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UPDATE: $2.99 Kindle US 11/3/20
My book won the GR 2017 award. Yay!
Wow! This book was really sad and had a happy ending at least. I had no idea this was a place and it breaks my heart 😢
This is written in the front of the book:
For the hundreds who vanished
and for the thousands who didn't.
May your stories
not be forgotten.
For those who help today's orphans
find forever homes.
May you always know the value
of your work
and your love.
This book is about the Foss children. They are fictional in the ...more
My book won the GR 2017 award. Yay!
Wow! This book was really sad and had a happy ending at least. I had no idea this was a place and it breaks my heart 😢
This is written in the front of the book:
For the hundreds who vanished
and for the thousands who didn't.
May your stories
not be forgotten.
For those who help today's orphans
find forever homes.
May you always know the value
of your work
and your love.
This book is about the Foss children. They are fictional in the ...more
Oct 12, 2018
Book Concierge
rated it
liked it
Shelves:
audio,
tennessee,
book-club,
historical-fiction,
orphans,
southern-lit,
library,
social-commentary,
concierge,
strong-women
Digital audio performed by Emily Rankin and Catherine Taber.
3.5***
A chance encounter with an elderly woman in a nursing home leads Avery Stafford to investigate her family’s history. What she uncovers is a shock to her. This historical novel is based on a shameful episode in Tennessee history, when babies were sold for profit and powerful people looked the other way.
Told with a dual time line – Rill’s story told in Depression-era Memphis, and Avery’s search for her family history in contempora ...more
3.5***
A chance encounter with an elderly woman in a nursing home leads Avery Stafford to investigate her family’s history. What she uncovers is a shock to her. This historical novel is based on a shameful episode in Tennessee history, when babies were sold for profit and powerful people looked the other way.
Told with a dual time line – Rill’s story told in Depression-era Memphis, and Avery’s search for her family history in contempora ...more
Before We Were Yours is a historical fiction novel based on true events. Between the early 1920's and her death in 1950, Georgia Tann, born Beulah George Tann, was an American child trafficker who operated the Tennessee Children's Home Society, an adoption agency in Memphis, Tennessee.
Lisa Wingate has written a fictionalized version of a family impacted by the greed of Tann. The Foss Family lives on a riverboat and when mama Queenie almost dies from giving birth to twins, Tann snatches the famil ...more
Lisa Wingate has written a fictionalized version of a family impacted by the greed of Tann. The Foss Family lives on a riverboat and when mama Queenie almost dies from giving birth to twins, Tann snatches the famil ...more
BEFORE WE WERE YOURS takes place in Memphis in 1939. It is a novel of the horrific life of young innocent children. This book is based on true events that took place while these children were placed in the Tennessee Children’s Home Society. This orphanage was run by Georgia Tann. Georgia Tann illegally obtained these children and sold them to the rich and famous.
This story begins with the four young Foss children who live on a shanty boat on the Mississippi River. Unfortunate circumstances becom ...more
This story begins with the four young Foss children who live on a shanty boat on the Mississippi River. Unfortunate circumstances becom ...more
RATING: 3 STARS
2019; Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine
This novel has been on my tbr list for quite a while. I first attempted this read for my GR’s group, but I could not get into the first chapter of the book. We then selected this book for our October 2019 book club, and I still did not finish it. I did make it 10% into the book this this. Hearing everyone’s thoughts on this story, and being intrigued by the true story, I decided to try the audiobook. I lucked out and received the aud ...more
2019; Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine
This novel has been on my tbr list for quite a while. I first attempted this read for my GR’s group, but I could not get into the first chapter of the book. We then selected this book for our October 2019 book club, and I still did not finish it. I did make it 10% into the book this this. Hearing everyone’s thoughts on this story, and being intrigued by the true story, I decided to try the audiobook. I lucked out and received the aud ...more
This was an interesting read, alternated with what others have termed a "Lifetime" movie, and I agree. I enjoy reading books with alternating chapters, narrators, and time periods, adding a different depth and experience to the story. Unfortunately, I felt Wingate's two narrators were worlds apart in other than time period. If the book would have just been about Rill and her siblings' unfortunate journey and abduction by the Tennessee Children's Home Society I would have gobbled it up. The decis
...more
Review to follow after the holidays
"In this poignant novel, inspired by a true story, two families, generations apart, are forever changed by a heartbreaking injustice"
The story of Rill Foss and her siblings begins in 1939; The story of Avery Stafford in the present day. Two families linked by an unthinkable crime.
I was really looking forward to reading this book and was disappointed how long it took for me to latch on to it. As the author jumped between the time periods I sometimes felt that 2 different people were writing the ...more
The story of Rill Foss and her siblings begins in 1939; The story of Avery Stafford in the present day. Two families linked by an unthinkable crime.
I was really looking forward to reading this book and was disappointed how long it took for me to latch on to it. As the author jumped between the time periods I sometimes felt that 2 different people were writing the ...more
Jan 03, 2018
Kelly
marked it as to-read
May 18, 2020
Amber K
marked it as to-read
Nov 20, 2022
Sarah Brown
marked it as rearrange
