The Book of Lost Friends: A Novel
Description
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.Show more
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Community Reviews
This is the first book I’ve read from this author and now I want to read more. I absolutely loved this book. Well written and such a great story.
Lisa Wingate follows up her New York Times bestselling Before We Were Yours with another exquisite and deeply affecting fictional story inspired by actual events. The story opens in 1875 with Hannie, an eighteen-year-old former slave, still residing on the Louisiana plantation, Goswood Grove, where she was held against her will. She and her fellow former slaves are close to completing the ten-year sharecropper contract with "Old Mister" Gossett ...read more
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