Book Review: The Book of Lost Friends

 The Book of Lost Friends

A Novel

by Lisa Wingate

 Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine 

Ballantine Books

 Historical Fiction 

Pub Date 07 Apr 2020

I am reviewing a copy of The Book of Lost Friends through Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine Books and Netgalley:

Lisa Wingate does it again, creating a powerful novel, set in dual times, that leaves you feeling as if you are there amongst the characters.

Based on the actual Lost Friends advertisements placed in Newspapers by Freed Slaves after the Civil War, during the reconstruction period, once again Lisa Wingate’s brings voices from the past to life, though this is a fictionalized account the Lost Friends advertisements placed in Newspapers were very real.

This book takes place in both 1870’s Louisiana, and 1980’s Louisiana.

During the tumultuous aftermath of the Reconstruction, in Louisiana 1875, three young women unwillingly set off as companions on a dangerous quest, Laivina, the pampered heir to a plantation that is now destitute, Juneau Jane, Laivina’s freeborn, creole half-sister and  Hannie Laivinia’s former slave.  They each carry private wounds and powerful secrets as they head for Texas.  They follow dangerous roads with ruthless vigilantes as well as soldiers still fighting a war they had lost a decade before.  For Laivina and Juneau Jane the trip is one for inheritance out of financial desperation.  For Hannie who was torn from her Mother and eight siblings before the end of slavery it may answer the question she has been agonizing over.  Could her family still be out there?  Could they find hope in the limitless frontiers of Texas?

In 1987 Louisiana, Benedette Silva has landed a subsidized job at a poor rural school, a job she hopes will help pay for her large college debts, But when she lands in this tiny river town that is out of step.  The people of Augustine Louisiana do not easily embrace new comers with new ideas.  And Benny cannot even begin to imagine what life is like for her poverty stricken students, many of whom come to school hungry.  But in this setting amidst snarled oaks and run down plantations, lies the history of three women from a century prior, and there stories just may change everything.

I give the Book of Lost Friends five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!