This is a personal story of synchronicity, healing, and reconnection. It is the story of Robyn Singh, a competitive paddler whose passion for canoeing took her on a transformative journey to discover her Hawaiian roots and find her birth mother. As Paddling Home explains, humans have both explicit memory (that which we can recall) and implicit memory (emotional memory that cannot be recalled). For Robyn, as for many children of adoption, implicit memories of rejection remain embedded in the mind and body. But by listening to these implicit memories, Robyn was able to make sense of a series of coincidences and spiritual connections in order to put together the jigsaw puzzle of the self. Brought into focus by her experiences in the canoe and illustrated with photographs of her life as a competitive paddler, Robyn’s story brings us to spiritual awareness, personal discovery, and, ultimately, home.

This book describes the circumstances which led to a vicious rape and its aftermath. It also illustrates the search of a woman anxious to find her birth mother after living many years as an adoptee. About the Author: Maddox Browne, the youngest of three children, was born in industrial Lancashire, in the town of St. Helens, a mining community situated in the north of England. Her father was a miner, her mother managed a small book shop. This is Maddox’s first attempt at writing and serves as her autobiography. Her collection of poems and short stories still awaits publication and is scheduled to become the content of her next book. Maddox’s recent retirement has given her the time and inclination to pursue her long-term ambition to become an established writer. At the age of 16 in June 1961, she had recently completed her education at a Secondary Modern School, having achieved a modest collection of General Certificates of Education and then successfully acquiring a place at secretarial college in order to achieve her ambition to become a secretary and her story begins from this platform.

From the Dust Jacket: In 1995, during the publicity tour for his bestselling first novel, The Jade Peony, Wayson Choy received a mysterious telephone message. When he called the number, he was greeted by the sounds of Vancouver’s old Chinatown; and an older woman’s voice telling him that she had just seen his mother on the streetcar. Wayson politely informed the caller that she must be mistaken, since his mother had died two decades earlier. No, no, not your mother, the voice insisted; your real mother.

As it turned out, the woman on. the streetcar was not Wayson Choy’s mother. But the woman on the phone was right about one thing: he had, in fact, been adopted. And so, three weeks before his 57th birthday, Wayson Choy became an orphan.

Inspired by this startling revelation, Paper Shadows is a vivid and moving memoir of Wayson Choy’s Vancouver Chinatown childhood. From his early experiences with the ghosts of old Chinatown, through his youthful encounters with cowboys and bachelor uncles, to his discovery later in life of deeply held family secrets that crossed the ocean from mainland China to Gold Mountain in the form of paper shadows, this is a beautifully wrought portrait of a child’s world from one of Canada’s most gifted storytellers. Throughout, Choy reveals uncanny similarities between the secrets that enrich his award-winning first novel and the subsequently discovered secrets of his own life.

---

About the Author: Wayson Choy was raised in Vancouver, where he was cared for in a variety of Chinese households. He teaches English at Humber College in Toronto. The Jade Peony spent six months on The Globe and Mail’s national bestseller list, shared the Trillium Book Award for best book of 1996 with Margaret Atwood, and won the 1996 City of Vancouver Book Award.

---

By the Same Author: The Jade Peony (1995, Douglas & McIntyre) and All that Matters (2004, Doubleday).

---

Compiler’s Note: An excerpt from the book was published in The Vintage Book of Canadian Memoirs (2001, Vintage).

Through fourteen chapters, the authors of Parenting As Adoptees give readers a glimpse into a pivotal phase in life that touches the experiences of many domestic and international adoptees—that of parenting. The authors, who are all adoptees from various walks of life, intertwine their personal narratives and professional experiences, and the results of their efforts are insightful, emotive, and powerful. As Melanie Chung-Sherman, LCSW, LCPAA, PLLC, notes: “Rarely has the experience of parenting as an adopted person been laid to bare so candidly and vividly. The authors provide a provocative, touching and, at times visceral and unyielding, invitation into their lives as they unearth and piece together the magnitude of parenting when it is interwoven with their adoption narrative. It is a prolific piece that encapsulates the rawness that adoption can bring from unknown histories, abandonment, grief, and identity reconciliation which ultimately reveals the power of resiliency and self-determination as a universal hallmark in parenting.” Moreover, despite its topical focus, the book will interest individuals within and outside of the adoption community who are not parents. “Parenting as Adoptees,” writes Dr. Indigo Willing, “contributes and sits strongly alongside books by non-adoptees that look at issues to do with ‘the family,’ race, ethnicity and migration. As such, this book should appeal to a broad audience interested in these various fields of inquiry.”

