Mental illness is a devastating condition for both the individual and family. This story is about a young man named Jackie who was adopted at the age of 9 months, and subsequently diagnosed with schizophrenia as an adolescent. It is a journey of despair and disappointment. It is the story of parents and the love for their child. Although the setting occurred years ago—and the names and faces may have changed—the questions remain the same. What can we do to address the needs of the mentally ill population? How can we support the families? What can we do to make a difference?

From the Back Cover: I had survived my childhood and now was an out of control, angry teenager. I wanted nothing more than parents that loved me and protected me. I wanted to be “Daddy’s Little Girl” or “Mommy’s Angel”. I wanted to be the big sister that everyone looked up to and respected. Sadly, I was none of those things. I was nothing more than a problem for everyone no matter where I went. When I didn’t get the unconditional love from my birth parents I was searching for or the therapy I needed I turned to drugs and wild ways. I thought I was punishing them, but in reality I was just punishing myself. It didn’t take long to learn how to play grownup games to get what I wanted from anyone I came in contact with, unfortunately for me I didn’t always win when I played. But I learned a lot of lessons. The most important lesson was just learning how to survive, again.

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By the Same Author: Shattered: A Child’s Journey through Hell (2013).

From the Dust Jacket: “IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE ADOPTEE.” This is the reason given for sealing adoption records and withholding all information about birthparents, even when that information is requested by an adult adoptee. Is this wall of silence always the best policy? Millions of adoptees and a growing number of birthparents think not. The desire to know about ourselves is very strong—our heritage, where we came from; and, although no court has yet found good enough reason to unseal records, the medical need-to-know is sometimes a matter of life and death. As a result, many adoptees on their own are actively tracking the information. And Search is the first handbook written expressly for adoptees and birthparents showing them how to:

• set guidelines for a search

• get organized

• use the reference resources of libraries, government, and genealogical records

• use birth, marriage, divorce, death, school, church, military, property, and other official records

• get effective results from newspaper and magazine ads

• keep accurate records

• write letters to agencies

• make out a budget for this undertaking

• enlist outside assistance

• hire someone to do the search

• go to court

Author Jayne Askin, herself an adoptee who sought and found her birthfamily, explores the fundamental question of whether one should begin such a search. She considers how the search affects the searcher, what can be expected from family and friends, how to deal with the feelings of adoptive parents, how and where to look for support, how to face possible rejection at the end of the search, and how the right to privacy of the person sought balances against the searchers need to know.

In addition to identifying adoptee support groups that can be helpful to the searcher, Search contains a state-by-state compilation of laws governing inheritance and the sealing and opening of records; it provides addresses of state information departments, state agencies that handle adoption/relinquishment, courts of jurisdiction empowered to handle these matters, and offices where records are held.

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About the Author: Jayne Askin was born April 25, 1940, in Memphis, Tennessee. She was relinquished several days later, and placed in the care of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society. When she was officially adopted on December 10, 1940, the circumstances of her birth and pertinent medical information were sealed by the court, at which time her “official” life began.

At the age of 35, no longer able to ignore or pretend that there were no influences from her birthfamily on her life, she felt strongly that she had a right to learn what traits she might have inherited—to know who she was. Her search began with an innocence she now finds hard to believe. But after encountering frustration, discrimination, and many closed doors, she finally designed a workable plan that led her to her birthfamily. She knows her medical history, that she is of Irish and Scottish heritage, that she has six half siblings, and that there is longevity in both sides of her family. Her search has brought her closer to her adoptive parents. She has not met her birthparents and does not feel the need to, but she has spoken with them and heard the details of her relinquishment. In Search: A Handbook for Adoptees and Birthparents, Jayne Askin shares her method of research in seeking the facts of her birth, the problems and fears that searchers face, and her heartfelt belief in “the right to know.”

Molly Davis, a San Francisco-based freelance writer, has written for numerous national publications. Ms. Davis is also currently a public relations consultant for several Bay Area companies. She specializes in promotional literature, marketing strategies, and media relations. Ms. Davis earned a Bachelor of Arts in English literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1988.

