A haunting memoir of a tiny girl’s journey through a life of hell. After suffering the death of both of her biological parents due to their drug addiction, Natalie Winters was placed in a Texas Foster home where she was emotionally, physically, and sexually abused. In A Secret Star, Natalie shares the horror stories and dark moments of despair that filled her world. Even as the events are detailed within these pages, no one could ever understand the depth of abandonment, abuse, and absence of love she felt. Natalie struggled during these horrible times wondering what light to seek and what star to wish upon. Even when there seemed no glimmer of hope or rescue, Natalie still found a wish that gave her just enough hope to endure. Just as the stars continue to twinkle whether they are visible or not, Natalie discovered that true light doesn’t appear at the end of a long, hard road. True light comes from within and offers solace and comfort in the darkest hours. Most people live their whole lives unaware of this secret and empowering light, and it is often not discovered until someone shows us it’s there. Natalie realized that even during her most traumatizing experiences, she was not alone. For even the darkest of skies, still have the sparkle of the stars.

From the Back Cover: This is the story of two strangers: a mother and a daughter, separated at birth. It is the story of the riveting journey each took to redeem the past.
to a state hospital—a home to people ranging from mentally challenged to the criminally insane. I was nineteen, blonde with blue eyes, five foot four, 102 pounds, and a Philadelphia Main Line debutante. And I was three and a half months pregnant.

the nuns at the hospital for unwed mothers warned as they handed me to my parents. “We think she just needs some attention.”

The Sisters of Charity were right; I was born with an insatiable desire to be noticed and wasn’t afraid to show my unlikable side if it meant all eyes would be on me. My grandfather called it a mean streak; my father deemed it determination, my mother, who had waited ten long years for me, simply smiled.

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About the Author: Kathy Hatfield was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and grew up surrounded by two brothers, twenty-five cousins, and two sets of grandparents in Indialantic, Florida. She attended Florida Atlantic University, after which she worked as a mortgage broker while running her own small business selling men’s neckties. She now teaches World Literature at a high school in Florida where she serves as English department chairman. She and her husband of 25 years live in a quaint beachside community with their two daughters. She is a freelance writer and moderator of the Adoption Reunion Stories Facebook page, which currently has over 2,800 members. She’s a competitive runner and participates in 5k races when she’s not correcting papers.

Julie Mannix von Zerneck was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. She traveled with her parents, living in Paris, on the isle of Capri and in several boarding schools around the world, before settling down at Sunny Hill Farm at the age of nine. There, she lived with a menagerie of animals, including a cheetah and eagle and her very own baby spider monkey. After attending the Neighborhood Playhouse in NYC, she became an actress on Broadway, had running roles in three soap operas and guest starred on many TV series. She is married to the TV producer, Frank von Zerneck. They have three children and four grandchildren and reside in Toluca Lake, California, where, for 26 wonderful years, they were the owners of Portrait of a Bookstore. She is a lifelong collector of antiques and antiquarian books.

From the Publisher: Secrets, large and small, are a fact of human life. This book explores the impact of keeping secrets and the power of truth.

Secrets can damage our sense of self and our relationships. Even so, Jane Isay has found, people survive learning the most disturbing facts that have been hidden from them. And secret keepers are relieved when they finally reveal themselves—even the things they are ashamed of—to the people they care about. Much depends, Isay writes, on the way of telling and the way of hearing. Jane Isay was both a secret finder and a secret keeper. After fifteen years of marriage her husband admitted he was gay, but together they decided to keep it a secret for the sake of their two sons.

Building on her personal experience, sixty intimate interviews, and extensive research into the psychology of secrets, Isay shows how the pain of secrets can be lightened by full disclosure, genuine apology, and time. Sometimes the truth sunders relationships, but often it saves them. Powered by detailed stories and Isay’s compassionate analysis, Secrets and Lies reveals how universal secrets are in families. The big ones—affairs, homosexuality, parentage, suicide, abuse, hidden siblings—can be ruinous at first, but the effects need not last forever, and Isay shows us what makes the difference. With specific guidelines for those who keep secrets and those who find them out, Isay’s book reveals the art of surviving a secret.