From the Dust Jacket: Passage is a gripping story of murder, war, and intrigue. A baby girl is dropped off at an orphanage with prior adoption arrangements. Death steals the planned future of the child and replaces it with bleakness, abuse and neglect, yet, the child manages to survive into a young woman with hope.

The year is 1915. A baby girl is surrendered to an orphanage and immediately adopted by a loving couple. Death robs the child of love and replaces it with beatings and abuse. At seventeen, Grace escapes by discovering love and marries. Together the young couple struggle through the Great Depression, witness a horrifying murder, and endure sacrifices and death throughout World War Two. Grace finally believes life has settled down until her path takes a harrowing twist.

Passage is a gripping story of deceit, love, and sacrifice of one woman’s perilous journey through life. This is the true story of a woman named Grace filled with trials and triumphs, abuse and love, deceit and sacrifice.

---

About the Author: Passage takes Author Sandy Powers on a riveting, incredible journey through one woman’s life. Cancer survivor and health writer, Sandy Powers is also the author of the award-winning book, Organic for Health. Sandy and her husband, Mike, live in Englewood, Florida.

Passing Through is a memoir from my earliest memories until the present day. I describes how I feel about my adoption, the people who adopted me and my extended family. There are stories and anecdotes about my education, military experience, my career in corporate finance and accounting and my life. Writing this has helped me come to terms with my adoption and make sense out of my life. My goals are that persons who have been adopted will find my stories useful and that corporate finance professionals will enjoy reading some of my deal stories, and that veterans will enjoy my war stories.

From the Dust Jacket: This deeply personal memoir of one girl’s search for a home is an engaging first-person narrative of life during the Great Depression and World War II. Patty’s Journey takes us from the author’s secure if poor birth home through the time she spent in an orphanage and foster homes to her eventual adoption.

In 1936, four-year-old Patty Pearson was taken from her parents and placed in the State Public School for Dependent and Neglected Children in Owatonna, Minnesota. Once at Owatonna, Patty was separated from her sister and brother, was sexually abused by the school janitor, and contracted tuberculosis. She was placed in two foster homes where she endured a variety of emotional and physical abuses. Eventually adopted at the age of seven, she would not see her sister again for more than, thirty years.

Through her late childhood and teen years Patty learned to negotiate the shoals of life as an adoptee—striving for full membership in the family, repressing her anger at being forbidden to discuss her past, wondering what became of her sister, brother, mother, and father, As a young woman coming of age she grew to appreciate the good things her adoptive family offered her even while holding on to a sense of self they wanted her to suppress.

Patty’s Journey is a richly textured account of people struggling through the Great Depression and war years, but it also illuminates the customs and small victories of that era, often in surprising and humorous ways. Although it provides a disturbing look at child-rearing practices in state orphanages at the time, it is ultimately a redemptive tale of one woman’s bravery in facing her past—and moving ahead toward a future that included both her selves.

---

About the Author: Donna Scott Norling (born Patricia Pearson) is a freelance writer who enjoys being involved in writers groups, politics, and her church. She and her husband live in St. Louis Park, Minnesota; they have a son an a daughter and three granddaughters.

Priscilla Ferguson Clement is associate professor of history and women’s studies at Pennsylvania State University, Delaware County Campus. Her field of specialty is social welfare history and how welfare programs have affected women and children. She is the author of several articles on nineteenth-century orphanages, juvenile reformatories, and foster care programs and of Welfare and the Poor in the Nineteenth-Century City: Philadelphia, 1800 to 1854 (1985) and Growing Pains: Children in the United States, 1850-1890 (forthcoming 1997).

