Exiled South by Harriet Cannon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The past holds an intrigue for most of us who desire to learn where we came from and trace our traits back throughout history. This is a wonderful, engaging story of rediscovering your roots and our perceptions of past ancestors which may not be entirely accurate.

This book starts off with a devastating loss for Lizbeth as her husband passes away after a tragic accident. The secrets that Dan kept from his wife start trickling out and Lizbeth tries to run to escape pitying glances and the gossip mongers in their small town in the pacific northwest. Lizbeth ends up heading back to Folly Island on the South Carolina Coast which is where she spent her formative years before marriage. As she is trying to put her life back together from the betrayal and rebuild her relationship with her sons Lizbeth rediscovers her love for history and starts doing some research on her own ancestral history. Particularly what happened to Robert and Laurette Gordon who seemed to disappear without hide nor hair of them.

Lizbeth, before moving to South Carolina, applied for an international counselor/teaching opportunity trying to open new doors that she put off when she got married but always wanted to do. She gets the call, interview and subsequent job opportunity in Rio which she immediately jumps into putting plans in motion. In Rio is where she discovers her missing heritage when she meets a teacher at the school that shares the Gordon surname. This unravels a whole different side to the Gordon family and leaves Lizbeth chasing down family members hoping to rebuild connections from the past. The more she uncovers the more she realizes that the past is nothing like she imagined from the stories told through the generations.Can she make amends with long lost family members and overcome her own impressions of long passed ancestors? For those that love history and genealogy this is a captivating must read book.

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