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About the Author: Jane Isay is the author of two previous books, Waling on Eggshells, about parents and their adult children, and Mom Still Likes You Best, about adult siblings. As an editor for more than forty years, she discovered Mary Pipher’s Reviving Ophelia, commissioned Patricia T. O’Conner’s best-selling Woe Is I and Rachel Simmons’s Odd Girl Out, and edited such nonfiction classics as Praying for Sheetrock and Friday Night Lights. She lives in New York City.

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Compiler’s Note: See, particularly, Part I, Section 1: The Birth Bombshell: When a significant secret is revealed, only the whole truth will restore trust (pp. 25-51).

A hint of a family secret simmers below the surface. Can it be unfolded? What is the cost? Then, at the next vista, another cloud of unknowing.

From the Publisher: A simple need for her birth certificate leads Jane, aged 19, to a devastating secret: she is adopted. Stunned, Jane is sworn to secrecy and forbidden to search for her biological family—a promise she honours until the death of her adoptive parents. A heart-wrenching family crisis and a longing to know her origins then drive Jane to painstakingly research her roots in Rhodesia, Johannesburg, London, Berlin and Sydney.

Who were her biological parents, and why had she been adopted? And who imposed the conditions for her adoption and why? Almost forty years after finding out about her adoption, Jane is welcomed warmly into her biological mother’s family in London. Astonished, Jane is told her talented, complex and attractive mother was a British spy sent to Arnhem in the Netherlands just prior to the “Market Garden” airborne invasion during WWII.

Secrets, Spies and Spotted Dogs interweaves the raw emotion of adoptee discovery, the heart-pounding threads of WWII espionage at Arnhem, and the author’s poignant search for truth and identity.

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About the Author: Jane Eales met her future husband in Johannesburg and followed him to Oxford where they married. Two years later they return to Johannesburg and she studies social work at the University of Witwatersrand. In 1980, the family moved to Sydney Australia. Here the eldest of their three children was diagnosed with a disability. As he entered adolescence, his health deteriorated markedly and in 1990, in order to obtain some clarity about her genes, Jane began to search for her biological family. Fifteen years later in 2005, she met her half-brother at Canary Wharf in London. Thus began an amazing journey of discovery. Flooded with information, and as a way of making sense of everything, she began to write. Secrets, Spies and Spotted Dogs is the result. There was another unexpected outcome of her search for identity: in 2008, Jane began to draw and paint. This has since become a much loved source of peace and joy. (See www.janeeales.com) Secrets, Spies and Spotted Dogs is her first book. Jane and her husband continue to live in Sydney with their children and their grandchildren.

Most family trees are pictured as mighty oaks, but Glenn refers to his as a cactus: “There’s branches, but you’re bound to get poked looking around.” It’s easy to see why Glenn—with two moms and three dads—describes his background this way. Glenn hasn’t seen his birth mother since the day he was born. His birth father was a sporadic presence, in and out of rehab recovering from addictions. His adoptive father, an alcoholic, committed suicide when Glenn was twelve. His adoptive mother’s fear of living alone made way for “Psychopath Ben,” Glenn’s controlling stepfather. Though Glenn’s family didn’t provide him with much hope for the future, everything changed when Glenn, as a teenager, made the decision to follow Christ. God has redefined Glenn’s understanding of “family”— demonstrating His fatherly love through positive examples of husbands and fathers in the Church. It took five adults to mess up his life, but only one Jesus to transform it!

From the Publisher: It all began when design student Anaïs Bordier viewed a YouTube video and saw her own face staring back. After some research, Anaïs found that the Los Angeles actress Samantha Futerman was born in a South Korean port city called Busan on November 19, 1987—the exact same location and day that Anaïs was born. This propelled her to make contact—via Facebook. One message later, both girls wondered: Could they be twins?

Thus begins their remarkable journey to build a relationship as sisters, continents apart. Over Facebook, Twitter, and Skype, they learned that they shared much more than a strikingly similar appearance. Eventually, they traveled to Korea together to discover more about the land of their separation. One of Facebook’s Top Ten Stories of 2013, Separated @ Birth is a story that spans the world and peels back some of the complex and emotional layers of foreign adoption.

