The Book of Lost Friends - Lisa Wingate                                                                                    (Historical Fiction) 

#Monopoly Book Challenge - Chance - Recommended Book

This story takes place during 2 different time lines. 

One in 1875, after the war but when it was a still difficult time for the people freed from slavery. We meet Hannie, Juneau Jane, & Miss Lavania on a journey to find some stolen inheritance. 

The second timeline is 1987 with a young teacher, Miss Silva who wants to teach the local poor kids about their own history and the importance of keeping the people from the past alive in our hearts.

As with Ms. Wingate's first book,"Before We Were Yours", she brings her characters alive and I found myself in awe of the bravery of the women I met in this book.

Goodreads:Lisa Wingate brings to life stories from actual "Lost Friends" advertisements that appeared in Southern newspapers after the Civil War, as freed slaves desperately searched for loved ones who had been sold off.

Louisiana, 1875 In the tumultuous aftermath of Reconstruction, three young women set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest: Lavinia, the pampered heir to a now-destitute plantation; Juneau Jane, her illegitimate free-born Creole half-sister; and Hannie, Lavinia's former slave. Each carries private wounds and powerful secrets as they head for Texas, following dangerous roads rife with ruthless vigilantes and soldiers still fighting a war lost a decade before. For Lavinia and Juneau Jane, the journey is one of inheritance and financial desperation, but for Hannie, torn from her mother and eight siblings before slavery's end, the pilgrimage westward reignites an agonizing question: Could her long-lost family still be out there? Beyond the swamps lie the seemingly 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, seems suspicious of new ideas and new people, and Benny can scarcely comprehend the lives of her poverty-stricken students. But amid the gnarled oaks and run-down plantation homes lies the century-old history of three young women, a long-ago journey, and a hidden book that could change everything.