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Compiler’s Note: Detailed descriptions of both Geborener Deutscher and KinQuest BBS, based upon information provided by the Complier to the Author upon her request at the time, are included under “Search Resources and Services” in the Second Edition.

From the Back Cover: Titia Ellis remembers the exact moment her life changed forever. Her mother, still in her dressing gown, sat in the chair opposite five-year-old Titia and her older sister, twisting a handkerchief between her hands, while her father paced the floor behind her. Titia’s stomach rolled over as her mother announced, “Daddy and I want to tell you something important about when you were born.”

As soon as she learns the story of her birth parents’ untimely deaths and her subsequent adoption, Titia realizes that her adoption is to be kept a secret-never to be discussed again out of fear of upsetting her mother. Wanting to be loved and to fit in, she obeys her parents’ wishes-until a mid-life crisis shatters her illusion of being the perfect daughter, wife, and mother. As Titia chronicles her poignant journey to find her birth mother, she details how she jeopardizes her relationship with her adoptive parents and threatens the privacy of unsuspecting strangers-all without any guarantee of a happy outcome.

When Titia embarks on her quest to find her birth family, she immerses herself deep into her past, not knowing that what she discovers in the end will transform her entire life.

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About the Author: Born in New York City, Titia Ellis was adopted and then raised outside of Chicago. Trained as a psychologist, she maintained a family therapy practice for many years. Titia and her husband, Bill, founded the All One Family Fund in 2008 to help children at risk. They live in Vermont and delight in visits with their three children and nine grandchildren.

Tina Bareham was a tiny baby when she was abandoned at the onset of the war. With no knowledge of her parents beyond her name, Tina took up the quest to find her mother and discover the exotic culture that had set her apart from other children.

From the Dust Jacket: The document lay in the bottom of the bureau drawer. Written in longhand was a name: Anna Fisher.

“Who is Anna Fisher?” seven-year-old Florence asked her mother. The woman yanked the paper out of her hands and told her never again to mention that name. But the incident haunted the little girl. Who is Anna Fisher? Who is Anna Fisher?

So begins the heart-wrenching story of a woman’s search for identity. For what Florence had discovered—and it would be years before anyone admitted it—was that though she was raised Florence, she was born Anna. As an infant she had been given up for adoption. Her attempt to raise the curtain, cloaking something to which she felt no one had a greater right—her past, a sense of continuity—exposed her to the censure, indignation, even the fury of those determined to wall off her identity. Over and over she heard: “You have no right to know.” No right? What about the right of the adopted child?

The search for Anna Fisher, a search that took over twenty years, is like an enormously complex, highly dramatic detective story. Florence Fisher began to comb the labyrinths of official birth and death records, newspaper morgues, and created her own genealogy chart of a family she’d never met. Aided only by her ingenuity and persistence, she finally succeeded in assembling the vital parts of the puzzle. The moment when she finally comes face to face with her natural mother is as dramatic as it is heart-clutching. A reunion totally different from the moment, a year later, when she completed the circle and found her father.

Sharon Bette Koepp had been raised by strict, religious parents. Arnold Koepp was an elder in the church; Mamie was the organist and choir director. Life revolved around not doing anything that would make the neighbors talk. Who was to know that during the search for Dixie Lee, Sharon would find a family that had everyone talking? The Search for Dixie Lee is a true story; taken not from the front page headlines, but from scraps of paper, family stories, old letters, and of course, the court records. It could be the story of anyone, your own mother or father, perhaps even yourself. When a person is adopted, there is often a strange pull to find your past, your history, your ancestry, your birthright. This little story is about one woman’s journey to finding her family, and along the way, much about herself and where she came from. A wide departure from Sharolyn’s normal “K-9 SEARCH” books, The Search for Dixie Lee is written for her mom. There are no dogs, no real adventure, however, it is a search story; the search for a person missing for sixty years.

From the Back Cover: The movement of adopted adults to search for their birth families is strong and growing in the United States today. If you’re an adult who was adopted as a child and are now considering searching for your birth family, Searching for a Past will help prepare you emotionally and psychologically both for your search and what you find.