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About the Author: Anaïs Bordier was adopted as an infant and grew up in the suburbs of Paris. She recently graduated from Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design in London with a degree in fashion design. Currently, she lives in Paris, where she is working as a leather-goods designer for Gerard Darel.

Samantha Futerman was adopted as an infant and raised in New Jersey. She currently lives in Los Angeles, where she is pursuing a career as an actress. Her credits include roles in the films Memoirs of a Geisha and 21 & Over, and the television series Suburgatory, The Big C, and Up All Night, among others.

Lisa Pulitzer has coauthored and ghostwritten numerous books, several of which have become New York Times bestsellers.

September’s Child takes you on a journey with a little girl named Anna. The story takes place in Nebraska in the mid-’60s through the late ’70s. The story’s little hero survives growing up in an adopted home where she wasn’t really wanted. The Warrens adopted Anna to replace their infant, who had died at birth. This remarkable true story gives vivid detail of Anna’s struggles throughout her life.

What constitutes a serial killer is open for debate. Some say that in order to be classified as a serial killer a person must have killed at least three people in the same manner. Each murder is followed by a “cooling off” period. Still others, including the FBI, say that it takes only two murders to call a person a serial killer. The serial killer is not motivated by material gain but rather psychological triggers such as the need for feeling powerful. The killer often gets some sort of sexual gratification from his acts of violence, even if he does not rape his victim. Volume one covers: Lavinia Fisher, Maury Travis, David Carpenter, Rodney Alcala, Robert Berdella, David Berkowitz, Kenneth Bianchi, Angelo Bouno, Jerry Brudos, Judy Buenoano, Charles Manson and Adam Lanza.

Liz Story is an adoptee who chronicles the series of extreme decisions that shaped her life starting with her birth mother’s decision to give her up for adoption. Although Story grew up with a loving family, she always felt the overwhelming desire to know who her birth mother was and the circumstances surrounding the decision. She ultimately locates her birth mother and family and develops a close relationship with them. A few years later, Liz learns that her biological aunt needs a kidney and she makes the most extreme decision in her life. Liz not only documents her experiences but also explores how the nature vs. nurture theory applies to her life. This memoir recounts all the ups and downs in Liz’s life that led her to where she is today, at peace.

An insightful account of a woman’s perseverance through adoption secrecy and red tape, Shadows in Paradise traces Carolann Dowding’s search for her biological family. Despite a wholesome upbringing by her adoptive family in a beautiful Queensland, Australia, Carolann is compelled to reconcile the silences of her past. As an adult, she reconnects with her birth mother and describes the unpredictable, awkward struggles of their relationship until later in life, a truce is drawn between them. Through her own determination, and with a boost from a private investigator, Carolann courageously pursues a trail of clues leading to her mysterious birth father, changing her life forever. Illuminated by compassion, tragedy and gratitude which span the generations, Shadows in Paradise reveals the breadth of our need for truth and connection.

If you love your children or your mother you may find this story hard to read and even harder to understand. A mother’s love is the cornerstone of life that every child should be able to take for granted isn’t it? Rejected even before his birth by his biological mother, Ben Wilton might have been forgiven for expecting it from his adoptive mother. Sadly it was not meant to be. Shaken is the short but tragic story of a child who was mentally, emotionally and physically abused by his adoptive mother. Ignored by his adoptive father and consistently bullied by his cruel older brother. Ben tells his story without self pity or bitterness, so that those in a similar situation might find hope and the same will to succeed, that he eventually realised he possessed.

A revelation. An uncovering. All the terms like “abandonment issues” and “underlying anger” that surround adopted children does a disservice to their truth. This short piece digs to the root of the issue for one adopted woman.

From the Back Cover: If there is one thing that we learn as parents, it is that all children cry when they are hurt, scared, upset or just angry. Most of those children make noise when they cry. We hear it at home, at stores, in parks, and anywhere children are gathered. Sometimes they are so loud that it stops everyone in their tracks because it sounds like someone is beating them, but if you look, they are just throwing a temper tantrum. But there are other children, if you watch them during these times, you might see them sob, but make no noise. Those are the children that could need your attention more than the rest. The majority of abused children learn to cry without making noise because they know, if they make a sound, the abuse only gets worse. People who have never been abused have no understanding of this and look at the child as if something is wrong with them. There is something wrong with them; they are hiding a horrible secret. They are living a nightmare that they think is normal. They don’t understand that it’s not normal to be silent when you are crying or when you are hurt or when you are hit. The little ones believe that all parents hit their children. They do not know any better.