This is the story of an adopted Jewish immigrant boy who was put in an institution and the key was thrown away. Within the walls, he was transformed into a man of God.

From the Publisher: The Perpetual Child features a collection of stories, poetry, and essays aimed at confronting the “perpetual child stereotype” faced by adult adoptees. The pieces contained within this anthology will implore readers to look deeply into their own ideas about what it means to be adopted and to empathize with the experience of being viewed as a child into adulthood.

---

Contributing Writers: Laura Dennis, Mei-Mei Akwai Ellerman, Lynn Grubb, Lee Herrick, Jennifer Bao Yu “Precious Jade” Jue-Steuck, Karen Pickell, Matthew Salesses, Lucy Chau Lai-Tuen Sheen, Nicky Sa-eun Schildkraut, Julie Stromberg, April Topfer, Amanda H.L. Transue-Woolston, Angela Tucker, Catana Tully

The Pieces Come Together ... at Last is a memoir of and adult adoptee whose life-long quest to find her birth family was richly rewarded. Co-authored with the sibling she found, read of their journey from strangers, to sisters to friends.

Pieces of the Pearl: Memoirs of a Foster Child’s Triumphant Transformation tells the true-life story of Teresa Ann Winton, who invites you to journey into the depths of her soul where a vulnerable and profoundly sad little girl once lived. Teresa’s unstable home left her exposed to abuse, poverty, and neglect. Foster care, a system meant to help the helpless, brought even more trauma and loss. But in spite of it all, Teresa forged ahead, refusing to succumb to despair. In this poignant story, the author interlaces poetry and narrative, sharing her joys and sorrows, her triumphs and tears. Pieces of the Pearl: Memoirs of a Foster Child’s Triumphant Transformation is a search for wholeness and reconciliation, one whose spiritual message of undying faith, hope, and love will leave readers inspired. A story like Pieces of the Pearl must be told. The teeming masses of humanity must be exposed to a true story of “can do.” People must see real faith at work—a faith that is not ignorant of the ugliness of man, but does not blame that ugliness on God. In the fires of tragedy, people of bitterness or heroism are born, and I am proud to say that I know this hero, Teresa Winton. — Phil Arnold, Louisville, Kentucky

From the Dust Jacket: This is a highly original reappraisal of the role of Piers Gaveston in English history and of his personal relationship with Edward II. It challenges the accepted view that Gaveston had a homosexual affair with Edward, and reassesses the main events of Gaveston’s career, including his exiles from England and the scandal over the alleged theft of royal jewels.

Pierre Chaplais draws his evidence from documentary and narrative sources including unpublished record evidence. The conclusions are fascinating and often surprising. The unusual features of the famous royal charter of 6 August 1307, which granted the earldom of Cornwall to Gaveston are discussed at length for the first time. Special attention is also paid to the king’s personal intervention in the drafting and sealing of documents relating to Gaveston, and to the history of the great seal of absence used while Edward was in France in 1308.

This unique criticism of the documentary evidence by a leading diplomatist and historian of the period reveals the reality behind the myths surrounding Piers Gaveston, and makes fascinating reading.

---

About the Author: Pierre Chaplais is Reader Emeritus in Diplomatic in the University of Oxford.

From the Dust Jacket: “Play therapy is much more than mere fun, it is for real,” writes Dr. Richard Bromfield in this illuminating book about the fascinating realm of child therapy. Escorting us through the imaginative worlds of his child and teen-aged patients, Dr. Bromfield shows us how he helps them use play therapy to face a wide spectrum of problems—from paralyzing anxiety to incest, from attention-deficit disorder to incipient autism, from divorce to the universally trying demands of growing up. Offering overviews of both children’s emotional development and the techniques of play therapy, the book tells the riveting stories of such children as:

• Ashley, whose abandonment in infancy made her unable to accept her loving adoptive family

• Bram, whose exasperating practical jokes masked his obsessive love for and fierce resentment of his mother

• Kenna, whose history of sexual abuse led to wild rages and precocious sexual behavior

Taking us from the very beginnings to the ends of therapy, including practical advice on the methods of a child therapist, Dr. Bromfield brings welcome news about the therapeutic powers of play therapy, for the right therapy—and the right match of therapist and child—can heal childhood traumas and can help troubled children grow into emotionally healthy, functioning adults.