Drawing from the experiences of dozens adult adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth parents, Searching for a Past will show you how adoption has affected other adopted persons, what motivated them to search for a birth family connection, what they found, and how they handled their discovery. You will learn about:

• the importance of joining a search support group

• how to prepare for the impact of the search on your birth family, your adopted family, and your own family

• special considerations for teenage or mid-life searches

• what to do when your birth parents don’t want to be found

how to incorporate birth family members into your life

A thorough and helpful guide for any adopted adult, Searching for a Past is also en essential resource for adoptive parents, spouses of adoptees, adoption counselors and agencies, ministers and care-group leaders, and anyone desiring a better understanding of the search and reunion experience.

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About the Author: Jayne Schooler is the Adoption Coordinator for Warren County Children’s Services in Lebanon, Ohio. She has been involved with this agency since 1981, first as a foster parent, then as an adoptive parent, and later as a staff member. As part of her duties wit the agency, Jayne assists adopted adults with search and reunion issues.

In addition, Jayne conducts workshops on foster and adoptive parent issues both on the state and national level. She is a regular columnist for the Adoptive Families Magazine and has contributed over 160 articles to other local, regional, and national publications. She is the author of The Whole Life Adoption Book: Realistic Advice for Building a Healthy Adoptive Family.

Jayne and her husband, David, are the parents of two children, Ray, now age twenty-seven, who joined their family by adoption at age sixteen, and Kristy, now age eighteen. She is a graduate of Cedarville College in Cedarville, Ohio.

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By the Same Author: The Whole Life Adoption Book: Realistic Advice for Building a Healthy Adoptive Family (1993); Telling the Truth to Your Adopted or Foster Child (with Betsy Keefer) (2000, Bergin & Garvey); Journeys After Adoption: Understanding Lifelong Issues (with Betsie L. Norris) (2002, Bergin & Garvey); Mom, Dad... I’m Pregnant: When Your Daughter or Son Faces an Unplanned Pregnancy (2004, NavPress); and Wounded Children, Healing Homes: How Traumatized Children Impact Adoptive and Foster Families (with Betsy Keefer Smalley & Timothy J Callahan) (2010, NavPress).

Deciding to look for a long-lost family member or loved one is a difficult decision. In fact, due to fear, uncertainty, or simply a lack of information, the majority of people looking for someone wait years before beginning a search. Searching for a Piece of My Soul is the first book to guide the reader through both the emotional and the practical process of locating a child placed for adoption or a birth parent. Included are personal search experiences (including the author’s), advice from psychologists who specialize in counseling those on both sides of the search, and, of course, factual information about how to search.

From the Dust Jacket: Only the name, I thought, I need only find out the name and do no more.

But when 48-year-old Suzanne Chick discovers the identity of her birth mother, suddenly nothing will satisfy her but knowing everything.

In 1991, at the age of forty-eight, Suzanne Chick—artist, teacher, wife and mother—discovers the identity of her birthmother, the woman who gave her up for adoption. That woman was a nineteen-year-old girl named Charmian Clift.

Suddenly, knowing the name is not enough. Now nothing will satisfy her but knowing everything.

Charmian Clift went on to become a novelist and essayist whose name was known to thousands in the 1960s through her weekly newspaper column. Her life with her husband George Johnston (author of My Brother Jack) on the Greek islands of Kalymnos and Hydra in the 1950s and early 1960s captured the public imagination. But for all her talent, intelligence and extraordinary beauty, Charmian’s life was marked by deep unhappiness, and ended in suicide in 1969 at the age of forty-five.

Suzanne Chick takes the reader on her quest to know and understand this complex, apparently contradictory woman who was Charmian Clift. And as she learns about the mother she can never meet, she finds herself re-examining the course her own life has taken (how much was shaped by environment? how much by heredity?), and gaining insight into the life of the woman who brought her up—her adoptive mother, Marjorie Shaw.

More than just a fascinating piece of literary history, this is a moving account of the consequences of adoption and Suzanne’s search for identity.

It also introduces a new and talented writer, who in this respect is certainly her mother’s daughter.

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About the Author: Suzanne Chick was born in Sydney in 1942 and grew up in the Sydney suburb of Mosmon—the same suburb where Charmian Clift and George Johnston settled on their return from Greece in 1964. From an early age a love of line and colour was shared equally with a strong love of words. Her schooling at North Sydney Girls’ High School was followed by the National Art School and Sydney Teachers’ College.

