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CKD (37 KP) rated Before We Were Yours in Books

Dec 7, 2018

Before We Were Yours

Lisa Wingate | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry

8.6

(11 Ratings)

Book Rating

This book tells the stories of Rill Foss and Avery Stafford. Rill is a young girl growing up on the Mississippi River in 1939. Through an unfortunate series of events, she and her siblings are placed in the Tennessee Children's Home orphanage. Avery Stafford is a privileged young woman who has recently moved back to Aiken, SC to help her parents out. She stumbles across a mystery involving her grandmother on her paternal side which leads her to uncover Rill's story.

This book is based on actual events. The stories of Rill and Avery are fiction but some of the facts around the Tennessee Children's Home are factual. The kidnapping and eventual adoption of these "orphan" children was organized by Georgia Tann, Director. She had lots of influential people that looked the other way until she was eventually closed the center down after a state investigation into numerous instances of adoption fraud.

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David McK (3752 KP) rated Pirata in Books

Jan 28, 2020

Pirata

Simon Scarrow, TJ Andrews | 2020 | Fiction & Poetry

7.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

Originally published as a series of five novellas, this - as such, and very much like the previous collaboration of these two authors (Invader - is a distinct multi-part book, made up of the following five parts:

Pirata: The Black Flag
Pirata: The Gates of Stone
Pirata: Hunters of the Sea
Pirata: Sea of Blood
Pirata: The Pirate Chief

As such, each of the five parts have their own distinct start, middle and end, with the series - as a whole -following the orphan Telemachus as he initially joins a merchant vessel before becoming a pirate and (perhaps too) swiftly rising through the ranks - I say perhaps too swiftly as that is my main criticism of the novel, with Telemachus - despite having lived his life on the streets of Piraeus - suddenly, and in a very short time, taking to the life of a pirate at sea.

An enjoyable enough diversion, but not as good - IMO - as Scarrow's Macro and Cato series of novels