Gracefully written and refreshingly free of jargon, Playing for Real offers parents, teachers, and therapists a vital new dimension of understanding and a rich source of inspiration. Dr. Bromfield’s honesty about the all-too-human limitations and prejudices that he must confront in himself makes this book a landmark work of deep wisdom and rich compassion, and an absorbing self-portrait of a healer at work.

---

About the Author: Richard Bromfield, Ph.D., a graduate of Bowdoin College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is a clinical instructor in psychology at Harvard Medical School at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center. While a specialist in children and adolescents, Dr. Bromfield sees clients of all ages in both Brookline and Hamilton, Massachusetts. He lives in a suburb of Boston with his wife and two children.

---

Compiler’s Note: See, particularly, Chapter IV: Lost and Found: An Adopted Child Grieves Her Orphaning (pp. 73-92).

This is the story of a girl born into a family who believed in justice and equality, but couldn’t find it for themselves. Instead, they followed the course of humanism and fell apart. The girl was a hurt child, reaping the consequences of someone else’s life choices. The pivotal turn in the story is the heart for adoption that grew out of her difficult beginning. She weaves her patchwork quilt narrative from the memoir of her healing and her children’s positive adoption.

This is an unusually honest book about a woman with disabilities, adopted at the age of one, who uncovers her own identity by solving the mystery of her biological parents and extended family. It is told with attention to the wide range of emotions connected with such a search. As a young woman in her 30s, the author collects bits and pieces of her heritage, starting with clues to her diagnosed incapacities. Her search uncovers the unsolved murder of her mother, background information about her adopted parents, disclosure of siblings, and other genealogical information. All through the untangling of this real-life mystery, the author gains self-confidence in her strengths and turns an undefined dilemma into known triumphs.

From the Dust Jacket: Award-winning journalist Caroline Clarke was born in an era when adoptions were shameful and secret and sealed. Her story begins with a happy childhood in the Bronx, as the only child of educators, both with strong ties to their large West Indian families. She never had any desire to know her birth parents until her thirties when some health questions led her to contact Spence-Chapin Family Services.

The adoption agency’s response sparked a series of stunning discoveries. Caroline knew her biological family and had so for more than twenty years. Her birth mother, nicknamed “Cookie,” was the eldest sister of one of her dearest college friends; thus, Caroline’s girlfriend was actually her aunt. Moreover, the family was a prominent one, storied in old Hollywood and known throughout the world for not just one but two generations of musical greatness, including the famous singer Natalie Cole and her iconic father, Nat King Cole, whose music had actually filled Caroline’s life as she was growing up. Cookie was his first child.

And so Caroline’s story begins again. Drawing on details provided by the agency and on her own investigative skills, she embarks on a life-changing relationship with Cookie that stretches from coast to coast, forged through e-mails, phone calls, and hundreds of postcards. The constancy, volume, and intimacy of their steady correspondence fills the days and distance between them, even as the two remain respectful of Caroline’s connection with her devoted parents.

Through messages squeezed onto three-inch open-faced squares, they share confidences, take risks, unite their families, and ultimately build a bond like no other.

Postcards from Cookie is a story about family. It’s about loss, reconciliation, and one woman’s acceptance of the secrets and lies she discovers about the people who have most shaped her life. An uplifting modern-day fairytale, this extraordinary story just happens to be true.

