by Lisa Wingate
Published May 2020
387 pages
The book is from the author of ‘Before We Were Yours’ and it tells an important story based on real life mostly long forgotten. The stories hook you from the first sentence. And then it takes you on a ride you won’t soon forget. Chapters switch between the voices of two strong women who live in a world more than a century apart – with cliffhangers to urge you on to the next part.
It’s the story of Hannie in Louisiana in 1875, a freed slave who has watched her family disappear before her very eyes during slavery. As each sibling disappears, her mother chants the facts of where and when and who, instructing her to always remember. She is the only one left to keep the names, and seizes the unexpected opportunity to search for her lost family.
It’s also the story of Benny, a first year teacher in 1987 who accepts a position in the poor, under-served community of Augustine, Louisiana in order to cancel her hefty student loans. Her only mandate from the school board is to keep the students contained in her classroom until the bell rings.
In a nearby deserted plantation house, she finds a logbook with a map of the slave cemetery that takes up a field near her rental. This document has recorded the history of the people who built the town, white and black. After she discovers the story of this small Mississippi River town, she inspires her students to explore their ancestry.
You must read this book!
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