This pair of interwoven storylines by Lisa Wingate is well written but often hard to read for a couple of reasons. The subject matter of slavery and the continuing horrors of the "post-slavery/ Reconstruction" period is emotionally stressful. The other aspect of the book I found annoying was the constant back and forth between the stories narrated by Hannie Gossett who is a freed slave in her late teens and the more contemporary story of Benny Silva, a new teacher in a small Louisiana town working at a poor and largely minority-student school. It's not that this is an uncommon approach to story telling, but the transitions seemed so frequent that I would just be getting engrossed in one storyline and then get jerked into the other. Library Journal summarizes the starting point for this story: "After the Civil War, the Southern Christian Advocate, a newspaper for the African American community distributed throughout the South, included a column called "Lost Friends" that allowed individuals to advertise for information about missing loved ones, generally sold off or stolen before or during the war. That column is the inspiration for this enthralling and ultimately heartening new novel from Wingate..." They go on to praise this book, saying "Emphasizing throughout that stories matter and should never go untold, Wingate has written an absorbing historical for many readers." Similarly, Booklist states that Wingate "makes history come alive with the dual tale of formerly enslaved Hannie Gossett in 1875 and Benedetta "Benny" Silva in 1987...Historical fiction fans will appreciate the authentic articles and the connection between modern times and the past, while adventure lovers will enjoy a voyage reminiscent of Huckleberry Finn."
On the other hand, Publishers Weekly did not provide a positive review, concluding, "This underwhelming tale is sunk by its surfeit of deficiencies." To her credit as an author of historical fiction, Wingate offers sources for follow up, such as: over 2500 real-life Lost Friends ads in the Lost Friends Database: https://www.hnoc.org/database/lost-friends/index.html
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