From the Back Cover: For millions of Americans, the quest to find one’s ancestors has become an obsession, and for some even a religion.

After writing a book about the history of his family, the author realized that half of it was missing, literally.

This is the story about how he found the other half, and what he learned along the way about the history and practice of genealogy, his fellow genealogy fanatics, and himself.

From the Publisher: The Fattest Crackhead on the Planet is a hilarious, astounding journey through the life of Sarge, who wasn’t always named Sarge. Born Steven C. Pickman and given up for adoption at birth, Sarge always knew he was “different” than the other kids. The product of an illicit relationship between an orthodox Jewish woman and a black man, Sarge’s biological mother chose not to divulge the race of the father. Unsuspectingly, Sarge’s adoptive parents, procured him at birth without being provided with any information about the baby’s racial background. Not Caucasian, and racially not totally black, Sarge was the target of countless racist taunts and abuse.

A gifted musician at five years old, Sarge’s journey through prep school in Connecticut, two colleges, the fashion industry in New York, two major TV sports networks were precursors to an addiction to drugs and alcohol which would result in his homelessness on the streets of New York. The amazing story of the one friend he had left, his life being saved the day after Christmas by praying one prayer, led to a miraculous turnaround. Wanting to be a comedian since the age of six, Sarge’s sobriety gave birth to a career in comedy that still continues today.

No stranger to setbacks, Sarge and his wife were blessed with a baby boy, who suffers from Sensory Processing Disorder. Zander did not eat any solid food until the age of 4, but his turnaround was as exciting and as miraculous as his fathers. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be uniquely inspired.

Life in Artane Industrial School was an education in cruelty and fear. Run by the Christian Brothers, the school has become synonymous with the widespread abuse of children in Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s and is currently under police investigation. Patrick Touher’s story bears testament to the courage and determination of the children who were forgotten by society. Sent there at age eight, Patrick Touher spent eight long years in Artane Industrial School under the oppressive rule of the Christian Bothers. Patrick Touher reveals shocking new material about physical and sexual abuse by the fearsome and brutal Christian Brothers who controlled the school and the boys who lived there. The story which couldn’t be told—until now.

This is an unusual autobiography. It is in two parts; the first the fragmented memories of early childhood, the second a memoir of growing up an orphan and being transported from one side of the world to the other. The overriding quality of this book is its harrowing honesty. Lionel Pearce recounts painful memories of loss and abuse; and it is his willingness to lay his soul bare and face his demons that distinguish this work from more conventional memoirs.

The book begins with glimpses of the infant Pearce and his experiences while living with his mother, his grandmother—a fierce matriarch—and his aunts. At this point in the text, it is the women, strong and disapproving, who hold the power in baby Lionel’s world. The men are peripheral figures who occasionally intrude into the women’s world. Lionel’s father is a tall stranger in a dark coat who occasionally takes his family or his son on outings, Lionel’s uncle a secret ally with little power in his marginal place as his wife’s husband. It becomes apparent that Lionel was an illegitimate child born in a time when such transgressions were not easily forgiven. Although tolerated in the family home, his mother is treated as a servant by her family, his father is not allowed to live with them, denied more than occasional access. The writing in this early part of the book is exquisite. Pearce’s use of language is poetic and emotive; he interlaces imagery and emotion with such skill that through shards of memory several worlds are evoked, that of matriarchal domesticity, of the working class, aspects of post-World War I England headed for the Depression and, most eloquently, the world of the very young child struggling towards awareness of himself and his place in life.

It is in part one of the book that Pearce describes his mother’s death and the sorrow and confusion of a child too young to understand that he will never see her again. The prologue also sets up images and themes that can be followed throughout the work as a whole. For example, his ambivalence towards women is reflected in the iconic status of the angel. There is the snow angel, metaphoricising his grief and desire for his mother, perfect in her death, and there are the avenging angels—the powerful, authoritarian aunts and grandmother. Throughout his life, Lionel searches for the ideal mother-angel, yet time and again he comes into the terrible shadow of the avengers’ wings. Whether this vacillation between worship and loathing was a later construct through which Lionel viewed his early life will make a fruitful topic for discussion. Some other issues that can be seen in embryo in the prologue are Pearce’s class consciousness, his obsession with death and loss, and the blanket of grief and misery that seems to have wrapped about every aspect of his life.