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By the Same Author: Scorned: A Teenager Escapes from Hell (2014).

From the Back Cover: It’s a January morning in 1976; Julie rips the hospital bracelet from her wrist and throws it across the room. As it lands, she doesn’t know that the sound will echo through the years. But the story doesn’t begin here.

In a suburb north of Manhattan, Julie grows up on a block where children play outside from morning until dusk, as their mothers play bridge and smoke cigarettes, while their fathers take the 7:02 into the city. Her family looks like all the other families, except in Julie’s family, babies are picked up, not delivered.

Julie Kerton blends a story of coming of age with a tale of living on each side of the adoption triad; adopted child, birth mother and adoptive mother and tops it off with the despair of alcoholism and mental illness. In this candid memoir, Julie links love, loss, shame, secrets and belonging to the fragmented pieces deep within herself as she explores the origins of her identity, ultimately discovering what family really means.

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About the Author: Julie Kerton is an active contributor on adoption issues, including hosting her blog, shenamedyoudonna.blogspot.com. She is a strong proponent of adoption reform, pertaining to the civil rights of Adult Adoptees. In addition she advocates for families affected by mental illness and is a member of NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness). Julie holds a B.S. in Human Development and Psychology and lives in Connecticut.

In this anthology, thirty-four women and girls from twenty countries, now living all across the U.S., reflect on their journeys to naturalized U.S. citizenship—journeys that invite all of us, native and foreign born, to consider what it means to choose to be an American. In “Chinese Daughters: All-American Girls” (pp. 48-133), American mothers whose Chinese daughters have become naturalized citizens through adoption, and these insightful teen-agers themselves, ponder how their experiences of cross-national adoption with a unique gender imperative influences their sense of personal, cultural, national and global identity.

Flora Rheta Schreiber is the author of Sybil, the astonishing best-seller that explored the mind of a woman possessed by multiple personalities. Her long-awaited new book is a true story of a man overcome by demons, whose ordinary, decent human impulses are thwarted and turned into an overwhelming compulsion to kill and destroy. The Shoemaker is on one level a brilliant and terrifying re-creation of a crime that made headlines in America: the bizarre story of a man who embarked on a spree of burglary, rape and eventually murder. But beyond this compelling reconstruction of events, Professor Schreiber takes us on an extraordinary journey into the mind of a psychotic. Seldom has any book illuminated with such clarity and passion a personality that is both appalling and fascinating—for Joseph Kallinger is at once a poet and a murderer, a loving father and the killer of one of his own sons, a devoted husband and a vicious rapist, a dreamer and a man obsessed by nightmares of horror and destruction. From thousands of hours of interviews, Professor Schreiber draws from Kallinger the story of a life in which every human contact seemed destined to lead him to his final, horrifying crime—which was, in retrospect, not only predictable, but preventable. Society—teachers, the police, judges, even psychiatrists—ignored or misinterpreted his illness and failed to help him even when he begged for help. Again and again, the warning signs of a personality in the process of disintegration were ignored, as Kallinger’s needs had been ignored in his childhood. In The Shoemaker, Flora Rheta Schreiber not only reveals the secret life and thoughts of a man consumed by evil despite himself, but succeeds in discovering that precise moment when the sensitive child turns into a Creature whose increasingly dark and compelling fantasies move towards the violent visions that eventually destroy him and his innocent victims. The Shoemaker is a document of profound importance. Professor Schreiber takes us on a voyage into the human mind and heart that no reader will ever forget, and shows us an image of evil in which all of us, however reluctantly, will see a reflection of ourselves. About the Author: Flora Rheta Schreiber is the author of Sybil, the true story of a woman possessed by sixteen separate identities, which was hailed by the American Journal of Psychiatry as “a significant landmark in both psychiatry and literature.” Professor Schreiber’s undergraduate and graduate degrees are from Columbia University, and she holds a certificate from the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art in London. In addition to Sybil, Fiora Rheta Schreiber has published four other books and more than four hundred articles on a wide variety of subjects. At the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, she is Professor of English and Speech, Director of Public Relations and Assistant to the President.

