Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate, 342 pages

"Before We Were Yours" has been on my to-be-read list for quite a while and I am so happy that I finally got to it.  This is a fictionalized account of a family of seven children who were victims of the Tennessee Children's Home Society.  The society was real and was supposed to be a wonderful system of orphanages for children, when in fact, it was a horrible place that stole children and sold them for profit.

This is one of those books that I occasionally had to put down because I just needed a break from the heartbreak.  It was also one of those books I struggled to put down because it was such a well-written and compelling story and I wanted to know what happened next.

This one definitely puts the reader through the ringer but it is so worth it.

The Outcast Dead by Elly Griffiths 371 pages

 Archaeologist Ruth Galloway on a dig at Norwich Castle has discovered the remains of Mother Hook—a back in the day type bogeyman or bogeywoman to be more precise—who was hanged in the 1800’s for the murder of five children. Meanwhile the married father of her child DCI Harry Nelson investigates the deaths of three children in one family. And if that wasn’t enough a child is abducted and then another.

As bad as all this sounds, it really isn’t. One of the things I love most about this series is the lack of gore and minimal violence. The Outcast Dead is a fascinating read with odd and likeable characters that just keep getting better in each successive book in the series. I say this a lot but to truly appreciate the characters and their relation to each other it is best to start at the beginning of the series with The Crossing Places.  Every one of Elly Griffiths books has been a one sitting read for me.