The second part of the book continues these themes and more in the telling of the events that made up Lionel’s life after his mother’s death, his rejection by her family and his institutionalisation at the age of five. He is adopted by a family in London and lives with them for several years. Unfortunately, although this began promisingly, his new “mother” metamorphosed from snow to avenging angel and Lionel was subjected to severe physical and sexual abuse before being “encouraged” to go to Fairbridge Farm, in Western Australia, at the age of twelve. This move to the other side of the world does not provide any release or independence for Lionel; he becomes part of an orphanage system that effectively controls him, body and soul, for several years to come.

Many of us know about God’s promise that His grace is sufficient for whatever trials and tribulations we face in this life. Barbara Reed knows this truth firsthand. Her story is a living testimony to the fact that God’s grace is sufficient and His strength is made perfect in weakness. After losing her mother at an early age, Barbara and her siblings were abandoned and placed in an orphanage. When they were adopted into what seemed to be a “normal” family, the dream of “happily ever after” turned into a horrific nightmare of verbal, emotional, and physical abuse that continued for decades. Thanks to the grace and mercy of the Lord and the strength of her will to survive, Barbara never succumbed to the easy road of becoming bitter and hateful. She never responded to such evil in kind nor let evil overcome her. Instead, she overcame evil with good and championed the cause of the underdog-from protecting her siblings as a child to providing loving nurture to her own children to befriending the homeless and outcasts on the streets. In Feelings Kill Barbara shares her story to inspire others who are faced with seemingly “senseless” abuse and injustice to rely on God and discover that His grace truly is sufficient come what may in this life. — Scott Philip Stewart, Ph.D., Christian counselor and author

From the Dust Jacket: His poetry has been read by more people in more countries than that of any other living American poet. His San Francisco bookstore, City Lights, is a landmark on America’s cultural landscape. Among his associates and friends are the leading writers of America’s postwar years, but until now there has been no comprehensive biography of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. With Ferlinghetti, author Barry Silesky brings us the first full-length account of this important man of letters and the literary movement he helped foster. It is a work filled with revealing first-person reminiscences from Ferlinghetti himself and dozens of his contemporaries, and it creates not only a portrait of an important artist but a vivid panorama of our time.

Silesky tells the full story of Ferlinghetti’s Dickensian, fantastical beginnings: how Larry Monsanto Ferling was given away at the age of two, trundled around Europe, put in an orphanage at six, retrieved and abandoned again, and finally adopted by an extremely wealthy elderly couple who brought him to live on their great estate and sent him to exclusive schools. Silesky then shows us how Larry Ferling emerged from his unusual early years to become, in his early thirties, Lawrence Ferlinghetti: publisher, poet, novelist, painter, and spokesman for an age.

We witness Ferlinghetti’s postwar stay in Paris; his move to San Francisco; his relationships with Kenneth Rexroth, Kenneth Patchen, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Neal Cassady; and his founding of City Lights, the bookstore and the press. We relive the exciting first days of a brand-new literary sensibility, the publishing of Ginsberg’s Howl, and the famous obscenity case that made it a national sensation. From the early fifties to the sixties, we meet a Ferlinghetti who is at the center cf explosive activity—a touchstone for literary ard political movements, for the psychosocial ideas of Timothy Leary and the psychedelic sixties, and finally for the antiwar pretests that spilled over into the early seventies.

From the poignancy of Jack Kerouac’s descent into alcoholism to the beauty of life in the Big Sur to the upbeat cacophony of the San Francisco scene, Ferlinghetti’s life parallels America’s changing cultural and sexual mores. Wonderful anecdotes by or about Henry Miller, Ezra Pound, Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley, Fidel Castro, Gary Snyder, and many more prominent figures of recent history portray Ferlinghetti in his world. But the details of his first marriage and the two women who have shared his life since also depict a very private man, still vigorous in his seventh decade, a writer still commanding attention, a poet who still writes on his original manual Royal typewriter, and a painter who has recently had his first one-man show.

