Summary for Before We Were Yours

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice. Set in Memphis in 1939, Before We Were Strangers tells the heartbreaking and gripping story of twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings. The Foss family lives a carefree life aboard their shantyboat on the Mississippi River until a sudden storm sends their mother to the hospital, leaving Rill in charge. However, their lives are turned upside down when strangers arrive and forcibly take them to the Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage. At first, they’re promised that they will soon be reunited with their parents, but Rill quickly discovers the horrifying truth. The orphanage, under the cruel direction of Georgia Tann, is a place of abuse and exploitation, where children are stolen and sold to wealthy families. Rill fights desperately to keep her siblings together in a world full of danger and uncertainty. In the present day, Avery Stafford, a successful federal prosecutor from South Carolina, has a perfect life on the surface. She is engaged to a handsome man and has a promising career, but when she returns home to care for her ailing father, a chance encounter leads her to uncover unsettling truths about her family’s hidden history. As Avery digs deeper into the past, she embarks on a journey that will uncover a dark chapter in her family’s legacy, one that leads her to confront painful truths and ultimately find redemption. Inspired by the real-life scandal involving Georgia Tann, who kidnapped and sold poor children through the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, Wingate’s novel is both a historical revelation and an emotional exploration of family, loss, and the search for belonging. The book’s powerful themes of love, betrayal, and redemption remind us that, no matter the twists and turns in life, the heart never forgets where it truly belongs.