---

About the Author: Caroline V. Clarke has spent most of her career at the media company Black Enterprise, where throughout the years she has held several key positions in print, television, digital, and live content. She is also the author of Take a Lesson: Today’s Black Achievers on How They Made It and What They Learned Along the Way. She has a bachelor’s degree in English from Smith College and a master’s degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. A passionate advocate for adoption, she lives in New York with her family.

A child’s journey through the foster care system against all odds and the courage he endured. Through the scars of this child that has endured so much has rose a person of understanding and love.

From the Back Cover: Set in rural Minnesota during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, this power memoir, with its unblinking depictions of poverty, natural disasters, a human frailty, tells a story as meaningful today as when it occurred.

Faithfully researched and vividly retold by bestselling novelist Dennis Clausen, Prairie Son is uniquely satisfying literature—fascinating history informed with a suspenseful narrative of personal triumph.

---

About the Author: Dennis Clausen was born and raised in Morris, Minnesota. His first book was Ghost Lover, a bestselling gothic mystery set on the prairie. He has also authored two textbooks, a chapbook of poetry, numerous articles on higher education, and opinion pieces and essays for various newspapers, magazines, and journals. He lives in Escondido, California, with his wife, Alexa, and son, Derl, and is a professor of English at the University of San Diego, where he teaches American literature and writing.

From the Dust Jacket: To fans of the hugely successful television series Little House on the Prairie, Melissa Gilbert grew up in a fantasy world with a larger-than-life father, friends and family she could count on, and plenty of animals to play with. Children across the country dreamed of the Ingalls’ idyllic life—and so did Melissa.

She was a natural on camera, but behind the scenes, life was more complicated. Adopted as a baby into a legendary show business family, Melissa wrestled with questions about her identity and struggled to maintain an image of perfection her mother created and enforced. Only after years of substance abuse, dysfunctional relationships, and made-for-television movies did she begin to figure out who she really was.

With candor and humor, the cherished actress traces her complicated journey from buck-toothed Laura “Half-pint” Ingalls to Hollywood starlet, wife, and mother. She partied with the Brat Pack, dated heartthrobs like Rob Lowe and bad boys like Billy Idol, and began a self-destructive pattern of addiction and co-dependence. Left in debt after her first marriage, and struggling to create some sense of stability, she eventually realized that her career on television had earned her popularity, admiration, and love from everyone but herself.

Through hard work, tenacity, sobriety, and the blessings of a solid marriage, Melissa has accepted her many different identities and learned to laugh, cry, and forgive in new ways. Women everywhere may have idolized her charming life on Little House on the Prairie, but Melissa’s own unexpectedly honest, imperfect, and down-to-earth story is an inspiration.

---

About the Author: Melissa Gilbert starred as Laura Ingalls on the hit television show Little House on the Prairie for nearly ten years. She has also starred in numerous television movies, appeared on several television series, done feature films, and worked extensively on the stage. She served as president of the Screen Actors Guild for two terms, sat on the executive council of the AFL-CIO and the California Film Commission, and is currently president of the board of directors for Children’s Hospice and Palliative Care Coalition. She lives in Los Angeles with her family of men and a menagerie of beloved pets.

From the Publisher: Preacher’s Kid consists of twenty short chapters depicting the happenings in the life of a minister’s daughter. In each story, a life lesson unfolds in the process. Sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant, these stories invite readers to reconnect with their memories of childhood. It is the author’s hope that the reader will have enjoyed the memories and will want to wholeheartedly embrace the future.

---

About the Author: Catherine Wright was adopted as an infant into the home of a United Church of Canada minister’s family. Early in life, she realized that there seemed to be a prevailing attitude among her peers that “preachers’ kids” lived by rules far more stringent than the ones that were a part of their lives. She also learned that these rules were not written anywhere-they just developed as a situation would arise. The book presents a spiritual journey-one that is ongoing and unfolding as intuition and willingness allow. After retiring from nursing in psychiatric hospitals, Cathy settled in the vacation town of Collingwood, Ontario, Canada. For the last several years, she has been studying A Course in Miracles and has become an ordained minister of Pathways of Light.