Based on dozens of interviews—with never-before-published photos of Ferlinghetti, his family, and his friends—and chronicled in vivid, moving prose, Ferlinghetti is a seminal work, illuminating a man, a body of writing, and a literary era with insight and authenticity. It is a must read for everyone who cares about American literature and its impact on modern times.

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About the Author: Barry Silesky is the author of In the Ruins, a collection of prose poems. His poetry has appeared in more than four dozen magazines and anthologies in recent years, and he is the editor of the literary journal ACM (Another Chicago Magazine}. A regular contributor to the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Magazine, he teaches at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He lives just down the street from Wrigley Field in Chicago, with his wife, fiction writer Sharon Solwitz, and their twin sons.

From the Dust Jacket:
In this world you are an orphan—

eagerly anticipating your adoption

as God’s child.
In this world you are a widow—

longing for reunion with

your Bridegroom.
In this world you are a stranger—

a pilgrim waiting to become a

citizen of heaven.

And in this world, God has called you to care
for the orphan, the stranger, and the widow.

Fields of the Fatherless is a journey that brings
you back to what Christianity is really about:
Giving yourself to others
Being Christ to a hurting world
And living for the one that comes next.

Think of this little book you’re holding as a map that leads to a field filled with treasure. The treasure is the truth about what brings joy to God’s heart—and can bring great joy to yours, too.

Unfortunately, many Christians today aren’t experiencing the kind of fulfillment and joy they long for in their walk with God. In Fields of the Fatherless, author and inspirational speaker Tom Davis reveals why this is so. “Real joy is not always found in obvious places,” writes Davis. “Instead, it hides in corners, waiting to be discovered when we sacrifice our desires for God’s desires.”

With compassion and insight, Davis shows you how to reach out to a special group of people who are most in need—and who the Bible reveals are most on God’s heart. Starting now, you can know the kind of purpose and joy that comes when you work side by side with God in His favorite fields.

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About the Author: C. Thomas Davis is an international missions consultant and serves as the President of Children’s HopeChest, a missions organization bringing God’s hope to orphans around the world. He served as a pastor for ten years and has a M.A. in Theology from The Criswell College. Tom is also a professional speaking consultant, training speakers in presentation and communication skills. His greatest joy in life is raising his four children, Anya, Hayden, Gideon, and Scotlyn with his wife, Emily, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

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By the Same Author: Scared (2009, David C. Cook), among others.

This short book is just one of many books to come detailing my experiences of the care system. The aim is provide you with some of the memories I have as a looked after child when living in foster care during a time foster care was changing. The book will explore the world of foster care from a child’s perspective and highlights areas needed to improve the fostering service, ensuring that all children and young people receive the best care. The personal journey detailed within the book has been provided to create deeper thought into some of the experiences looked after children are faced with. There are opportunities to consider one’s own thoughts and feelings in regards to particular areas throughout the book. The book is intended to be a light hearted read for all covering various areas; Placements, Matching, Kinship Care, Residential Care and how foster care can really change lives.

In a family memoir that reads like a detective novel, Rhonda Noonan recounts her thirty-year quest to find the truth of her own background—and what she uncovered will surprise readers as much as it did her. Rhonda was born and adopted in Oklahoma, a state with closed adoption records. And, although she was cherished by her adoptive family, she—like so many adoptees—felt a burning desire to find and make contact with her birth parents. Her three-decade-long search involved institutional stonewalling; the intervention of numerous judges, attorneys, and detectives; mountains of paperwork and court filings, and thousands of dollars in expenses. Tirelessly tracking down lead after lead—and with the otherworldly help of a friend named Lillie—Rhonda finally unearthed her true history. Her father was none other than Randolph Churchill, son of Sir Winston Churchill. The State Department of Human Services and the FBI laid down an intricate cover-up, with Averell Harriman and President Truman on the periphery. The evidence was clear—there was no question in her mind (though her efforts to secure incontrovertible proof in the form of a DNA test were stymied by the Churchill family). Rhonda had gone about finding her heritage just as her paternal grandfather had conducted his military campaigns: relentlessly and with no small amount of courage. Like him, she triumphed. The events leading up to her discovery, as well as the aftermath of the astonishing revelation and her face-to-face confrontation of the Churchills, will leave you in awe of this intrepid heroine of her own life. As full of twists, turns, and suspense as the best fiction, The Fifth and Final Name should prove inspiring to all who yearn to uncover the secrets buried within their own family histories.

