**Mother-daughters book club read for February, 2022.
Note: Also a great book to read for Black History Month!

In 1987, Benedetta Silva arrives in Augustine, LA, to teach English to grades 7-12 in a poor school district. If she can last five years on the job, her student debt will be forgiven. She soon realizes these kids have no interest in reading the books of the approved curriculum and her job is just to keep them contained within the classroom for an hour. She wants more for them. She hatches a plan to have them dig into local history and family genealogy. Maybe this will inspire them to read and write. The kids decide to call the project Tales from the Underground.

In a second timeline set in 1875, we meet Hannie Gossett, one among several sharecroppers who work the land where they were once slaves on the Goswood Grove plantation in Louisiana. They have been promised the land after ten years of labor but Old Mister Gossett has been gone for 4 months now, gone to Texas in search of his ne'er-do-well son Lyle. How can they get their hands on the papers that would prove their claim if something has happened to their old master? Hannie soon learns the master's two daughters are worried too. His illegitimate daughter, Juneau Jane, has come from New Orleans to search for her own inheritance papers. She and Missy Lavinia Gossett, her half-sister and the legitimate family daughter, form a plan to go talk to their father's lawyer. Hannie, overhearing sll this, disguises herself as a boy so she can drive the wagon and come along. Little do they all know that what should have been a short day trip will launch them on an odyssey of survival and discovery.

Interspersed amongst these two storylines are actual ads written to the editor of the Southwestern newspaper by people asking for news and whereabouts of lost family members and friends, once slaves who were sold off and never seen again.

The author writes in the afterword that she learned about the actual 'Lost Friends' column from a reader who emailed that she was a volunteer with the Historic New Orleans Collection, working to preserve the column in a database. These small advertisements are very poignant--a little known piece of history for which we can thank this author for bringing to our attention.

I received an arc off this novel from the publisher via NetGalley in 2020, but unfortunately during the pandemic, I fell way behind in my reading and passed this one by. I suggested it for our book club read so I could rectify that mistake and very happy that I did.

There was so much buzz for Wingate’s previous novel. I still haven’t gotten around to reading it, but I did enjoy this one. While it wasn’t by any means the best book I’ve ever read, it was a well-written and well-crafted story. I will likely now go back and read her other popular novel.

Super late to this, but I was a HUGE fan of Lisa's Before We Were Yours. The Book of Lost friends did not disappoint, and was super excited to read something a bit different from the emotional read that was BWWY.

This is one of those books I will never forget. It changed my entire understanding of the post Civil War era and touched me deeply. Wingate brings to life this tumultuous period by recounting the experiences of individual slaves searching for their lost loved ones. In a second timeline, she describes the lives of their modern descendants in this particular area of Louisiana. Her descriptions of the people and places in both time periods are masterful and mesmerizing. I could not put this engrossing book down, and I was sorry when it ended because the people portrayed had become so real to me. I highly recommend this. This wonderful book would be an excellent choice for a book club.

The Book of Lost Friends is the kind of story that has you thinking about it long after you turn the last page. The characters were so likable and well developed and though I'm not usually a fan of dual timelines, this one was perfectly interwoven. I equally loved both stories and how they connected!

Heartwarming and enjoyable read. Lisa Wingate has yet to let me down with her gift of storytelling. Her characters are always relatable and feel like friends by the time the story is complete.

I couldn’t get into this book enough to finish it. While I loved previous works by this author I could not recommend this one.

I had to DNF this book. I wasn’t a fan of the narration. I do understand that it is period appropriate, however I couldn’t get on board.

I loved Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate, so I jumped at the opportunity to read The Book of Lost Friends. I did not fall in love with this novel as much. While the hidden histories kept my attention, I just was not very invested in the story.

This was a really good book. I thought Benny and Hannie were both great characters, and it was interesting to learn more about this part of US history.

I enjoyed this book, although I must say the past segments seemed much better written than the present ones; they definitely drew me in more. I also found the present segments to be a little bit white savior which was kind of cringe.

This was a great follow up and companion novel to Before We Were Yours. Set before the plot of Before We Were Yours and after with altering perspectives and time frames.

This dives into the lives of the lost children and gives more insight into the little lives that intrigued us from Before We Were Yours.

The alternating POV keeps you wanting more from both time frames and sides of the story and does an excellent job of connecting history and a tragically beautifully written story.

Fans of Before We Were Yours definitely should give this a try.