After a long career in art teaching, and bringing up three daughters, Suzanne now spends most of her week in her paint-splattered studio or at her word processor. To keep her hand in she still teaches: adults, the developmentally disabled and, occasionally, schoolchildren.

She lives on the shores of a beautiful bay on the south coast of New South Wales with her husband Doug and their daughters’ dog, Christmas. Native birds share her garden, and at night the resident possum allows her to stroke its current baby.

This is her first book.

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Compiler’s Note: Readers wanting a fuller and more comprehensive biographical account of Clift’s life are directed to consult The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift by Nadia Wheatley (Flamingo, 2001).

From the Dust Jacket: Christine’s childhood was utterly desolate. Abused and starved of all love, she was so consumed by loneliness and fear that she eventually fell prey to the mind of a notorious serial killer.

Christine was abandoned as a baby on the wintry doorstep of a convent. The little girl longed for a real family and she was ready to adore her new mummy and daddy when they adopted her, but family life turned out to be the start of a new nightmare of abuse and violence for Christine. When she was 13 years old, her parents declared they had had enough of her and sent her back to the orphanage. It was this act of betrayal that pushed her to breaking point.

Abandoned once again in a children’s home, Christine began a desperate quest for her real father, the only parent she felt had never let her down. A twisted path of wrong turnings finally took her face to face with lan Brady, the notorious Moors Murderer. It was a chilling encounter, alone with Brady, that forced Christine to confront reality and allowed her to reclaim her life.

She launched a career in the glamorous and dangerous world of spying but there were many more years of heartbreak and three years in Primal Therapy in Los Angeles before she eventually found peace through her work in journalism and by giving her son the loving family life she never knew herself.

Searching for Daddy is a shocking story of desperate loneliness and phenomenal courage and healing that will move and inspire everyone who reads it.

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About the Author: Christine Joanna Hart has worked for several intelligence agencies where she was trained as an undercover operative. Her in-depth investigative journalism and writing on terrorism has appeared extensively in the Sunday Times and Daily Mail. Christine has found personal happiness through motherhood and lives with her son, Arthur, in Chiswick.

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By the Same Author: In for the Kill: A True Story of Hunting Evil (2012, Mainstream Publishing).

From the Back Cover: Spanning seven decades from 1916 this book begins in a small coal mining town in Yorkshire and follows the life of a simple mining family. It tells of the strong love that bonds them together despite the hardships of working down the mines.

The story follows the lives of a family caught up by a personal disaster as well as the effects of World War II.

We share the heartbreak of a father forced to give up his daughter to adoption. While their lives continue along different paths, each trying to make a new life, both of them continue to be haunted by thoughts of the other.

We see how the years of mass emigration from war torn England can change the lives of so many people, as they are separated by continents.

Finally comes the opportunity for them to be reunited, but is it too late?

This is an emotional and heart-warming family story which portrays life as it was in the difficult war years and the changes that those who chose a new land had to overcome to build a new life.

All members of the adoption triad, particularly adoptees, will be astonished by author Jan Fishler’s courageous journey into the heart and soul of adoption. Her memoir, Searching for Jane, Finding Myself chronicles the abandonment, fear, anger, and sadness she experienced as an adoptee who knew nothing about her biological family. Raised as an only child in Toledo, OH, by her adoptive parents, Fishler delivers a brutally honest account of a search that led to buried secrets and a shocking number of birth siblings. Her gripping tale travels deep into a world permeated by loss, shaped by lies and deception, and cloaked in shame and guilt. As the author explains, “Without realizing it, I spent most of my life looking for my birth mother’s heartbeat, projecting the pain caused by my loss wherever it would stick.” Rich with vivid scenes that are expertly executed and articulated, Searching for Jane, Finding Myself is a must-read for birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoptees who want validation for unspoken feelings they might have harbored for years. If a case needs to be made for open adoption, Fishler has done it. Searching for Jane, Finding Myself carries the reader through a host of emotions and presents life lessons along the way. Not limited to a readership facing adoption issues, this book provides inspiration for anyone who has faced adversity. The author’s search for the truth is a testament to the power of tenacity...of conviction...of heart.

