April 7, 2020
 April 7, 2020 This Bookreporter.com Special Newsletter spotlights a book that we know people will be talking about this spring. Read more about it, and enter our Spring Preview Contest by Wednesday, April 8th at 11:59am ET for a chance to win one of five copies of THE BOOK OF LOST FRIENDS by Lisa Wingate, which is now available. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!  Today's Featured Book and Contest:  From the #1 New York Times 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. Bestselling author 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. Louisiana, 1875: In the tumultuous era of Reconstruction, three young women set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest: Hannie, a freed slave; Lavinia, the pampered heir to a now-destitute plantation; and Juneau Jane, Lavinia’s Creole half sister. Each carries private wounds and powerful secrets as they head for Texas, following roads rife with vigilantes and soldiers still fighting a war lost a decade before. For Lavinia and Juneau Jane, the journey is one of stolen inheritance and financial desperation, but for Hannie, torn from her mother and siblings before slavery’s end, the pilgrimage west reignites an agonizing question: Could her long-lost family still be out there? Beyond the swamps lie the limitless frontiers of Texas and, improbably, hope. Louisiana, 1987: For first-year teacher Benedetta Silva, a subsidized job at a poor rural school seems like the ticket to canceling her hefty student debt --- until she lands in a tiny, out-of-step Mississippi River town. Augustine, Louisiana, is suspicious of new ideas and new people, and Benny can scarcely comprehend the lives of her poverty-stricken students. But amid the gnarled live oaks and run-down plantation homes lie the century-old history of three young women, a long-ago journey and a hidden book that could change everything. Click here to enter the contest This is a special newsletter for our Spring Preview contests, which will mail on select days through April 23rd. This newsletter is separate from our weekly Bookreporter.com newsletter, which mails every Friday. You can subscribe to that newsletter here. Please visit the other websites in TheBookReportNetwork.com: ReadingGroupGuides.com, Teenreads.com, Kidsreads.com and AuthorsOnTheWeb.com. |
