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— 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 the dark truth.
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 fiance, 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 to redemption.
Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong.
(From the publisher.)
Lisa Wingate is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours, which remained on the NYT list for more than two years and has sold over three million copies. She has written more than 30 novels and co-authored the nonfiction Before and After with journalist Judy Christie. Wingate’s books have been translated into over forty languages and have appeared on bestseller lists worldwide. Shelterwood (2024) marks her thirty-third release.
Wingate is a Goodreads Choice Award winner, an Oklahoma Book Award finalist, a Southern Book Prize winner and was named a 2023 Distinguished Alumni of Oklahoma State University. Americans for More Civility, a kindness watchdog organization, selected Wingate as a recipient of the National Civics Award, which celebrates public figures who work to promote greater kindness and civility in American life. “Booklist” summed up her work by saying, “Lisa Wingate is, quite simply, a master storyteller.”
She was inspired to become a writer by a first-grade teacher who said she expected to see Lisa’s name in a magazine one day. Wingate also entertained childhood dreams of being an Olympic gymnast and winning the National Finals Rodeo but was stalled by a mental block against backflips on the balance beam and by parents who stubbornly refused to finance a rodeo career. She was lucky enough to marry into a big family of tall tale enthusiasts who never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Wingate lives in Texas and Colorado with her family and her cuddly teddy bear of a dog, Huckleberry.
One of her favorite things about being a writer is connecting with people, both real and imaginary. Find out more at www.lisawingate.com. Or follow her on Facebook at LisaWingateAuthorPage, or on Instagram @author_lisa_wingate. More information about her novels can be found at www.lisawingate.com.
(Biography provided by the author)
