“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 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 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.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got a copy of this on ebook from NetGalley.

Thoughts: I had this book on my TBR list to read for some time. I enjoyed learning about this time in history, I had no idea that this was going on in the South…especially for this long amount of time. While this was fascinating (and sad) to learn about, the story felt uneven to me. I enjoyed the parts of the story set in the past but thought that the section set in the present didn’t add a lot to the overall story.

The story goes between past and present. In the past we hear from Rill in 1939 when she and her siblings are kidnapped off of their shantyboat and forced into a home for children where they are then adopted out new families. In the present, we hear from Avery, a prosecuting attorney who has returned home to help her senator father deal with his cancer. Avery ends up embroiled in a mission to uncover secrets from her family’s past.

I really loved Rill’s parts of the story. She is only twelve when all of this happens, but she struggles so hard to keep her siblings together through miserable conditions. It is heartbreaking to watch this happen and also strangely fascinating that this type of kidnapping and re-adoption was allowed to go on at such large scale for nearly three decades.

The modern day part of the story was less focused and harder to engage with. I didn’t really like Avery, and I didn’t understand why she was so determined to dig into these painful secrets and bring to them light. There was also just too much going on plot-wise in this part of the story that felt unnecessary. You have Avery dealing with trying to spin her family’s involvement in nursing homes in a positive light; we are also dealing with her father’s health issues, and then for some random reason a sort of love story is thrown in in a very haphazard way. The love story is the biggest part that threw me. The whole premise of that was that Avery was already engaged to her best friend, but they just didn’t have that spark, and then she finds a man leading a slower pace of life that she is immediately in love with. I think this was supposed to point to how important it is to slow down and enjoy life? However, there was already a lot going on, and it seemed like too much.

I did appreciate the symmetry of Avery fighting against poor nursing home conditions in the present while she investigates horrible children’s home conditions in the past. Especially since the women she are investigating are involved in both ends of the story. I did not understand the decision of the sisters to try to brush everything under the rug and only meet in secret rather than let their families know they were adopted. I assume this was because it was a different time and genealogy was more important to the wealthy back then.

This was an engaging read and I finished it fairly quickly. I liked the afterward about all the history around this story. I just felt like it needed better editing and a more focused story, especially in the present. The whole thing felt messy to me and wasn’t what I expected from a book that won so many awards and got so much praise.

My Summary (4/5): Overall I enjoyed learning about this event in history. It was horrifying to learn about but fascinating that it went on for so long without anyone doing anything. I loved the parts of the story set in the past, but thought the story set in the present was sloppy and long and needed better editing. There were too many themes and things going on in the present story and that made it feel contrived and unfocused. Will I pick up more books by Wingate? Probably not, I was fascinated to learn about the history here but less impressed with the actual writing.