From the Back Cover: My parents adopted me when I was only 10 weeks old and went on to raise a very inquisitive daughter who always needed to know who, what, where, when and why? It was only when I realised that this information was not available to me that I truly understood the struggles I would face in the search for my birth parents and, ultimately, my past.

After years of tears and questions, wild goose chases and broken hearts I found my birth mother and my birth father and in doing so discovered the answers to so many of my questions. My story, however, is one of many twists and turns. Throughout my journey I discovered I had been living five minutes from my birth mother all my life and had her phone number in my phone for over a decade before we met—but didn’t realise who she was ... and that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

It wasn’t all plain sailing either—the first time I met my birth father, in a Dublin city pub, was a very different experience and I had to laugh so as not to cry.

Down the line history almost repeated itself when during my search for answers I found myself a young, single and frightened pregnant student. This pregnancy would later see me face the adoption agency once more, but from the other side of the fence. Being adopted and searching for answers has taught me many things. But most important of all, it has taught me that if one door closes, find a window!

And in the end, after all my searching, I finally realised that happiness was never further away than my own front door.

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About the Author: Aoife Curran is a 31-year-old mother of three from Dublin, now living in Kildare. All of her life she has known that she is adopted, but she could never have imagined the ups and downs she would face when finding her birth parents.

Hers is a beautiful story of a girl filled with admiration and respect for the wonderful couple she has called Mum and Dad for as long as she can remember. A girl who also showed unimaginable insight and maturity when confronting her birth parents and understanding their decisions—the ones that shaped the rest of her life.

In telling her story Aoife is a breath of fresh air and Searching For Me: My Adoption Story is sure to help those in similar situations as well as enlighten those for whom adoption was never, and never will be, an issue.

How do you heal a disintegrated psyche? Were you ever abandoned? Searching for Molly Parker is intended as a call to all those who have been traumatized, to face with compassion that which they most fear. Initially written with adoptees in mind, it was only after this autobiographical work was completed that the author realized his outline of the initial psychological wounding and path to healing could be applied to victims of both abandonment and abuse.

From the Publisher: Can you imagine not knowing your true identity? Can you further imagine being barred from obtaining information that would tell you about your origins?

An adoptee’s search is not for the faint-hearted. But one’s deep need to know who they are and where they came from is a powerful motivator.

This is a story of persistence despite disheartening roadblocks. It is the detailed account of how a 54-year-old woman discovered the birth family that she never knew.

Her direct conversational style and powerful original poetry written during her Search and Reunion provide a window into the emotions of her complicated journey.

For those who have yet to begin their search, this story will give you hope and courage and strengthen your resolve to begin. For all other readers, it will give you a unique understanding of adoption from an adoptee’s point of view.

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About the Author: Never give up was Maureen de Souza’s mantra throughout her search and is her advice to other adoptees who want to know the truth about their origins. The practice of journaling her experiences and recording her reflections in poetry provided the framework of this memoir. Maureen is a member of the American Adoption Congress and the Adoptee-Birthparent Support Network. She assists other members of the adoption triad with their searches. Maureen and her husband live in Maryland near Washington, DC. They are blessed with three wonderful children.

An autobiography about my life of abuse in foster homes, then being adopted and how I overcame my problems and the choices I made to become a foster and adoptive mom. About the Author: Serenity Barlow spent her early years in foster care. She was adopted out of the “system“ and has struggled like many adopted children trying to discover herself and find her place in the world. Serenity found a part of herself in giving back to kids like her. She is a foster mother and has adopted children. Serenity spent time as an ambassador for the foster care program and currently works as a Peer Parent, teaching at risk parents how to better care for their children so they can remain in the home.

In this candid account of discovery, first time author Andy Angus aims to bring hope to anyone involved in adoption regardless of their age or where they live. Aged thirteen, Andy unwittingly set out on a difficult journey that was eventually to take him quite literally to the other side of the world. Like many others, Andy was adopted as a child in the 1960s and over the years often wondered about the truth surrounding his conception and how life might have been. It was this thirst for knowledge and the truth that drove him on a quest of over twenty years finally culminating in a number of surprises that even he couldn’t have foreseen. His emotive tale documents his twenty-year quest and the eventual discovery of his birth family in Australia and New Zealand; Searching for Simon is the true story of one man’s need for identity.

