New from #1 NYT bestselling author Lisa Wingate
“Dear Readers,
Each time a new book enters the world, it seems as though the most oft-asked question is: How did this story come to be? For me there is always a random spark. The spark that became The Book of Lost Friends came to me in the most modern of ways—via an email from a reader of Before We Were Yours. She thought there was another piece of history I should know about. As a volunteer with the Historic New Orleans Collection, she’d been working to preserve the history of the “Lost Friends” columns, which ran in papers after the Civil War, sending out desperate pleas from people searching for relatives sold away during slavery. The volunteer saw more than just research material.
“There is a story in each one of these ads,” she wrote in her note to me, “their constant love of family and their continued search for loved ones, some they had not seen in over 40 years.” My new novel, The Book of Lost Friends, is the story of three young women—Hannie, formerly enslaved on Goswood Plantation; Lavinia, Goswood’s pampered heir; and Juneau Jane, Lavinia’s Creole half-sister—on a journey in search of family amidst the destruction of the post-war South. It’s also the tale of Benny, a teacher in 1987 who rediscovers their story and its vital connection to her own students’ lives. Hannie and Benny are the sort of remarkable women who built the legacies we enjoy today, women who believed, in some large or small way, that they could improve the world for present and future generations—and took the risks required to make it happen.
May we all do the same in whatever way we can, in all the places we find ourselves.- Lisa Wingate
ABOUT THE BOOK
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours comes a new historical novel: the dramatic story of three young women searching for family amid the destruction of the post–Civil War South, and of a modern-day teacher who learns of their story and its vital connection to her students’ lives.Lisa Wingate brings to life startling stories from actual “Lost Friends” advertisements that appeared in Southern newspapers after the Civil War, as newly freed slaves desperately searched for loved ones who had been sold away. READ MORE »
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