Who are you? You are one of the shadow people of the world of adoption, one of a mass of men, women and children, of all ages and races, whose beliefs and backgrounds are as different as night and day, who long ago and far away, in a time and place about which perhaps they knew absolutely nothing, lost a brother or sister to adoption. Through your growing up years and in all likelihood on into the ripeness of your maturity, you have had a brother or sister somewhere whom you didn’t know existed.

Have you ever asked yourself, “Why is this happening to me?” We hear that everything happens for a reason. But what does that actually mean? And why, despite even our most diligent efforts, is it often impossible to change what we don’t want in our lives and attract what we do? Our soul knows. It uses our mind and our body to send us signals through physical and emotional symptoms alerting us to unresolved moments in our past that are negatively impacting the present. The thoughts and beliefs formed in these experiences are blocking the power of our mind to manifest our goals and the ability of our body to heal. In this memoir-style account, Muller invites the reader to share her path of discovery as she learns that by returning to these moments we can change even the most stubborn thoughts and beliefs and the turmoil they have created. When the moment is resolved we no longer need the signal, and our lives can become what we want them to be. Each chapter is a transcript of an altered state regression in which Muller’s “inner self” in infancy, childhood or a past life changes its thoughts and beliefs to reclaim her power both then and now. The truths revealed in this groundbreaking book are both personal and universal. They open our awareness to the power we hold locked within, and demonstrate how we can unlock that power when we pay attention to our soul signals and heed their messages. Author Muller focuses on how she learned to see her life at the level of consciousness where her beliefs were created. The more she looked within, the more she understood the soul messages behind the signals of childhood abuse, abandonment issues (she was adopted), health issues, and more. Each chapter weaves stories of personal healing and her arrival at emotional freedom.

Jennifer Lynch’s book The Silver Lining is both a healing and magical journey which enables you to look at your life with new found optimism and understanding. It is necessary for anyone who wants to make a leap forward in consciousness at this important time of earth’s evolution. Angelic messages and poetry also makes this book a must read. It is particularly helpful if you want to break through patterns which have kept you in the past and step forward in your life with new found confidence. Jennifer wrote Skin Deep primarily to help people who were adopted, or connected in some way to the adoption process. A fictional book but at the same time, as Jennifer was adopted herself, the thoughts and feelings in the book are very real. Skin Deep explores mother and daughter relationships in great depth. It also conveys many attitudes by the church of adoption process in the sixties. It is compelling reading with many surprises. Skin Deep was featured in The East Anglian Daily Times in March of this year In addition, Jennifer Lynch was interviewed on BBC Radio Suffolk where she discussed why she wrote the book, along with sharing her experiences of adoption child and adult. Liberty Angel is Jennifer’s third novel. She wrote it to inspire single parents and to help women connect to their “Inner Goddess.” All of Jennifer’s books help with our inner journey to bring us into wholeness. They are part of her own healing journey and part of humanity as a whole. Jennifer’s website is www.angelwisdom.co.uk.

From the Dust Jacket (1991 Reprint): At the age of seventeen, Marie Balter entered a mental hospital where she spent the next twenty years of her life. Yet somehow she survived. From the terror of the back wards, where she lay curled in catatonic silence, she gradually fought her way toward health, moved to a halfway house, finished high school, worked her way through college, married, and began a distinguished career in the service of the mentally ill.

At midlife, Marie was admitted to graduate school at Harvard University. There, one of her professors, Richard Katz, a clinical psychologist specializing in community healing, found her story so powerful that, together, they decided to write about her life. In their clear, honest, inspiring book the reader can see deep into the nature—and ultimate mystery—of healing, and into the power of hope in one woman’s astonishing life.

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About the Author: Marie Balter, M.Ed., is a leading advocate for the mentally ill, lecturer, and Director of Community Affairs at Danvers State Hospital in Massachusetts. She received her master’s degree at Harvard University. A film, also called Nobody’s Child, was based upon her life. Most recently, she was the recipient of an America’s Award, “the ordinary person’s Medal of Freedom.”