From the Back Cover: In this moving memoir, anchorwoman Christine Devine shares her fifteen-year journey reporting on children “in the system” and the families who adopt them. Christine is in the know as her own parents fostered and adopted. An estimated 500 children who have aired on her newscast have found forever families.

She speaks from her heart on the struggles, disappointments and doubt that can come with children who have been so traumatized. Through Finding A Forever Family, see how Christine is transformed by these amazing adoptive families who share their unmatched joys, unexpected rewards and life-changing lessons.

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About the Author: Christine Devine is a 14-time Emmy® Award winning news anchor in Los Angeles. A noted adoption advocate through the Freddie Mac Foundations Wednesday’s Child, Devine was honored with the Congressional Coalition “Angels in Adoption” award.

These days go by fast. Like a cloud swept by a strong wind gripping each one. Instead of regretting I take a moment, regressing to my beginning. To gently pause on the future, dreaming, mystified and gleaming in treasures found. Wanted and unwanted like a yo-yo bouncing up and down, an orphan abandoned and a lover who is gone forever. Searching for my crown, it is lost but only for a moment. I stop. I write. Each word healing comes and grace unwritten and conceived not by human efforts. I stop. I write. Each word sealing my security and establishing me to be more than I was deserving of, a Queen a treasure. Black gold. Finding Black Gold on the Emerald Isle is a diary of some of my journey through life. It takes a detailed, look at the poetic, practical and difficult of my days.

For two years, psychologist and author Thomas Muldary searched tenaciously for his family of origin, unaware of forces working against him to prevent the revelation of a secret that had been concealed for nearly half a century. The closer he came to discovering the truth, the more intense the resistance became. Ultimately, someone had to prevail. Finding Dolores is a compelling true story of perseverance and triumph over failure and adversity. It details an extraordinary journey against all odds to learn the truth, connect with genetic history, and claim a birth right. For some, Finding Dolores is a virtual guide for adoption searches, with informative resources and facts about the experiences and challenges of adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, and anyone touched by adoption. Above all, it is a source of inspiration and hope, which are essential for adoptees if they are ever to learn the most fundamental truths of their existence: their origins.

While searching tirelessly for his birth family, psychologist Thomas Muldary learned that his birth mother was deceased and that his birth father wanted nothing to do with him. After a two-year search, he found seven brothers and sisters who had not known that he existed, but who embraced him as their brother. Following their extraordinary first reunion, they set out together on a new journey with an unchartered course that led them through crises and tragedy, family strife, and the challenges of forging relationships, creating a shared history, and building a future. Whether or not the relationships survived, it was certain than no one would be unchanged. Finding Dolores II: Beyond Search and Reunion is an important sequel to Finding Dolores: An Adoptee’s Mid-Life Search for the Beginning. It tells the rest of the story, while casting adoption reunion in a natural and authentic light by addressing common and unique post-reunion issues. Because there are so many varieties of reunion experiences, there are no rules governing the process, nor any formulas for successful outcomes. Yet, there are important psychological and interpersonal factors that invariably come into play, for they are intrinsic to relationships, which is ultimately what reunions are about.

From the Back Cover: Rick Ouston’s mother disappeared shortly after his birth, leaving him to be brought up by adoptive parents. More than thirty years later, armed with just a handful of clues—her birth date, her home province—Ouston sets out to find her.

Using skills and techniques he learned as an investigative journalist working for CBC Television and the Vancouver Sun, Ouston began the search for his mother and for an older sister who was earlier given up for adoption.

Finding Family is an engrossing detective story, but it’s also a story about what it means to find your family—whether it’s blood relations, or the strangers who take you into their own family, or the communities we choose and make for ourselves, to provide the love and support that “family” represents.

From the Publisher: Finding Family: My Search for Roots and the Secrets in My DNA is Richard Hill’s true and intensely personal story of how he pieced together the long-kept secret of his own origins. This highly suspenseful book is a page-turning saga of personal detective work that will appeal to anyone who loves a good mystery.

But this isn’t fiction. It’s an engrossing account of an adoptee trying to reclaim the biological family denied him by sealed birth records. This fascinating quest, including the author’s landmark use of DNA testing, takes readers on an exhilarating roller-coaster ride and concludes with a twist that rivals anything Hollywood has to offer.

Easy to read and hard to put down, Finding Family is the first book to chronicle the paradigm-shifting application of genetic genealogy to adoption search. Whether you’re searching for your own roots or just craving a darn good read, Finding Family is a book you will likely devour in one sitting ... and wholeheartedly recommend to others.

In the vein of a classic mystery, Hill gathers the seemingly scant evidence surrounding the circumstances of his birth. At his adoptive father’s deathbed, he discovers shocking information that leads him to methodically chase down leads, which sometimes yield poignant glimpses of his birth parents, sometimes garner resistance, and as frequently flat-line in disappointment.

As his resolve shores up, the author also avails of new friends, genealogists, the Internet, and the latest DNA tests in the new field of genetic genealogy. As he closes in on the truth of his ancestry, he is able to construct a living, breathing portrait of the young woman who was faced with the decision to forsake her rights to her child, and ultimately the man whose identity had remained hidden for decades.

During the course of Hill’s mission, Finding Family offers guidance, insight, and motivation for anyone engaged in a similar mission, from ways to obtain information to the many networks that can facilitate adoption searches. Best of all, the author demystifies how DNA and genetic genealogy can produce irrefutable results in determining genetic connections. In an intimate, personal voice, Hill sheds light on this new science that is helping adoptees bypass sealed records and similar stumbling blocks. It is certain to inspire those who are in search of their birth parents as well as others who are uncertain of their biological ancestry.

Richard Hill’s groundbreaking use of DNA testing in adoption search was featured on the front page of The Wall Street Journal. His DNA Testing Adviser web site makes genetic genealogy understandable to all. Now retired from careers in science and marketing, Richard serves on the Advisory Board of the Mixed Roots Foundation where he is Co-Director of the Global Adoptee Genealogy Project.

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About the Author: Richard Hill’s groundbreaking use of genetic genealogy tests in adoption search was featured on the front page of The Wall Street Journal. In order to share his success secrets and tips with other adoptees and genealogists, Hill created an educational web site, DNA-Testing-Adviser.com, which makes genetic genealogy understandable to all. His first book, Finding Family: My Search for Roots and the Secrets in My DNA, is a memoir recounting his personal experience as an adoptee searching for his biological family. His second, Guide to DNA Testing, presents a concise, easy-to-understand overview of genetic genealogy testing today.

Richard gives talks and interviews on DNA testing. As the unifying expert who bridges the fields of genetic genealogy and adoption search, he has become the go-to person for adoptees and others seeking to find lost relatives or confirm suspected relationships.

The author has a BS in physics, an MBA, and more than thirty years experience in marketing.

