--- product_id: 107426026 title: "Before We Were Yours: A Novel" price: "1.18 OMR" currency: OMR in_stock: false reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.com.om/products/107426026-before-we-were-yours-a-novel store_origin: OM region: Oman --- # Before We Were Yours: A Novel **Price:** 1.18 OMR **Availability:** ❌ Out of Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Before We Were Yours: A Novel - **How much does it cost?** 1.18 OMR with free shipping - **Is it available?** Currently out of stock - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.com.om](https://www.desertcart.com.om/products/107426026-before-we-were-yours-a-novel) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description THE BLOCKBUSTER HIT—Over two million copies sold! A New York Times , USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller “Poignant, engrossing.”— People • “Lisa Wingate takes an almost unthinkable chapter in our nation’s history and weaves a tale of enduring power.”—Paula McLain Look for Lisa Wingate’s powerful new historical novel, The Book of Lost Friends, available now! Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty. Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption. Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong. Publishers Weekly’s #3 Longest-Running Bestseller of 2017 • Winner of the Southern Book Prize • If All Arkansas Read the Same Book Selection This edition includes a new essay by the author about shantyboat life. Review: Heartwrenching story that I could barely put down - This is a story of 5 siblings, especially the oldest sister Rill, who try to stay together after they are kidnapped from their shanty boat home by agents of one of the most prolific human traffickers in US history. In the story, their love for each other and desire and attempts to protect one another are both heartwarming and heart wrenching. Thankfully the ending is heartwarming and not tragic, because I don't think I could have handled a tragic ending to a book that already had so much heartbreak. If you love children, this is a very difficult story to read. I personally believe that there is a special place in hell for people who harm children. The part that makes this story so awful is that the Tennessee Children's Home Society was a real place, and Georgia Tann was a real person who trafficked an estimated 5,000 kidnapped children in for profit adoption schemes that lined her own pockets. She preyed on the socioeconomically poor parents that she stole the children from, but also on the adoptive parents that probably desperately wanted children. And I'm sure that the vast majority of them were fed a pack of lies by Georgia Tann and legitimately believed they were adopting children that had no other family in the world. She also preyed on the children themselves, forcing them to live in dangerous, unsanitary and often abusive conditions. It's just disgusting. On further research about Georgia Tann, it appears that she held to the belief that there were two kinds of people: the poor, whom she viewed as incompetent parents, and the wealthy. She fattened her own purse in the process. For DECADES. "She just thought that she knew better than God." One survivor reunited with her birth parents stated: "The Bible says you're not supposed to hate anybody, but I'll tell you, if that woman was still living . . . all those people she did this to, all the suffering she caused for money. And she couldn't take a dime of it with her." The writing is compelling and the children are wonderfully developed. I just wanted to give Rill a hug and tell her she was amazing for trying so hard to be a good big sister and to look out for the little ones. They try so hard to be resilient and look out for one another in the worst of circumstances. I pray that my kids would stick together like that, god willing they will never be in situation where they are permanently separated from family. The people on the river and the Seviers are also wonderful to read about. The one thing I could have done without was the half baked love triangle with Avery. After the 3rd Avery chapter, I just started flipping through those parts because they were so irrelevant to the rest of the story. This was a single-day read for me because it was so compelling. I just had to see how it ended. I cried for Gabion, he reminded me so much of my baby. I'm glad it ended the way it did. Review: Before We Were Yours is both sad and riveting - I was mesmerized by this story. Things this cruel and inhumane should not happen anywhere. And yet it did. Lisa Wingate weaves a remarkable story about a fictional family who experienced what real families did in the 1930’s to1950’s under the cruel guise of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society and Georgia Tann. The tale is weaved back and forth between present day and the stories being unraveled from the past. I am glad I read the book and recommend it to anyone who likes learning about history in a novel. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #10,212 in Kindle Store ( See Top 100 in Kindle Store ) #434 in American Literature (Books) #1,317 in Contemporary Fiction (Kindle Store) #5,870 in Literature & Fiction (Kindle Store) | ## Images ![Before We Were Yours: A Novel - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81PO2ZUxnTL.jpg) ## Available Options This product comes in different **Media Language, Media Format** options. ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Heartwrenching story that I could barely put down *by K***R on April 3, 2019* This is a story of 5 siblings, especially the oldest sister Rill, who try to stay together after they are kidnapped from their shanty boat home by agents of one of the most prolific human traffickers in US history. In the story, their love for each other and desire and attempts to protect one another are both heartwarming and heart wrenching. Thankfully the ending is heartwarming and not tragic, because I don't think I could have handled a tragic ending to a book that already had so much heartbreak. If you love children, this is a very difficult story to read. I personally believe that there is a special place in hell for people who harm children. The part that makes this story so awful is that the Tennessee Children's Home Society was a real place, and Georgia Tann was a real person who trafficked an estimated 5,000 kidnapped children in for profit adoption schemes that lined her own pockets. She preyed on the socioeconomically poor parents that she stole the children from, but also on the adoptive parents that probably desperately wanted children. And I'm sure that the vast majority of them were fed a pack of lies by Georgia Tann and legitimately believed they were adopting children that had no other family in the world. She also preyed on the children themselves, forcing them to live in dangerous, unsanitary and often abusive conditions. It's just disgusting. On further research about Georgia Tann, it appears that she held to the belief that there were two kinds of people: the poor, whom she viewed as incompetent parents, and the wealthy. She fattened her own purse in the process. For DECADES. "She just thought that she knew better than God." One survivor reunited with her birth parents stated: "The Bible says you're not supposed to hate anybody, but I'll tell you, if that woman was still living . . . all those people she did this to, all the suffering she caused for money. And she couldn't take a dime of it with her." The writing is compelling and the children are wonderfully developed. I just wanted to give Rill a hug and tell her she was amazing for trying so hard to be a good big sister and to look out for the little ones. They try so hard to be resilient and look out for one another in the worst of circumstances. I pray that my kids would stick together like that, god willing they will never be in situation where they are permanently separated from family. The people on the river and the Seviers are also wonderful to read about. The one thing I could have done without was the half baked love triangle with Avery. After the 3rd Avery chapter, I just started flipping through those parts because they were so irrelevant to the rest of the story. This was a single-day read for me because it was so compelling. I just had to see how it ended. I cried for Gabion, he reminded me so much of my baby. I'm glad it ended the way it did. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Before We Were Yours is both sad and riveting *by L***1 on August 10, 2026* I was mesmerized by this story. Things this cruel and inhumane should not happen anywhere. And yet it did. Lisa Wingate weaves a remarkable story about a fictional family who experienced what real families did in the 1930’s to1950’s under the cruel guise of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society and Georgia Tann. The tale is weaved back and forth between present day and the stories being unraveled from the past. I am glad I read the book and recommend it to anyone who likes learning about history in a novel. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ I WAS ON THE EDGE OF MY SEAT *by M***N on December 4, 2020* SUCH A BENEFICIAL READ! Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate offered a very real depiction of the infamous Tennessee Children’s Home Society. Within this historical fiction, the terror these children endured in real life is brought to life and shown within a much larger context. This novel is the perfect Young Adult read and engroses its reader in the mysterious tale. With the story being told through multiple points of view, it leaves you constantly on the edge of your seat and ready to solve the puzzle. Although you can see where the tale is headed by midpoint in the book, you won’t know for sure until the end. This alone makes the book hard to put down. The idea behind the book is a true story, making it ideal for those interested in true crime and survivor stories. In conjunction with the main story, the personal backgrounds for the characters makes the story more complex and lends itself to the ability to be believed as a true story. The small details included by Wingate make the novel easy to understand, yet enticing. While this book is a New York Times Bestseller, and that often discourages me from reading, I actually believe this novel deserves the title, as it does justice to the true stories of child trafficking in the 50s. Oftentimes I find it difficult to follow along in books that are not only told from multiple perspectives, but also multiple time periods. However, the flow of this novel was very smooth and effortlessly alternated between narrators. If you are interested in this format of fiction but are unsure where to start, I think that this book is the place to begin. On top of the amazing writing style, the characters were easy to relate to. Avery’s hectic lifestyle and longing for truth make it impossible not to fall in love with the character. Additionally, the sympathy you feel for Rill is immaculate and makes having empathy for fictional characters easy to understand. The three leading women in the novel have such a strong connection to one another in the end of the novel, and makes the 300+ pages fly by. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.com.om/products/107426026-before-we-were-yours-a-novel](https://www.desertcart.com.om/products/107426026-before-we-were-yours-a-novel) --- *Product available on Desertcart Oman* *Store origin: OM* *Last updated: 2026-09-01*