From the Back Cover: For all those participating in a “reunion” between an adopted person and their birth family, a potentially traumatic journey lies ahead and they will need help to prepare for it. Preparing for Reunion explores the emotional dynamics of this sensitive process from the firsthand perspectives of adopted people, adoptive parents and birth parents. It has been compiled by Children’s Society staff who specialize in birth records counselling.

A vital resource for all those in the adoption circle who are seeking emotional preparation for reunion and a better understanding of the journey they are about to undertake.
★ Addresses the questions most commonly asked by adopted people, adoptive parents and birth parents, including:

— When should I search?

— What am I letting myself in for?

— Am I being disloyal?

— Should I keep this a secret?

— What if they don’t want to know?

— What will be in my records?

— Do l really need counselling?
★ Personal accounts from all perspectives of the adoption circle
★ Includes a young woman’s diary of her reunion, describing the day-to-day ups and downs of the tracing process
★ Also includes a professional and historical perspective on adoption and tracing.

From the Back Cover: Sarah Culberson was adopted one year after her birth by a white West Virginian couple and was raised in the United States with little knowledge of her ancestry. Though raised in a loving family, Sarah wanted to know more about the birth parents that had given her up. In 2004, she hired a private investigator to track down her biological father. When she began her search, she never imagined what she would discover or where that information would lead her: she was related to African royalty, a ruling Mende family in Sierra Leone and that she is considered a mahaloi, the child of a Paramount Chief, with the status like a princess. What followed was an unforgettably emotional journey of discovery of herself, a father she never knew, and the spirit of a war-torn nation. A Princess Found is a powerful, intimate revelation of her quest across the world to learn of the chiefdom she could one day call her own.

---

About the Author: Sarah Culberson grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia. She attended West Virginia University, where she earned a B.A. in theater. She graduated from the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco with a master’s in fine arts and joined the Los Angeles acting community. Sarah has been seen acting on the stage as well as in TV and films. She has also danced with a professional salsa dance company called Conta-Tiempo. As president of the Kposowa Foundation in Los Angeles, she and many others head up fund-raising with the goal of improving education for young people and rebuilding Sierra Leone. She lives in Los Angeles.

Tracy Trivas, a graduate of Dartmouth College, won a Dartmouth Graduate Fellowship to study Victorian literature at Oxford University, England. She received her master’s degree in English from Middlebury College. Tracy is also the author of the middle-grade fiction book The Wish Stealers. She lives in California with her family.

From the Publisher: Even at twelve years old Deborah Jiang Stein, the adopted daughter of a progressive Jewish couple in Seattle, felt like an outsider. Her multiracial features set her apart from her well-intentioned white parents, who evaded questions about her past. But when Deborah discovered a letter revealing the truth--that she was born in prison to a heroin-addicted mother and spent the first year of her life there--she spiraled into emotional lockdown. For years she turned to drugs, violence, and crime as a way to cope with her grief. Ultimately, Deborah overcame the stigma, shame, and secrecy of her birth and found peace by helping others--proving that redemption and acceptance is possible, even from the darkest corners.

---

About the Author: Deborah Jiang Stein is a national speaker, writer, and founder of the unPrison Project, a 501(c)3 nonprofit that serves to build public awareness about women and girls in prison and offers mentoring and life-skills programs for inmates. She lives in the Midwest.

---

By the Same Author: Even Tough Girls Wear Tutus: Inside the World of a Woman Born in Prison (2011, Cell 7 Media).

From the Dust Jacket: More than six million readers can attest to the heartbreak and courage of Dave Pelzer’s story of growing up in an abusive home. From A Child Called “It” to The Lost Boy, from A Man Named Dave to Help Yourself, his inspirational books have helped countless others triumph over hardship and misfortune.