From the Publisher: Finding Fish is the memoir of Antwone Fisher’s miraculous journey from abandonment and abuse to liberation, manhood, and extraordinary success—a modern-day Oliver Twist. Baby Boy Fisher—as he was documented in his child welfare caseworkers’ reports—was raised in institutions from the moment of his birth in prison to a single mother. After beginning his life in an orphanage, Antwone was placed in a temporary foster home until, around age two, he was transferred to a second foster home. It was there, over the next thirteen years, that he endured emotional abandonment and physical abuse. Removed from this foster home not long before his sixteenth birthday, Antwone found fleeting refuge in a boys’ reform school but was soon thrust into the nightmare of homelessness. Though convinced he was unwanted and unworthy, Fish, as he came to be known, refused to allow his spirit to be broken. Instead, he became determined to raise himself, to listen to social workers and teachers who intervened on his behalf, and to nurture a romantic heart along with a scathing sense of humor and a wondrous imagination—all of which sustained him with big dreams of a better day. Fatefully, just as Antwone’s life on the streets hit rock bottom, he enlisted in the United States Navy, where he remained for the next eleven years. During that time, Fish became a man of the world, raised by the Navy family he created for himself. Finding Fish shows how, out of this unlikely mix of deprivation and hope, an artist was born—first as the child who painted the feelings his words dared not speak, then as a poet and storyteller who would eventually become one of Hollywood’s most well-paid, sought-after screenwriters. But before he ascends those lofty steps, Antwone’s story takes us from the Navy to his jobs as a federal correctional officer and then a security guard at Sony Pictures in Hollywood. In its climactic conclusion, the mystery of his identity is finally unraveled as Antwone returns to Cleveland to locate his mother’s and father’s surviving family members. A tumultuous and ultimately gratifying tale of self-discovery written in Fisher’s gritty yet melodic literary voice, Finding Fish is an unforgettable reading experience.

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About the Author: Antwone Quenton Fisher is a producer and screenwriter working in Hollywood. His credits include the screenplay for Finding Fish, the upcoming Double “O” Soul film starring Mariah Carey, and Trigger Happy. His latest project is Jelly Beans, which is being produced by Will Smith. He lives with his wife and daughter in Los Angeles.

Mim Eichler Rivas has worked as an author, coauthor, and collaborator on more than eighteen books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Pursuit of Happyness, with Chris Gardner; and Finding Fish, with Antwone Fisher. She is the coauthor of Start Where You Are, with Chris Gardner and is the sole author of the highly acclaimed Beautiful Jim Key, now in the works as a major feature film. Eichler and her family live in Hermosa Beach, CA.

In Finding Gloria, the author tells her story beginning from the moment she was given up for adoption to growing up in southern Manitoba. The book follows her upbringing in an abusive home where she was beaten and starved, until she runs away as a teenager. Eventually she marries, and raises four children, but the echoes of her mother’s abuse ring loudly, affecting all of life’s decisions. Her biggest struggle is putting her past aside and live her life, but first she had to figure out who she was meant to be. On the heels of her adoptive mother’s death, she finds her birth family and the origins of her life, and with it she finds the love, peace and acceptance that she never experienced during the first forty years of her life. Finding Gloria chronicles the authors rise out of the ashes, to the point of discovering that everything she grew up believing about herself was lies, and only she could change her future. By the Same Author: Behind Whispering Pines (2012).

From the Publisher: Have you ever wanted something so badly it was all you could think of? All you could talk about, write about, dream about. Claire did. She wanted a horse. Finding Heart Horse is her journey and her search for her Heart Horse. It takes her from being “the girl most likely to succeed” to a life on the streets of Yorkville in the late sixties. As an adopted child she had no identity, no history, and no place where she “fit” Her years on the streets lead her into many dark places, where she began to add more secrets and traumas to her already large collection in the wall of secrets. Life changed quickly in those days, from peace and love to war and violence. She went along for the ride not knowing where it would lead, just knowing that she had to find Heart Horse. If you know anyone who may be struggling, perhaps even yourself, Finding Heart Horse can give you hope where you thought there was none. We all have different journeys, but the essence is the same. We all want to be loved, to belong, and to be happy. Everyone at some point has yearned for something so powerful that, like a magnet, it pulls you into the unknown. Even if you weren’t really sure what it was for, you knew you had to pursue it. Life lessons are learned, spirituality discovered. The reality of opposites is proven. With pain comes pleasure, with despair comes hope, with sadness comes joy, and perhaps along the way even your Heart Horse may be found.

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About the Author: After working for many years as a Registered Nurse, Claire Hichon now lives on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada surrounded by the energy of the mountains and ocean she loves. Recently diagnosed was a rare mast cell disease, she continues to write, advocating for youth and adoptees.

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By the Same Author: The Wall of Secrets: Memoir of the Almost Daughter (2015).

