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Summary
Summary
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the bestselling author of Before We Were Yours comes a dramatic historical novel of three young women searching for family amid the destruction of the post-Civil War South, and of a modern-day teacher who learns of their story and its vital connection to her students' lives.
"An absorbing historical . . . enthralling."-- Library Journal
Bestselling author Lisa Wingate brings to life startling stories from actual "Lost Friends" advertisements that appeared in Southern newspapers after the Civil War, as newly freed slaves desperately searched for loved ones who had been sold away.
Louisiana, 1875: In the tumultuous era of Reconstruction, three young women set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest: Hannie, a freed slave; Lavinia, the pampered heir to a now destitute plantation; and Juneau Jane, Lavinia's Creole half sister. Each carries private wounds and powerful secrets as they head for Texas, following roads rife with vigilantes and soldiers still fighting a war lost a decade before. For Lavinia and Juneau Jane, the journey is one of stolen inheritance and financial desperation, but for Hannie, torn from her mother and siblings before slavery's end, the pilgrimage west reignites an agonizing question: Could her long-lost family still be out there? Beyond the swamps lie the limitless frontiers of Texas and, improbably, hope.
Louisiana, 1987: For first-year teacher Benedetta Silva, a subsidized job at a poor rural school seems like the ticket to canceling her hefty student debt--until she lands in a tiny, out-of-step Mississippi River town. Augustine, Louisiana, is suspicious of new ideas and new people, and Benny can scarcely comprehend the lives of her poverty-stricken students. But amid the gnarled live oaks and run-down plantation homes lie the century-old history of three young women, a long-ago journey, and a hidden book that could change everything.
Author Notes
Lisa Wingate is an award-winning journalist, magazine columnist, popular inspirational speaker and a national bestselling author. Recently, Lisa's Blue Sky Hill Series received national attention with back-to-back nominations for American Christian Fiction Writers Book of the Year Award for A Month of Summer (2009) and The Summer Kitchen (2010). In 2011, Lisa's Novel, Never Say Never, won the American Christian Fiction Writers Book of the Year Award.
Lisa is also the author of The Tending Roses, Daily Texas, Moses Lake, and the Texas Hill Country Series.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this disappointing outing, Wingate (Before We Were Yours) explores the history of a small Louisiana town where a new teacher's attempt to connect with her students leads her to learn about the difficult lives of three women. After the Civil War, freed slave Hannie Gossett works at Goswood Grove as a sharecropper and spends years hoping her mother, who was sold during the war, will return. In 1875, Hannie, in hopes of finding her family, follows the daughters of the man who once owned her to Texas, where he disappeared. In 1987, Benny Silva arrives in Augustine, La., to teach at a high school with an apathetic student body. As a ploy to capture their imaginations, she researches Goswood Grove and finds records about Hannie's journey to Texas. Though the twists of Hannie's and Benny's stories will keep readers guessing, the book is marred by a lack of depth, and Hannie's reliance on and trust in her former owner is frustratingly unquestioned. Benny, meanwhile, who likens her own experiences as an Italian-American to those of her impoverished students of color, comes off as naive. This underwhelming tale is sunk by its surfeit of deficiencies. (Apr.)
Booklist Review
Wingate (Before and After, 2019) makes history come alive with the dual tale of formerly enslaved Hannie Gossett in 1875 and Benedetta "Benny" Silva in 1987. Punctuating their struggles are real "Lost Friends," advertisements from a southern Methodist newspaper that featured messages from those searching for loved ones lost and separated by slavery. Hannie's story starts with the recalled childhood trauma of being separated from her family. Later, when her sharecropper lease is almost up, Hannie catches Juneau Jane, a Creole girl, creeping around her former master's plantation home, claiming she is the property's rightful heir. Together, the estate's recognized heir, Miss Lavinia, Juneau Jane's half-sister, and Hannie, set off on a harrowing journey west. Modern-day Benny is an English teacher in a struggling Louisiana school, in which her students discover a surprising connection to Hannie's past that promises to upset the delicate ties that bind the close-knit community. Historical fiction fans will appreciate the authentic articles and the connection between modern times and the past, while adventure lovers will enjoy a voyage reminiscent of Huckleberry Finn.
Library Journal Review
After the Civil War, the Southern Christian Advocate, a newspaper for the African American community distributed throughout the South, included a column called "Lost Friends" that allowed individuals to advertise for information about missing loved ones, generally sold off or stolen before or during the war. That column is the inspiration for this enthralling and ultimately heartening new novel from Wingate (Before We Were Yours). Though it can take a moment to catch on, the two intertwined narratives eventually speak back and forth, with the first delivered by Hannie Gossett, a resourceful young sharecropper in 1875 Louisiana, who's looking for her own people when she follows her former master's imperious daughter and equally imperious mixed-race daughter (an open secret from New Orleans) as they trek to Texas to find their father and papers relating to their inheritance. The second narrator is Benny Silva, an outsider new teacher in small-town 1987 Louisiana, pushy enough to get her students involved in a project that discovers and reconstructs Hannie's story and its wider implications for their town. VERDICT Emphasizing throughout that stories matter and should never go untold, Wingate has written an absorbing historical for many readers.--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal