based on a real scandal that rocked a nation in the mid-twentieth century, Wingate crafts a painful and carefully paced novel that sheds a light on the dark underbelly of adoption in the United States at the time, as well as encouraging the reader to consider the long-lasting and multi-generational impacts it can have.
Check it out in the Popular Reading Collection today!