The year was 1950. A terrified Navajo girl, only thirteen years old, travels to a small Hopi hospital to give birth to premature twins. With no formal education and unable to speak English, Helen unknowingly signs a paper by marking her “X” and thumbprint. She believes the hospital is asking for permission to leave her twin girls in their care until they are healthy enough to go home. When the young mother returns expecting to be reunited with her daughters, she finds that something has gone desperately wrong. Follow the miracle trail as destiny draws mother and daughter together again.

Born in 1965 to an alcoholic, single mother, to this day the author Brenda Secor still at times struggles with memories of her past—a past that includes abusive parents / foster parents, child predators, unsympathetic peers, and one particular vicious, psychopathic live-in partner. Brenda realizes that for the sake of her own daughter’s future the cycle must be broken. A new path must be chosen—a path that may not have been realized without “finding Jane.” In this book Brenda shares the horror of her past with an openness and frankness that is rarely articulated by child abuse victims. As a child abuse survivor, whose later success goes well beyond mere survival, her message to fellow victims is clear: Be strong. Be resilient. Find and take hold of a helping hand when offered. You have what it takes to overcome your past—you have already survived more than most people can imagine, and you can do anything you set your mind to.

“Nope, why should I ever want to go back to Ecuador, they gave me away, why would I want to go back,” was always Marisa’s reply to the question of her returning to her birth country. This was until 2003 when she was 28 years old, and started to say, “Mom, Dad, I want to see people who look like me,” followed with, “Dad, when are we going to Ecuador?” “Sweetie, if you want to go back to your place of birth, with the intent of finding your birth mother; I have a problem with that,” I would reply to her. But finally after several months of discussions between her, her adoptive mother and me; she finally was receptive to visiting her native Ecuador to just see where she came from. Finding Maria, the Secret Mother, is a 100% true story of Marisa and her adoptive father venturing to Ecuador to allow her to “See people who looked like her.” With Marisa’s adoptive mother being her greatest supporter for her return, Marisa and her Dad struck off on a God-orchestrated adventure that as one lady said, “This adventure has God’s fingerprints all over it.” This wonderful story is filled with love, hope, forgiveness, and healing; with God at the podium orchestrating the adventure that will pull on your deepest heart strings. One seemingly amazing event would be called great; two, maybe a coincidence; three, semi miraculous; but 14 documented events just out of the blue; well, you be the judge. Your heart will pull you into Marisa’s search for her birth mother in a far away country. This story will warm your heart as well as change your life; just let it. This is God’s story, we are only putting it in to print.

A narrative of the journey taken by one adoptee to identify his birth parents and his birth family history; a search conducted within the state of North Carolina.

Left as an infant in a brown paper bag on a farmer’s porch and later, having to surrender her only daughter after being raped, the many layers of this powerful and inspiring story addresses: baby abandonment laws, rape, the results of an unsuccessful search and the great mystery that drives us to discover our origins. The reader will experience how it feel to never know a real birth date, nationality or genetic past. Foundlings and Safe Haven babies must live their lives alive, but unknown. The only book published written by both a foundling/adoptee and birth parent who does a duel search for both her mother and daughter at the same time using whatever means possible; psychics, angels, and an intermediary. The results will surprise you.

Finding My Birthmom: The Nicole Allen Story is an honest, in-depth account of one woman’s journey with adoption and her quest to find out where she is from. Her story takes several twists and turns. It leaves the reader in anticipation of what’s to come. The story itself is a quick and easy read that is simple enough for young readers to follow as well as intriguing for adults. Nicole purposely wrote her story in this manner to reach people of all ages who maybe on the journey she has encountered.

From the Dust Jacket: “Every day of every year I’ve thought about my father, wondered if he were tall or short, intelligent or a man of common sense, beautiful to look at or plain, a criminal or a barrister, a teacher or a bum.”

With Finding My Father America’s national poet writes his first work of prose, a poignant, strikingly personal account of his lifelong search for the father he never knew.

Poet, international concert artist whom the New York Times has called “America’s only native chansonnier,” lecturer, distinguished composer of popular and classical music, tireless worker for humane causes who has given three hundred volunteer concerts to bring music and poetry to men behind bars, and pioneer in the fight for humane treatment of animals—Rod McKuen is truly a legend in his own time.