Richard Katz, Ph.D., clinical psychologist and anthropologist, is the author of Boiling Energy: Community Healing Among the Kung. He received his B.A. from Yale and his doctorate from Harvard University where he taught for nearly twenty years. Engaged in research on community healers around the world, he now teaches full-time at Saskatchewan Indian Federated College in Saskatchewan, Canada, and lectures at Harvard Medical School.

From the Back Cover: When I was seven years old, my mother and grandmother took me to the airport and watched as I boarded a plane for America. With time, I became convinced my life began the moment I stepped off the airplane on the other side of the world...

One day she was Kim Ji-yun, growing up in Seoul, Korea. The next day she was Catherine Jeanne Robinson, living in Salt Lake City, Utah. In her new home there was no face that mirrored her own, no one to tell her that she had her mother’s eyes or her father’s sense of humor. All she had-was a single photograph to remind her of who she was—taken at the moment when her life irreversibly changed.

Twenty years later, with the blessings of her adoptive family, Katy Robinson returned to Seoul in search of her birch mother—and found herself an American outsider in her native land. What transpired in this world—at once familiar and strange, comforting, and sad—left Katy conflicted, shattered, exhilarated, and moved in ways she never imagined.

A Single Square Picture is a personal odyssey that ascends to the universal, a story that will resonate with anyone who has ever questioned their place in the world—and had the courage to find the answers.

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About the Author: Katy Robinson is a former newspaper reporter and columnist and has received two journalism fellowships in Asia: the Jefferson Fellowship by the East-West Center and the year-long Bang Il—Young Fellowship. She lives in Boise, Idaho, with her husband, John.

A real life adoption story. It is the story of a family being torn apart and miraculously coming together again years later. It is a story about hope and determination. About the Author: Debbie Manserra was born in Toronto, Ontario, on October 4, 1967, but for the last fifteen years she has called Aurora, Ontario her home. When not working with her husband at their sign company, she enjoys reading, journaling, cooking, weight training, yoga and mostly being a good friend and sister. Venturing into her first written work, Debbie hopes her story in Sisters Revealed will be a vehicle in providing inspiration for others involved in the adoption progression. Her passion in transcribing this incredible story to paper was based in her desire to reach out to others.

On the outside they were a very affluent and normal Medical family, but their life together was to be far from normal. The two children were adopted separately, their Mum was an alcoholic, and one dark winter’s night she climbed the stairs to commit suicide. Nick Holbrook tells the whole story of what it was like to grow up with this family. With great personal detail, his book documents what happened over their 20 years of life together and how those events have affected him so greatly to this day. Read their story if you have an interest in Adoption, Alcoholism, Suicide and Family Relationships. It’s both a powerful and tragic family story where things might have been so different.

Longing to return to beer halls and boys, a teenager gives birth to a daughter during the Great Depression, but shows the ultimate lack of maternal instinct when her baby goes missing. Though she claims that a nurse abducted the newborn, the infant and the anonymous nurse are never seen again. In Minneapolis, Lorene Hermanson is raised on discipline and Christian morality. But as a young married woman, Lorene’s life collides with that of the missing baby when she learns her mother’s secret: thirty years earlier, her mother saved Lorene from teenagers and a wealthy family who were determined to drown the baby. Heartbroken to learn her own birth story, Lorene struggles with the reality. The true story of one woman’s most improbable start and her anguish of learning that life isn’t what it appears to be, Sleep With Angels is a lifelong journey about the true beauty of maternal love, holding onto faith, and the precious gift of life. It is a rare cross between true crime and inspiration.

From the Publisher: Laramie Harlow is a poetic pen name. She writes “I have many names... I call my poet self ‘Sleeps With Knives’ because I have met sharks and monsters.” Thirty-eight poems about adoption, child abuse, alchemy, and Native American culture.

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About the Author: I am Laramie, a wife, grandma, former rock musician, an artist who writes and takes photos. These days I make mosaic. I laugh more. I write poetry when I am moved. I live my culture. I write about my vision for the world. I blog about everything. I opened my adoption in Wisconsin, a closed adoption record state. It took almost 20 years to find my people and my answers. My ancestors are Tsalgi, Shawnee, French Canadian and Irish, which makes me a breed like many other NDNs. My Harlow clan has an annual pow wow.