Now this former lost boy who defeated insurmountable odds to emerge whole and happy at last takes us on his incredible odyssey toward healing and forgiveness. In The Privilege of Youth, Pelzer supplies the missing chapter of his life: as a boy on the threshold of adulthood. With his usual sensitivity and insight, he recounts the relentless taunting he endured from bullies; but he also describes the joys of learning and the thrill of making his first real friends—some of whom he still shares close relationships with today. He writes about the simple pleasures of exploring a neighborhood he was just beginning to get to know while trying to forget the hell he had endured as a child.

From high school to a world beyond the four walls that were his prison for so many years, The Privilege of Youth charts this crucial turning point in Dave Pelzer’s life. This brave and compassionate memoir from the man who has journeyed far will inspire a whole new generation of readers.

---

About the Author: Dave Pelzer is the #1 New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of A Child Called “It,” The Lost Boy, A Man Named Dave, and Help Yourself. He travels extensively throughout the country, speaking to thousands of people about overcoming obstacles in their lives. He has appeared on Oprah and The Montel Williams Show, among other national media.

---

By the Same Author: A Child Called “It”: An Abused Child’s Journey from Victim to Victor (1993, Omaha Press), The Lost Boy: A Foster Child’s Search for the Love of a Family (1994, Omaha Press), and A Man Named Dave: A Story of Triumph and Forgiveness (1999, Dutton), Mr. Pelzer’s autobiographical trilogy; Help Yourself: Celebrating the Daily Rewards of Resilience and Gratitude (2000), a self-help book based upon his experiences and life lessons; and The Privilege of Youth: A Teenager’s Story of Longing for Acceptance and Friendship (2004), the final chapter in his story of survival.

From the Dust Jacket: A memoir of an exceptionally difficult childhood, remarkable for its candour, lack of self-pity, and its vivid recall of growing up in the 1950s.

Adopted at eighteen months, Caradoc was brought up in a large, eccentric family on the Essex coast. His adoptive mother, unable to bond with her one adopted child, treated him with a harshness bordering on cruelty. He was sent to boarding school at the age of six to sort out his “problems” and, after his mother’s passionate conversion. to Catholicism, was shuttled from one school after another.

Not until he was fifteen did Caradoc find out that he was adopted and a year later his parents removed him from school, and ejected him completely from their family. A natural survival instinct, and the support of several good friends enabled him finally to scrape into Oxford. Thirty years later, Caradoc went in search of his natural family and began to make sense of the mystery of his two absent mothers.

---

About the Author: Carradoc King is head of the literary agency, A.P. Watt Ltd. He represents a wide range of adult and children’s authors, among them Philip Pullman, whom he met on his first day at Oxford. This is his first book.

From the Publisher: Near-death experiences, or NDEs, are controversial. Thousands of people have had them, but many in the scientific community have argued that they are impossible and Dr. Eben Alexander was one of those people.

A highly trained neurosurgeon who had operated on thousands of brains in the course of his career, Alexander knew that what people of faith call the “soul” is really a product of brain chemistry. NDEs, he would have been the first to explain, might feel real to the people having them, but in truth they are simply fantasies produced by brains under extreme stress.

Then came the day when Dr. Alexander’s own brain was attacked by an extremely rare illness. The part of the brain that controls thought and emotion—and in essence makes us human—shut down completely. For seven days Alexander lay in a hospital bed in a deep coma. Then, as his doctors weighed the possibility of stopping treatment, Alexander’s eyes popped open. He had come back.

Alexander’s recovery is by all accounts a medical miracle. But the real miracle of his story lies elsewhere. While his body lay in coma, Alexander journeyed beyond this world and encountered an angelic being who guided him into the deepest realms of super-physical existence. There he met the Divine source of the universe itself.

This story sounds like the wild and wonderful imaginings of a skilled fantasy writer. But it is not fantasy. Before Alexander underwent his journey, he could not reconcile his knowledge of neuroscience with any belief in heaven, God, or the soul. That difficulty with belief created an empty space that no professional triumph could erase. Today he is a doctor who believes that true health can be achieved only when we realize that God and the soul are real and that death is not the end of personal existence but only a transition.

