Author Guide · Historical Fiction
Books Written by
Between 1920 and 1950, officials of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, working with the Memphis police, took children from poor families and placed them for adoption with wealthy ones. Lisa Wingate, a former journalist from Oklahoma who had been publishing small-town and Christian novels since 2001, turned that scandal into Before We Were Yours (2017). It reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list, won the Goodreads Choice Award for historical fiction and the Southern Book Prize, and has been translated into more than forty languages. Her later novels follow the same pattern: a forgotten piece of Southern history, told through a child then and a woman now. This guide covers her eight key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 8 key books · 2001–2024 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Lisa Wingate has written more than thirty novels and novellas. Her best-known book is Before We Were Yours (2017), followed by The Book of Lost Friends (2020) and Shelterwood (2024); her earlier work includes Tending Roses (2001) and The Prayer Box (2013). Start with Before We Were Yours. Read on for the true history behind it and how her earlier Christian fiction fits in.
Where to Start with Lisa Wingate
If you want her defining book
→ Before We Were Yours (2017) — the Tennessee Children’s Home Society scandal.
If you want the true stories behind it
→ Before and After (2019) — the survivors themselves, in non-fiction.
If you want Reconstruction-era history
→ The Book of Lost Friends (2020) — three women on the road to Texas in 1875.
If you want her earlier, faith-centred fiction
→ The Prayer Box (2013) — the Outer Banks and a box of handwritten prayers.
8 Lisa Wingate Books, in Order
Tending Roses
Her first novel. Kate Bowman moves with her husband and baby son to her grandmother’s farm in Missouri, sent by her family to persuade Grandma Rose, increasingly stubborn and forgetful, to go into a nursing home. She finds her grandmother’s handmade journal of family stories, which changes how she sees both of them. It opened a five-book series.
The Prayer Box
When Iola Anne Poole, ninety-one, dies in her Victorian house on Hatteras Island, her tenant Tandi Jo Reese, a young mother running from a dangerous past, is asked to clear the house. She finds eighty-one decorated prayer boxes full of Iola’s handwritten notes. The first of the Carolina Heirlooms novels, published by Tyndale.
The Story Keeper
Jen Gibbs, an editor in New York, finds an unfinished manuscript in the slush pile: the story of Sarra, a young mixed-race woman in the Blue Ridge Mountains at the turn of the twentieth century. Searching for the rest of it, and its author, draws her back to the Appalachian family she left. It also won the Carol Award in 2015.
The Sea Keeper’s Daughters
Whitney Monroe, a restaurant owner on the edge of failure, inherits a decaying Gilded Age hotel on Roanoke Island, together with an estranged stepfather living on its third floor. Looking for heirlooms to sell, she finds an old necklace and a Depression-era love story linked to the folklore writers of the WPA. The last of the Carolina Heirlooms novels.
Before We Were Yours
In 1939 twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four siblings are taken from their family’s riverboat home and placed in a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage. In the present day Avery Stafford, a lawyer from a prominent South Carolina family and her father’s likely successor in the Senate, meets an old woman in a nursing home who mistakes her for someone else. It won the 2017 Goodreads Choice Award for historical fiction and the 2018 Southern Book Prize for Southern fiction.
Before and After
Written with the journalist Judy Christie, a non-fiction companion to Before We Were Yours: the true stories of people taken by the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, some of whom found their birth families decades later. It was a finalist for the 2019 Goodreads Choice Award in history and biography.
The Book of Lost Friends
In 1875 Hannie Gossett, freed from slavery, travels from Louisiana towards Texas with Lavinia, the heir of a ruined plantation, and her Creole half-sister Juneau Jane, while searching for her own lost family. In 1987 Benny Silva, a first-year teacher in Augustine, Louisiana, sets her pupils to uncover their story. It draws on the real “Lost Friends” advertisements formerly enslaved people placed in a newspaper after the Civil War.
Shelterwood
In 1990 Valerie Boren-Odell, a law enforcement ranger at a national park in Oklahoma, investigates when the hidden burial site of three children is found in a cave. In 1909 eleven-year-old Ollie Radley flees an abusive stepfather with six-year-old Nessa into the Winding Stair Mountains. The novel was inspired partly by a 1909 newspaper report of “elf children” living in a hollow tree in eastern Oklahoma.
In What Order to Read Lisa Wingate
Her career falls into two halves. From 2001 to 2015 she wrote contemporary series fiction, much of it published as Christian fiction: small-town Texas stories and the Carolina Heirlooms novels set on the Outer Banks. Each series can be read in order, but most books stand on their own. From 2017 she has written standalone historical novels for a general readership, each built on a real episode from Southern or Western history.
There is no need to read in publication order. Start with Before We Were Yours, then read Before and After if you want the real people behind it. The Book of Lost Friends and Shelterwood use the same two-timeline structure.