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By the Same Author: Becoming (2014).

From the Publisher: At age 50, once her adoptive parents had died, the author started a search for her natural parents and her heritage. With the help of a private detective, a genealogist, her daughter, a psychic and kind individuals, she found two sisters and a brother. She discovered a town full of people with the same name and a newfound compassion when her first husband was critically ill. So Here I Am! But Where Did I Come From? is about the irrepressible 10-year search for identity that time, obstacles and bureaucracies couldn’t defeat. Hear the author tell in her own words the joy of seeing her birth mother’s photograph for the first time. It’s the story of linking families, the old, the new and the children yet to come. For anyone who has wanted to know more about themselves but didn’t have the courage to explore, this book describes the rewards that come with each revelation. So Here I Am! But Where Did I Come From? contains a list of sources to help adoptees streamline their search.

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About the Author: Mary Ruth Wotherspoon was primarily an oil and pastel portrait artist. She moved to Santa Fe, NM, with her husband in 1995, where they resided until her death at the age of 84 on July 7, 2008.

Sold takes you on a journey of what could very well have been a tragic end to this child’s life. The story walks you through life events that can define us only if we allow them. Being sold on the black market to a vengeful mentally ill woman had her suffering unthinkable horrors. Ritual, sexual, physical and mental abuse ravaged her young life. This is a story of inspiration and overcoming.

From the Back Cover: A jaw-dropping story of how a girl from the suburbs ends up in a prince’s harem, and emerges from the secret Xanadu both richer and wiser

At eighteen, Jillian Lauren was an NYU theater school dropout with a tip about an upcoming audition. The “casting director” told her that a rich businessman in Singapore would pay pretty American girls $20,000 if they stayed for two weeks to spice up his parties. Not exactly the whole truth. Soon, Jillian found herself on a plane to Borneo, where she would spend the next eighteen months in the harem of Prince Jefri Bolkiah, youngest brother of the Sultan of Brunei. Leaving behind her gritty East Village apartment for an opulent palace where she walked on rugs laced with gold, Jillian traded her band of artist friends for a coterie of backstabbing beauties competing for the prince’s attention.

More than just a sexy tale set in an exotic land, Some Girls is also the story of how a rebellious teen finding herself.

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About the Author: Jillian Lauren is a writer, storyteller, mom, and rock-wife. She is the New York Times bestselling author of the memoirs Everything You Ever Wanted and Some Girls: My Life in a Harem, and the novel Pretty. Some Girls has been translated into 18 different languages and is currently being adapted for TV. She has written for The New York Times, The Paris Review, Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Magazine, Elle, The Daily Beast and Salon, among others.

She lives with her husband, musician Scott Shriner, and their two sons in Los Angeles.

From the Back Cover: Stories of origin and creation govern how all cultures understand themselves. For the 25 contributors to Somebody’s Child, the topic of adoption is not—and perhaps never can be—a neutral issue. With unique courage, each of them talks about his or her experience of the adoption process. Some speak of heartbreak; some have found modified happy endings; others have discovered joy. All have been changed by discovering the vital facts of their own birth and origin.

Somebody’s Child contains a wide array of true stories: a young man explores his love for his adopted sister; a woman comes to grips with the truth about her birth parents; a mother of two talks about meeting her first son, the baby she gave up; and, a lawyer tells about discovering her Nigerian family. Somebody’s Child captures the many unforgettable faces and voices of adoption.

The third book in a family of anthologies about the 21st-century family, Somebody’s Child follows up on Nobody’s Mother and Nobody’s Father, two essay collections from childless adults on parenthood, family and choices. Together, these three books challenge readers to redefine our traditional definitions of the concept of family.

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About the Author: Bruce Gillespie is an Assistant Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University’s Brantford Campus, where he teaches journalism.

Lynne Van Luven is an associate professor at the Department of Writing, University of Victoria, where she teaches journalism and creative non-fiction. She is also a freelance editor, writer and commentator. She is a regular contributor to Monday Magazine and has edited three previous anthologies, including Nobody’s Mother: Life Without Kids.