Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

I had a hard time with this one!!  Not your typical historical fiction, even though the bookseller told me it was the best HF novel to come out all year.

This is well written, split between two time frames, and yes, historical fiction grounded in truth.  There really was a Tennessee Children's Home Society and there really was a Ms. Georgia Tann.  What she did to families in the decades she ran that "home", and how those children were treated, is a blight in American history for sure.

Here, Wingate brings to life one fictional family destroyed by the deception of Tann.  When mother Queenie is taken to the hospital during a life threatening delivery of twins, she and her husband leave their other five children on their river boat and tell them to stay together.  Hours later, representatives from the children's home show up and take the kids - planning to "auction" them off, and appreciative of their blond curls - they will bring in higher bids.

I found this a difficult read.  I was terrified of child abuse, which I just cannot read about.  It was heartbreaking, even in the anticipation of whether or not it would happen.  These kids are beaten, harshly treated, and starved before being sold off to the highest bidder.  Most of the parents are conned into signing adoption papers and they have no idea they've just signed away their parental rights.  It happened, and it made me sick.  But for the main characters, there is a happy ending, rest assured.  It is just not the ending that their beginning foretold.

The alternating chapters set in the current day helped alleviate my stress though. The story of Avery Stafford, federal prosecutor and daughter of a Senator with an eye for his seat when he retires, is a good one.  She stumbles on some half information which leads her on a secret search to learn the truth about her grandmother's life.  And it totally changes her own.  Nature or nurture??  That is the question.

IF you liked Orphan Train, this book is in the same vein, so the story itself is truly fascinating.  That this sort of thing went on unchecked is unthinkable these days.  But it did, and it changed the course of history for many a child and many a family.  Records were destroyed and names were changed so that even when records were reopened decades later it was near impossible to trace lost loved ones.  Some remain a mystery here; some are solved.  Just like real life.  Wingate ends it well, with a few things left to wonder about.  Again, a tough read, but certainly well done.

And for once, I LOVED the cover.  Very appropriate for the story.

The Barrowfields by Phillip Lewis

News flash - this might be my new favorite book of the year.

I found it hard to believe that this is Lewis' first book.  His command of the English language is like nothing I have seen since Pat Conroy -I had to carry around a dictionary for Conroy and I wanted to carry around a dictionary with Lewis' book too. That is a good thing to my mind.  Lewis' writing style is very descriptive without overdoing it - sometimes impossible especially for a southern writer!  He is concise, yet quietly paints the reader a picture not only what the eye can see, but of what the heart can feel.

The story is about family, about a father and son who live parallel lives, always in dread.  Wait, that sounds depressing!  But this story, while a tiny bit dark or even gothic in places, was not depressing for me.  It was fascinating.  Henry grows up in a small remote NC town where his father is a brilliant lawyer but spends most of his time locked away trying to write his Great American Novel.  Henry is a great big brother to his sister Threnody, and reads to her every night.    The book goes back in time to describe how Henry's parents met, and takes Henry on through his life in college and beyond, and his relationship with the girl called Story, who of course has a story of her own.  Henry's father's disappearance when Henry is 15 is a turning point for Henry, as it should be, but becomes a much greater plot point when we finally learn what really happened to his father.  Henry's reluctance to return home, for years at the time, became a troubled spot for me as a reader - it seemed out of character but I think was necessary for Henry's state of mind.  And the second half of the book, focusing on Story, seemed almost another book in itself - the second or third chapter if you will in Henry's life.  The mystery of her family almost overshadows Henry's past!

My favorite lines:  "It took them less than a day to move in and the rest of their lives to leave."

"We left her there, where her magnificent heart diminished."

My favorite new words:  fuliginous...deliquesce....cataleptic....malefic....illimitable....erubescent....

(At one point, a character mentions the undulant lake - then makes fun of his own use of the word!  I loved it!  Wink!!)

If you enjoy beautiful writing, an engrossing story of family, loss, secrets, abandonment, growth, forgiveness and love, this is the book for you.  I can't wait to read Lewis' other books.  I am sure there will be many.  I was lucky enough to meet Mr. Lewis at our book club meeting last month, and I assure you he is a fantastic story teller, with a wicked and quick sense of humor that you don't see much of in this novel, so I hope he lets that spark shine through in another book.  He had us all in stitches as he discussed the book, the publishing process, and the many many many many edits he had to go through.  (The only one they missed was when Beth Ann said "you guys."  Hello, she is from Mississippi, y'all!!!!)  We thoroughly enjoyed the evening with him and look forward to having him come again with his second book, which is currently rattling around in his head.  Whoo hoo!