Three women, one a free slave, two sisters by a white daddy and each a different Mom. , Hannie, Lavina, and Janeau Jane. Hannie has 10 years to work on the plantation before she can claim some land. Lavina and Janeau need to find their Daddy to find out what is in his will. He has disappeared. The three women set out to find him. Lavina is trying to take care of them. They travel far and have many misadventures. The story goes back and forth from the 1800 to the 1900. A teacher in 1987 is trying to piece together the history of the Gossett family. The characters were well developed and it was so easy to become involved in their lives. Beautifully written. Emotional and hard to put down.
I was given an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions are my own.

I've started, stopped and returned to this book multiple times and I just can't get into it. I'm all for a slow burn but the pace is just too slow. Mostly I think I'm struggling to learn about slavery from a white author and don't want to read about yet another white savior.

I knew this book wouldn't disappoint. So glad that I got to read more about this heartbreaking time in History. A true story that was never talked about.

Another new era of historical fiction for me, this book is the story of three young women searching for those they lost. Set after the Civil War, the south is still in upheaval. Modern day times are interspersed as their stories come to light through a series of old newspaper articles.

I was looking forward to this one since I had really enjoyed Before We Were Yours but while I enjoyed it, the story didn’t cut into me like the previous story. I did enjoy learning in about how freed slaves tried to locate family through advertisements.

I have repeatedly tried to start this book and something is just not drawing me in. I truly believe it is just a "not the right book at the right time" thing since so many people have loved this book. I truly am enjoying the present day time line but the past is just not doing it for me. I may pick it up in the future and see if I can get into it then.

I've surprisingly never read Wingate before, but had a friend recommend this book to me and was absolutely intrigued by the summary.

Louisiana in 1875 is told through the perspective of Hannie, the former slave of Lavina, a pampered white woman, who was the daughter of a prominent slave owner during post-Civil War times. Lavina's father has died and left the Gossett family holdings in an uproar. Taking Juneau Jane and Hannie with her, she tries to go the only connection she knows to fix things. This goes poorly and leaves Hannie to be the means of taking things forward for all three women and being the anchor for their survival. Flash forward to Louisiana 1987. Benedetta Silva, a young white woman from the north has come to small town Louisiana looking for a second chance after her failed marriage. Little does she know that she is going to have to truly fight not only to reestablish herself, but also to establish her place as a teacher, but also to find materials for her classroom. Ms. Silva soon finds herself pulled into the social and mysterious workings of the town around the Gossett family and the old house that is owned by her landlord's family. There is also a treasure trove of books that could supplement her classes' library, but what she also finds hidden in the crevices there she was not ready for.

I felt like this story was a continual slow burn. Nothing was done in haste. It took a while for things to get set up and I honestly kind of struggled to get into it. But once the pieces started to be laid down, you really couldn't walk away. It felt like a mixture of a genealogy and history. It was like a genealogical mystery. I was so down with that though. Learning the history of the Gossett family and how everyone within the community was tied to each other was just fascinating. It was very small town, but that lent to the appeal. Of course they know each other! (Someone needs to write a mysteries series like this. A genealogical mystery series. I'm looking at you, Lisa. You could totally do it.)

I think I struggled with the historical section the most. Poor Hannie. She was trying so hard to really be the voice and do the work for three people. I mean she was fierce and determined to survive. But she was running on so little information most of the time. She did it. She made it through. Ultimately, as readers, we learned what we needed to from her sections and it added in the element of the title from her section. It's that link to the history of the town that you needed in a way. To see how ingrained history is in the small town. I just almost felt like at some point Juneau Jane needed to snap back to life at so the story wasn't in Hannie's head as much?

The 1987 sections are what gave this story the most life. I loved almost every part of it. The struggle between Benedetta and the students. Bene trying to learn how to navigate the small town and her own differences. The history of it all coming through. The family power. The books. I just dug it.

I might look for other books by Wingate if she does some history like this otherwise. I did really enjoy it on some level. 3.5

Thank you much!

A very interesting concept that I had no idea existed. For me this started out slow, which was disappointing. It had all the elements of a great story especially for historical fiction fans. It toggles back and forth in time between Hannie and Benny. Hannie’s viewpoint was the one I had trouble getting into and I think it was the vernacular used for that time period. All in all it ended up satisfying me. The injustices people endure in the story are painful realities unfortunately. All opinions are my own. #NetGalley #TheBookOfLostFriends