This story would be remarkable no matter who it happened to. That it happened to Dr. Alexander makes it revolutionary. No scientist or person of faith will be able to ignore it. Reading it will change your life.

---

About the Author: Eben Alexander, MD, was an academic neurosurgeon for over 25 years, including 15 years at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School in Boston, with a passionate interest in physics and cosmology. He is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Proof of Heaven and The Map of Heaven.

---

Compiler’s Note: In the course of providing autobiographical details, the author reveals that he is an adoptee, and alleges that, in the course of his “out of body” experience, he traveled on the wing of a butterfly with a biological sister he’d never known existed.

Adoption is a true blessing, yet the adoptee must discover who they truly are. This book tackles the complexity of adoption from the young child’s voice through adulthood as she surfaces the internalized feelings of abandonment, loss of her biological parents, loss of DNA history, and the unexplained void or hole felt inside known as the heart wound. Yet all along knowing she is chosen, special and loved and still feels lost and alone. These are stories of triggers and healing in the search for identity and the true self. Within the search for self are many insightful discoveries along the journey. With each new insight the author provides healing examples to come into balance; mind, body and spirit. The last section within the book provides healing exercises for the reader to heal the heart wound and awaken to their own spirit path and find their way home to wholeness. This is the Spirit Journey of a Healer.

From the Publisher: The harrowing but inspiring true story of a little girl who survived a terrifying childhood that nearly destroyed her.

Ever since Vanessa Steel was three years old, her mother had punished her whenever she put a foot wrong. Vanessa lived in daily terror of her mother’s unpredictable rage and the punishments she said were God’s revenge on her for being the devil’s child. If she was “naughty,” her mother would lash out at her in sadistic ways—with beatings, torture and starvation. Vanessa thought her mother would kill her.

At six years old, Vanessa’s fear and torment increased when her grandfather began to sexually abuse her, aided and abetted by her mother and grandmother. Not even able to turn to her father to protect her, Vanessa bravely carried on as if her life were normal, trying to keep the dreadful secret of her life at home.

But then one day, when she felt her deepest despair, mysterious things started happening to Vanessa that changed her forever. This resilient little girl found a secret way to survive and the truth about her mother was revealed ...

---

About the Author: Vanessa Steel was born and brought up on the outskirts of Birmingham in the 1950s. She survived her ordeals and developed a psychic gift (as a young child she foresaw the assassination of Kennedy in 1963 without knowing who he was). As an adult, she started working professionally as a Medium appearing on BBC Radio and on Paul McKenna’s TV show, The Paranormal World of Paul McKenna. She is now one of the most sought-after psychics in Britain.

Every family has secrets, but I never dreamed my position within ours was the subject of the biggest secret of all. As with any truth untold, there were clues along the way but none obvious. Honesty was a primary value in our home, so I took those I trusted at their word. When I did have questions, the adults artfully deflected or tactfully redirected. Then, one rainy day in the fall of 1978, the truth came out. It was unexpected, unbelievable, and I was devastated. The details were sparse at best, and the revelation challenged my values and my self-esteem at their core. At the age of 30, this new information triggered a review of my life as I searched for answers and worked to piece together the intricate puzzle of myself. The journey was emotional but in many ways enlightening. When I set out, I had no idea what I would uncover, or If I would find any answers at all. Nonetheless, I had to try. I’ve always been a betting man, and this was a risk worth taking. This is not a reference about how to find lost relatives or how to cope with adoption. Instead it is a memoir of my personal quest for answers and understanding following the revelation that caused me to question every aspect of myself.

After being adopted into a dysfunctional family and becoming southern farm labor with his siblings, Dan grew up experiencing rejection by both blacks and whites. He then made a mature decision to live alone at age fourteen, growing up fast to survive. While attending college, Daniel stumbled upon his childhood picture in a national magazine. Having discovered his past was one big secret, Daniel became motivated to solve the question of his origin. A Question of Color details Daniel’s upbringing, subsequent 25-year search for his birth mother, and his journey through a culture of color, developing a desire to not be identified as black or white—just an American.