NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER INDIE NEXT BESTSELLER For readers of Orphan Train and The Nightingale comes a "thought-provoking [and] complex tale about two families, two generations apartβ¦based on a notorious true-life scandal" (Library Journal).
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 chargeβuntil 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 parentsβbut 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.
Based on one of America's most notorious real-life scandalsβin which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the countryβLisa 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.
© 2003-2026