Before We Were Yours

Based upon the infamous Tennessee Children's Home Society child trafficking racket, this is a heartrending tale of two girls, two generations, and the power of family love. Twelve-year-old Rill is snatched from her riverboat home and forced into the institution, along with her four siblings, in 1939. Collusion between orphanage officials and the police in Memphis, from 1920 to 1950, enabled the forcible taking of poor children, who were adopted by wealthy families. Avery Stafford, born two generations later to an influential South Carolina family, with a U.S. senator for a father, is a successful lawyer and her father's presumptive heir to the Senate. When an elderly woman in Avery's grandmother's nursing home mistakes her for someone else, her curiosity is aroused. Avery explores the older woman's history only to find that her family may harbor a shameful secret. Teens will identify with Rill as she navigates a cruel, abusive, adult world and cheer her desperate yet doomed efforts to keep her siblings safe. Avery is a sympathetic character as she grapples with often suffocating family expectations and an emerging attraction for a man who is not her fiancé. The narrative moves between characters and eras, heightening emotions and suspense and leading to a satisfying redemption.