A reading path
1. Before We Were Yours (2017)
2. Before and After (2019)
3. The Book of Lost Friends (2020)
4. Shelterwood (2024)
5. The Prayer Box (2013)
Everything Else Lisa Wingate Published
Beyond the 8 key books: 21 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Tending Roses series
4
4 books · 2003–2007
- 2003Good Hope Roadbook two
- 2005The Language of Sycamoresbook three
- 2006Drenched in Lightbook four
- 2007A Thousand Voicesbook five
Texas Hill Country series
3
3 books · 2003–2005
- 2003Texas Cookingbook one
- 2004Lone Star Cafebook two
- 2005Over the Moon at the Big Lizard Dinerbook three
Daily, Texas series
3
3 books · 2008–2010
- 2008Talk of the Townbook one
- 2009Word Gets Aroundbook two
- 2010Never Say Neverbook three
Blue Sky Hill series
4
4 books · 2008–2011
- 2008A Month of Summerbook one
- 2009The Summer Kitchenbook two
- 2010Beyond Summerbook three
- 2011Dandelion Summerbook four
Moses Lake series
4
4 books · 2011–2014
- 2011Larkspur Covebook one
- 2012Blue Moon Baybook two
- 2013Firefly Islandbook three
- 2014Wildwood Creekbook four
Carolina Heirlooms novellas
3
3 books · 2013–2015
- 2013The Sea Glass Sistersnovella, before The Prayer Box
- 2014The Tidewater Sistersnovella
- 2015The Sandcastle Sisternovella
The years · 1965–2024
Quick facts about Lisa Wingate
- Known for
- Lisa Wingate is known for historical novels that bring forgotten episodes of American history, above all the Tennessee Children’s Home Society adoption scandal, to a wide readership.
- 1965
- Born in Germany; grows up in Oklahoma
- 2001
- First novel, Tending Roses
- 2024
- Shelterwood
- Born
- 1965, Germany; raised in Oklahoma
- Education
- Oklahoma State University, BA in technical English
- Before novels
- Journalist, and technical and curriculum writer for Oklahoma’s vocational-technical department
- Married
- Sam Wingate, in 1988; they have two sons
- Lives
- Texas and Colorado
- Honours
- Goodreads Choice Award (2017), Southern Book Prize (2018), Christy Awards (2015, 2016)
The red mark is 2017: Before We Were Yours, her novel about the Tennessee Children’s Home Society.
How Lisa Wingate Writes: Two Timelines and a Real Record
Almost every book since The Prayer Box is built on two timelines that meet at the end: a girl or young woman in the past, and a woman in the present who uncovers her story. Rill Foss in 1939 and Avery Stafford now; Hannie Gossett in 1875 and Benny Silva in 1987; Ollie Radley in 1909 and Valerie Boren-Odell in 1990. The present-day woman usually has something to lose by finding out.
The past half starts from a real record. Before We Were Yours comes from the Tennessee Children’s Home Society scandal, The Book of Lost Friends from newspaper notices placed by people searching for family sold away before the Civil War, Shelterwood from Oklahoma newspaper reports and official records of the early 1900s. With Before and After she went back to the real survivors.
Her first fifteen years were in Christian and inspirational fiction, and it shows in the later books. Children in danger and families broken by law or money are the recurring subjects, but she keeps the endings open to repair. In a 2024 interview she said: “For me, hope is the most important element in stories and in life.”
Frequently asked questions about Lisa Wingate’s books
How many books has Lisa Wingate written?
More than thirty novels and novellas. This page lists 29 titles: the eight key books, from Tending Roses (2001) to Shelterwood (2024), including the non-fiction Before and After, plus 21 books in her series.
What are Lisa Wingate’s books in order?
The key books are Tending Roses (2001), The Prayer Box (2013), The Story Keeper (2014), The Sea Keeper’s Daughters (2015), Before We Were Yours (2017), Before and After (2019), The Book of Lost Friends (2020) and Shelterwood (2024). Her series books are listed in the bibliography above.
Where should I start with Lisa Wingate?
Before We Were Yours (2017). It is her best-known book and the clearest example of the two-timeline historical novel she has written since.
What is Lisa Wingate’s most famous book?
Before We Were Yours, a number one New York Times bestseller that, according to her publisher, has sold more than three million copies and been translated into more than forty languages.
Is Before We Were Yours a true story?
The Foss family is invented, but the setting is real. Between 1920 and 1950 the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, with help from the Memphis police, took children from poor families and placed them with wealthy adoptive parents. Its Memphis operation was run by Georgia Tann. Wingate and Judy Christie told the true stories of survivors in Before and After (2019).
Do you need to read Before and After before Before We Were Yours?
No. Before and After is non-fiction published two years later as a companion, and it is best read after the novel.
What is The Book of Lost Friends about?
Three young women travelling from Louisiana towards Texas in 1875, one of them, Hannie Gossett, searching for the family she was separated from in slavery, and a teacher in 1987 Louisiana who uncovers their story. It draws on the “Lost Friends” notices that formerly enslaved people placed in a newspaper after the Civil War.
Is Lisa Wingate a Christian author?
Much of her earlier work was published as Christian fiction, including the Carolina Heirlooms novels from Tyndale; The Story Keeper and The Sea Keeper’s Daughters won Christy Awards. Since Before We Were Yours she has written historical fiction for a general readership, published by Ballantine.
What awards has Lisa Wingate won?
The 2017 Goodreads Choice Award for historical fiction and the 2018 Southern Book Prize for Southern fiction, both for Before We Were Yours; Christy Awards for The Story Keeper (2015) and The Sea Keeper’s Daughters (2016); and the 2015 Carol Award for The Story Keeper.
Is Lisa Wingate still alive?
Yes. She was born in Germany in 1965, grew up in Oklahoma and lives in Texas and Colorado with her husband. Her most recent novel is Shelterwood (2024).
Footnotes
- Lisa Wingate — Wikipedia
- Tending Roses — Penguin Random House
- Before We Were Yours — School Library Journal
- The Book of Lost Friends — Library Journal
- SIBA’s Southern Book Prize winners — Shelf Awareness, 2018
- Wingate, Lisa — Encyclopedia.com
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Whether we understand the history of our families and communities or not, we are affected by it.”
— Lisa Wingate, in an interview about Shelterwood (2024)
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