From the Dust Jacket: Like cowboys turning in the saddle to look at where they came from, Searching for the Castle documents the backtrail of author Barbara Leigh Ohrstrom’s adoption. It begins with her urgency as an eighteen-year-old woman initiating her search for her birth parents. Her recollection includes court petitions, letters, Division of Social Service documents, and other original documents usually buried behind the lock and key of the law.

In this memoir, she narrates the unearthing of her history and that of her family. Some of her discoveries are filled with pain, while others are joyful, including locating sisters, another brother, and eventually nieces and a nephew. A story of how one woman comes to terms with her identity, Searching for the Castle tells of real people doing the best they can to live and love in the often heartbreaking circumstances of life.

As Ohrstrom shares her journey to find her birth parents, she reveals her emotions throughout the process, discovering that her identity is self-created, but also that her being is governed, in part, by her ancestors and family lines. Searching for the Castle communicates the message that love creates families and that the family to which Ohrstrom belonged in foster care gave her a mother, father, and family filled with love and decency.

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About the Author: Barbara Leigh Ohrstrom earned a master’s degree in professional writing from Emerson College and has published several articles. She is a project manager for integrated writing centers at a university in Massachusetts. Ohrstrom lives in Boston, Massachusetts, with family and two cats.

From the Publisher: As Mia stood in the parking lot next to her shop, she and a customer discussed what it was like to be pregnant with your first child. Little did Mia know that this woman was her birth mother, and Mia the daughter she gave up for adoption 33 years ago. The baby Mia carried would be the woman’s first grandchild.

After her birth in a San Francisco hospital in 1965, a Reno physician and his wife adopted Mia. She was raised with her brother and sisters in a happy loving home. Upon the death of her parents she decided to try and fill the deep longing and emotional gap now present in her life. She began a passionate search for her biological parents in hopes of discovering her medical history.

Emotions are on edge as Mia’s quest begins, and she encounters files and documents outlining her past history. By daring to intrude into the lives of her birth parents, Mia disrupts an entire family, questions her actions and uncovers secrets of long ago. Mia’s story is a positive and uplifting account which will move, enrich and delight the reader.

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About the Author: Sharon Lyman Quinn grew up in Newport Beach, CA, and studied business at the University of Nevada, Reno. Developing an interest in writing at an early age, Sharon had her own weekly newspaper column in the Newport Harbor News-Press and was assistant editor of her college yearbook. A lifelong community volunteer, Sharon has served on the Truckee Meadows Community College Foundation of Nevada, Reno Philharmonic Board, co-developed the Reno Ronald McDonald House, member of Junior League, and is active in the arts. Married to Dave Quinn, Sharon has two children and five grandchildren. Besides taking time out from her 30 years as a Realtor to write about her daughter-in-law, Mia, in Second Beginning, Sharon enjoys travel, art museums, gardening, and watching old movies. She is currently working on an historic novel set near Boston in 1675.

Wyatt Harris was born with one arm in mainline China. Because of the one-child policy and figuring he would be of little value to the family, he was abandoned as an infant to an orphanage, where he was adopted by an American family at the age of three. The Second Chance is Wyatt’s story of his childhood in the US, and later his search to find his biological parents in China. After finding his biological parents and siblings in a tiny village, he realizes how lucky he was to have been abandoned 20 years before. With his newfound respect for life, he decides to give orphans another chance as well, and starts Second Chances, a non-profit foundation assisting orphans in Taiwan and China. In October of 2012, the first orphan student from Taiwan was brought to the United States to study at a school in Oregon for one year, all funded through Second Chances. Second Chance is the story of the author’s epic journey to discover his past and secure his future.

From the Back Cover: A psychiatrist looks at his own black-market adoption.

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About the Author: Robert Andersen received his medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis and took his psychiatry training at St. Louis University. He is currently Chief of the Mental Health Clinic at the St. Louis Veterans Administration Medical Center and lives in the St. Louis metropolitan area with his son and a variety of animals.

