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Lisa Wingate

Biography

Lisa Wingate

Lisa Wingate is a former journalist, an inspirational speaker, and the author of numerous novels, including the #1 New York Times bestseller BEFORE WE WERE YOURS, which has sold more than 2.2 million copies. The co-author, with Judy Christie, of the nonfiction book BEFORE AND AFTER, Wingate is a two-time ACFW Carol Award winner, a Christy Award nominee, an Oklahoma Book Award finalist, and a Southern Book Prize winner. She lives with her husband in North Texas.

Books by Lisa Wingate

by Lisa Wingate - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction

From the 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.

by Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate - History, Nonfiction, True Crime

From the 1920s to 1950, Georgia Tann ran a black-market baby business at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis. She offered up more than 5,000 orphans tailored to the wish lists of eager parents --- hiding the fact that many weren’t orphans at all, but stolen sons and daughters of poor families, desperate single mothers, and women told in maternity wards that their babies had died. The publication of Lisa Wingate’s novel, BEFORE WE WERE YOURS, brought new awareness of Tann’s lucrative career in child trafficking. Encouraged by their contact with Wingate and award-winning journalist Judy Christie, who documented the stories of 15 adoptees in this book, many determined Tann survivors set out to trace their roots and find their birth families.

by Lisa Wingate - Fiction

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, and the children are thrown into an orphanage. Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all. But when she 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 ultimately will lead either to devastation or to redemption.

by Lisa Wingate - Christian, Christian Fiction, Fiction

Restaurant owner Whitney Monroe is desperate to save her business from a hostile takeover. The inheritance of a decaying Gilded Age hotel on North Carolina’s Outer Banks may provide just the ray of hope she needs. But things at the Excelsior are more complicated than they seem. Whitney’s estranged stepfather is entrenched on the third floor, and the downstairs tenants are determined to save the historic building. Searching through years of stored family heirlooms may be Whitney’s only hope of quick cash, but will the discovery of an old necklace and a Depression-era love story change everything?

by Lisa Wingate - Christian, Christian Fiction, Fiction

When successful New York editor Jen Gibbs discovers a decaying slush-pile manuscript on her desk, she has no idea that the story of Sarra, a young mixed-race woman trapped in Appalachia at the turn of the 20th century, will both take her on a journey and change her forever. The search for the rest of the manuscript, and Jen’s suspicions about the identity of its unnamed author, will draw her into a mystery that leads back to the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains…and quite possibly through the doors she thought she had closed forever.

by Lisa Wingate - Christian, Christian Fiction, Fiction, Romance

When Allie Kirkland is offered a production assistant's job on a docudrama filming in the hills near Moses Lake, Texas, the dream of following in her director-father's footsteps suddenly seems within reach. The reenactment of the legendary frontier settlement of Wildwood is a first step into the film industry. But when filming begins, strange connections surface between Allie and a teacher who disappeared over a century ago, and everyone in Wildwood seems to be hiding secrets.

by Lisa Wingate - Christian, Christian Fiction, Fiction

When Iola Anne Poole passes away in her bed at 91, the struggling young mother in her rental cottage, Tandi Jo Reese, finds herself charged with the task of cleaning out Iola’s rambling Victorian house. Running from a messy, dangerous past, Tandi never expects to find more than a temporary hiding place within Iola’s walls. But everything changes with the discovery of 81 carefully decorated prayer boxes, one for each year, spanning from Iola’s youth to her last days.

by Lisa Wingate - Christian, Christian Fiction, Fiction, Romance

Congressional staffer Mallory Hale can't imagine her future without Daniel Everson and his little boy, Nick. So she takes a leap of faith and enters into a marriage that at times reminds her of the mail-order-bride stories. But then she discovers secrets and questions beneath her rosy new life. Can she find answers on Firefly Island, a little chunk of property just off the lakeshore, where mysterious lights glisten at night?

by Lisa Wingate - Christian, Christian Fiction, Fiction, Romance

For Seattle architect Heather Hampton, a trip back to tiny Moses Lake, Texas, is hardly in the plan. Yet because a promotion hinges on the sale of the family farmland, she heads to the last place she ever wanted to go. As her stay lengthens, she discovers a family steeped in secrets and an unexpected connection to a local banker, despite his opposition to her project.