Before We Were Yours

1939 in Memphis. On their Mississippi River shantyboat, twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings have a fantastical existence. However, Rill is left in charge one rainy night when their father has to hurry their mother to the hospital—until strangers show up in force. The Foss children are taken from their comfortable surroundings and placed in an orphanage run by the Tennessee Children's Home Society. They are given hope that their parents will soon come to get them, but they soon come to understand the grim reality. Rill struggles to keep her sisters and brother together in a dangerous and unpredictable environment while being at the mercy of the brutal director of the institution.

Today in Aiken, South Carolina. Avery Stafford, who was raised in an affluent and privileged family, seems to have it all: a fulfilling job as a federal prosecutor, a charming fiance, and an opulent wedding soon. However, after returning home to assist her father during a medical emergency, Avery is left with unsettling concerns and is forced to go on a journey into her family's long-hidden past—a trip that will eventually lead to either destruction or redemption.

Lisa Wingate's gripping, heartbreaking, and ultimately inspiring story, which is based on one of the most well-known real-life scandals in American history—in which Georgia Tann, the director of a Memphis-based adoption organisation, abducted and sold impoverished children to wealthy families across the nation—reminds us that although our paths may lead us in many different directions, our hearts never forget where we belong.