Dr. Andersen has published six articles, on a variety of subjects from prisoners of war to baseball. Two of the articles (in Child Welfare) deal with adoption. He also wrote a chapter on the psychology of running in the book The Complete Runner, Volume II.

At age three days Robert Andersen was sold through the black market for $250.00.

Families are messy, some more than others. You are born into them, marry in and divorce out, adopted in or out, and die or walk away from them. Second Degree Adoption: Lost and Found is a true story about a family full of complex relationships—made more so by secrets, misunderstandings, divorces and adoptions. Be careful why you seek, for you are searching to find yourself.

From the Dust Jacket: Born to an unwed teenager in a home for wayward girls, Frances Lear, founding editor-in-chief of Lear’s magazine, has come to symbolize the success story of the American career woman. But in this courageously revealing—and occasionally shocking—memoir, told in flashes of painful and joyous recollection, she speaks with utter frankness about the darker forces that have shaped her being. Before and behind her life as a New York fashion executive, then as the wife of a celebrated Hollywood producer, a mother of two daughters, an activist, and finally a magazine journalist, Lear wrestled with specters that haunt countless lives: alcoholism, the memory of parental sexual abuse, the loss of personal identity, manic-depressive illness, and the ever-present possibility of suicide.

In The Second Seduction she offers her own accounting of her nightmarish experiences—and of how she prevailed against impossible odds. By turns disturbing and inspiring, her book guides us with unflinching candor into an unforgettable life.

Just before the death of his parents, author Tom Liotti, legendary lawyer and judge from New York, learned that he was adopted. In this heartfelt autobiography, Liotti shares the amazing story of how this knowledge affected his life, his work, and his legacy. Liotti traces the lineage of his parents, Louis and Eileen, and then delves into his childhood. From his first days at kindergarten to being a collegiate swimmer and eventually a famous civil rights attorney, Liotti reveals how his parents always offered encouragement and support through every facet of his life, loved him unconditionally, and shaped his passion for social justice. But it was the discovery of his adoption that altered Liotti’s world, sending him down an uncharted path. He began searching for his biological parents, desperate to find his roots and know his heritage. No matter his findings, though, Liotti realized how each of us has limitless potential and that love has an infinite capacity to change the world. Gripping, honest, and real, The Secret Adoption captures one man’s incredible journey into the past and speaks to the resilience of the human spirit. About the Author: Thomas F. Liotti is a nationally known civil rights attorney, village justice, and former NCAA All-American. He is the author of Judge Mojo: The True Story of One Attorney’s Fight Against Judicial Terrorism.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Hart, we have no records of your birth.” These were the words I heard over the phone when I was trying to locate a copy of my birth certificate for a new passport. “Have you checked with the Adoption Registry Office?” was the following question. ADOPTION? What? I was 41 years old. I knew who my parents were. Or did I? Why would someone suggest that I talk with an Adoption Registry Office? I just simply wanted my birth certificate, thank you very much. That phone call led me on a new journey of discovery and secrets. I was a Secret Child! Who was I? Who was my birth mother? Did I have other siblings? What was my story? The Secret Child is my personal exploration of discovering my new identity and unveiling a secret that God had kept for 41 years. A secret so dear, yet so mysterious. “...Find out more...” were the words I kept hearing echo through my heart. Indeed I did find out more. More than I ever dreamed imaginable. Throughout my journey I decided that the “Joy of the Lord” would be my strength. I had to trust that God was just giving me a new life story. About the Author: Ordering a copy of her birth certificate changed her life. At the age of 41, Kirsten Hart discovered that she was adopted. God has led her on a journey she never expected, down a road she never knew existed, to a destination yet unknown. Kirsten Hart has been able to travel with some of America’s premier Christian singing groups including The Spurrlows, FRIENDS (the back-up group for Grammy Award Winner Larnelle Harris), The Richard Roberts TV Singers, and as a member of the Benny Hinn Voices who appear in Crusades worldwide, as well as on TBN’s This Is Your Day telecast. She has spoken and sung for Focus On The Family, Compassion International, and for churches, retreats, and conferences across the country. God chose to give her a new life story in a surprising way. As she is daily walking out her story, she brings a message of grace, forgiveness, and miracles! Through her unexpected twist of events, God has taught her that truly “The JOY of the Lord is her strength!”

