Once You Were Mine : A Novel

A genealogy search reveals heartrending connections between friends as it brings to light one woman’s traumatic past as a teenage mother in the 1960s. In a quiet North Carolina town in 1968, a seventeen-year-old girl’s life is forever changed when a summer romance leads to an unplanned pregnancy. She is sent to an abusive “maternity home,” where she is shamed and deceived into signing adoption papers. In the present day, Allison Garrett volunteers as a “search angel,” using DNA tests to help strangers locate lost relatives. But the family tree she finds most compelling is that of her own mother, who was abandoned as a baby. As Allison puts the pieces together, they reveal much more than her mother’s origins—and threaten to create further divisions in her tight-knit community. When a family is separated by devastating circumstances, is it possible for them to heal the pain of the past and make up for lost time?