Very dark at times but very good ( )

This was a heartbreaking book, even though some things are resolved in the end.

The story is read by two narrators who each voice a character telling the tale of the real-life Tennessee Children's Home Society, an adoption agency in Memphis, which notoriously used kidnapping and lies to steal poor children from their parents and essentially sell them to wealthy parents from the 1920's to 1950.

The earlier timeline relates the story of fictional twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings who live aboard their family’s Mississippi River shanty boat. In 1939, their father must rush their mother to the hospital, and Rill is left in charge. The next morning, Memphis police (the director of the orphanage paid police to round up children for her) arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are told they will soon be returned to their parents, but it doesn't take long for the two older children, Rill and ten-year-old Camellia, to realize the awful truth -- there is no getting out of what is essentially a prison. The children are slowly broken apart and given up for adoption to wealthy families in other parts of the country.

The later story tells the tale of Avery Stafford, a successful prosecutor who has recently returned to Aiken, SC to help out her ill father and his Senate campaign. While visiting a nursing home with her father, she stumbles upon a mystery involving a woman who claims to know her grandmother. Avery's story isn't as interesting and her part of the narration drags in places. But it serves to bring the story of the Foss children up to the present day, while also telling the dark history of the Tennessee Children's Home Society.

The narrator who voiced Rill was fantastic -- I felt the story was greatly improved by her narration. Avery's narrator wasn't as good, but she told Avery's story well. I sometimes wished I could have read those parts, since I read faster to myself than she could narrate, and I wanted to get back to Rill's story as fast as I could.

All in all, a good book and I give it 4 stars in LibraryThing, though I gave it 5 stars on Audible. ( )

Wow is all I can say about this book this has by far been the best book I have read. I have read plenty of books but this one was the best I don’t even have words for this book although the people in the book or fictional the stories are real and they’re based on true story. It is unbelievable that Georgia tan was able to get away with what she did for so many years all those children that died and were never reunited with their parents all those children’s given two homes that missed treated them all those children that were molestedAnd beat it’s so sad so many parts of this book brought so many tears to my eyes makes me look at my own children and just want to hang onto them so tight and never let them go because there are some weirdPeople in this world I don’t want to give away any more spoilers because I’m sure there’s a Tonna people that have not read this book yet but for those of you who read it you know what I’m talking about. ( )

This was a very good book about a difficult subject; the stealing of children to have them adopted out for profit. What started in 1930 and ends in modern times, this fictional story about a real event is very well done and well researched. I knew about the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, but not to the depth this book told. It is difficult to read in spots - no one wants to read about child abuse - but Lisa Wingate was tasteful and articulate and drove her points home without being overly graphic.

I would recommend this book. ( )

This book tells the stories of Rill Foss and Avery Stafford. Rill is a young girl growing up on the Mississippi River in 1939. Through an unfortunate series of events, she and her siblings are placed in the Tennessee Children's Home orphanage. Avery Stafford is a privileged young woman who has recently moved back to Aiken, SC to help her parents out. She stumbles across a mystery involving her grandmother on her paternal side which leads her to uncover Rill's story.

This book is based on actual events. The stories of Rill and Avery are fiction but some of the facts around the Tennessee Children's Home are factual. The kidnapping and eventual adoption of these "orphan" children was organized by Georgia Tann, Director. She had lots of influential people that looked the other way until she was eventually closed the center down after a state investigation into numerous instances of adoption fraud. ( )