From the Dust Jacket: No childhood is simple, but June Cross’s was perilous, teetering on the brink of a racial divide. She was born in 1954 to Norma Booth, a glamorous aspiring white actress, and James “Stump” Cross, a well-known black comedian. They soon parted, and mother and daughter lived together in New York City until June was four. When it became clear that the dark-skinned, kinky-haired child could no longer “pass” as white, Norma sent June to live with a black family in Atlantic City, New Jersey. But Norma could never quite let her daughter go, and her daughter’s struggle with this ambivalence forms the core of this poignant memoir.

Both mother’s and daughter’s longing, shame, and confusion kept June shuttling between worlds. Against the roiling background of the sixties and seventies, June struggled with her identity as the black radicalism of the era collided head-on with her adopted family’s more traditional middle-class ideals. She spent summers with Norma, now in Hollywood and married to a successful television actor, passing as her mother’s adopted daughter. Norma feared that her husband’s career would suffer if anyone knew about her illegitimate daughter. Instructed to tell no one the truth back in Atlantic City, June kept her identity to herself. When, as an adult, June decided to make her secret public, she risked severing her relationship with her mother forever and alienating the only family she had ever known.

Secret Daughter is a story about race and class that moves across forty years of delicate, often painful negotiation. It is a story about the strength it takes to keep a secret and the courage required to reveal it—and how revealing one’s deepest fears can lead to happy endings. It is a story for everyone who has a family—and a secret.

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About the Author: June Cross is a journalist and an award-winning television a producer with thirty years of experience in both commercial and public television. Her most recent series, This Far by Faith: African-American Spiritual Journeys, aired nationally on PBS in 2003. Prior to that, Cross was a producer for PBS’s Frontline, CBS News, and PBS’s MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. She has won two Emmys, including one for the autobiographical film Secret Daughter, which also won an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism. She is currently an assistant professor of journalism at Columbia University. Cross graduated from Harvard University, and lives in Manhattan with her husband, jazz trumpet player Waldron Ricks.

From the Dust Jacket: A search for roots and identity has rarely been captured with such irony, unusual insight, and surprising humor as in this memoir of heartbreak and hope. Today a distinguished American poet, Colette Inez first came to the United States when she was eight years old, as an apparent Belgian orphan escorted by two complete strangers. Growing up in post-World War II America, a stranger to her own past, she survived a harrowing adolescence and an increasingly menacing, abusive adoptive family by learning to define her single solace: a developing passion for literature.

Facing possible deportation in the 1950s, Inez set out to prove her claim to U.S. citizenship. The result, as she recounts in this eloquent, wrenching memoir, would span two continents, a trail of discovery, and a buried secret: one that ultimately allowed Inez to reconcile her past and present and finally come of age as an artist.

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About the Author: Colette Inez is associate professor in the writing program at Columbia University. Her nine books of poetry include The Woman Who Loved Worms, Alive and Taking Names, Clemency, and Spinoza Doesn’t Come Here Anymore. Inez is the recipient of numerous awards and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations and twice from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Secret Sibling is a memoir of Christine’s search for her biological family after she was given up for adoption as a baby. This globe-trotting story chronicles the author’s story from World War II to the present day.

From the Back Cover: Davina and I chatted for about five minutes. “Your search, your story, has been quite a complicated one. Knowing how much it means to you, it’s meant a lot to us to take it on and see if we can help you.”

Then suddenly she said, “I’ve got news for you; we've found your sister.”

Cherry Durbin had always known that she was adopted. She spent years searching for her birth mother. When she learnt that she also had a sister, the need to find her family became even more urgent. Cherry had almost given up until one day, while watching the drama unfold on the television programme Long Lost Family, her daughter suggested that maybe this was her only chance.

The culmination of her thirty-year search uncovered a dramatic story of a mother fleeing Nazi-occupied Jersey and a sister left behind to survive the deprivations of the German-controlled island. Secret Sister tells the story of Cherry’s life, her constant search to find a place where she belonged and how Long Lost Family changed her life completely.