But behind those stunning achievements, behind that Renaissance figure and revealed here for the first time, is quite another man, a private man who has known intense loneliness, longing and self-doubt ... a wandering loner in search not just of the father he never met but of his roots, his own identity.

Born in the depth of the Depression to a dime-a-dance hostess, McKuen never knew his father—a cruel ignorance that haunted him. His only fragment of information, callously revealed to him in adolescence, painfully shattered the father he’d forged of his own imagination: Neither wartime air ace nor movie hero, his father was a man just passing through—leaving behind him Rod, a bastard son.

For several years Rod McKuen put aside his quest for the identity of the man who held the key to his own inner turmoil. But in 1975 his deep involvement in Hello Again, a television documentary on adoptees, led him to renew the search that would finally end a lifetime of uncertainty.

Rod McKuen’s first work of prose reveals once again his towering gifts and his compassionate ability to see into the deepest recesses of the human heart. More than the inspiring story of his quest, Finding My Father is the warmly nostalgic account of a lonely young boy’s coming of age ang a lyrical metaphor for the archetypal search for the ever-elusive and loving father of us all.

This is my story. It is about the good choice my biological mother made to place me in The Children’s Home. Her decision changed my life forever.

“Okay, then, make me lovable.” “What do you mean, ‘make me lovable?’ What’s this about ‘make me lovable’? Who decides who is ‘lovable’?” Why am I revolting against where this is going? I ... am not ... lovable... It has been ingrained into me that I am not... I have been told that I am not ... and I have agreed and accepted and lived out of the “fact” that I am not... The idea that I am ... turns everything I thought I had perceived and received to be true ... upside down. Is this the “veil being removed from the heart”? ... What falls apart ... disintegrates ... or “produces static” or “interferes” so that I honestly cannot “get it” or “receive it” when I hear someone ... anyone ... even Jesus Christ ... even God Himself ... say the words: “You are lovable.”

This unique one-volume reference guide provides positive and empowering biographical sketches of 100 famous and well-known adoptees throughout time, serving to counter the many negative stereotypes that exist about people who were adopted, fostered, or lived in orphanages. This work looks at the lives of people who, despite circumstances in their childhood, were able to succeed in making important contributions to art, music, science, literature, politics, and entrepreneurship. This work answers the call to obtaining difficult-to-find information about well-known adoptees. High school students and general readers who are interested in learning more about positive role models in adoption and children’s issues will find this book invaluable. McCaslin outlines the parameters she used for inclusion in the book, and then discusses the history of adoption from ancient civilization to today’s society. Each entry focuses on the early life of the subject, as well as his or her career and achievements. Entries include Aristotle, Edward Albee, Ingrid Bergman, Oksana Baiul, Ella Fitzgerald, Faith Hill, Marilyn Monroe, Dave Thomas, Orson Welles and many more.

From the Back Cover: The astonishing real story of a daughter’s search for her own past—and the desperate mother who gave her up.

Phyllis Whitsell began the search for her birth mother as a young woman—and although it was many years before she finally met her, their lives had crossed on the journey without their knowledge. When they both eventually sat down together—the circumstances were extraordinary, moving and ultimately life-changing.

This is a daughter’s personal account of the remarkable relationship that grew from abandonment into love, understanding and selfless care.

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About the Author: Phyllis Whitsell is a fully qualified nurse, she works in a care home and specialises in looking after residents with dementia. She lives and works in Birmingham—the city she grew up in, but enjoys travelling to Greece, where she does much of her writing. She is a mother of three—two sons and a daughter—and grandmother to twin girls. This is her first book.

Barbara Fisher is a former teacher, now professional journalist. She was shortlisted for the Edexcel Outstanding Educational Journalism Award in 2002 and was ade an honorary fellow of Brunel University in 2005 for her community reporting. In 2012 she gained he MA in Creative and Professional Writing.

She met the author in 2004, and they became friends after Phyllis nursed Barbara’s mother, who had Alzheimer’s.