My personal journey from Victim to Survivor. Sometimes I get frightened like a caged animal that I’m just within reach of someone’s abusive ways. I fear Man, for it is HE who has scarred me. Will I ever get over the pain? This pen is my serenity, it knows me too well. The words flow on paper like a raging river with no end. If only I could express myself the same way so people wouldn’t judge me. When I awake, I don’t want to be insensitive, mean, destructive and full of hate. If only someone could understand that has been my environment for the past 24 yrs. I struggle every day to break from the anger I’ve let build in my heart. That anger is my protection from all the violence of the world today. I feel I’m the only one with the world on her shoulders. All I have to do is lean forward and it shall fall. Why is that hard? Because I’m afraid I’ll fall too. To look at me I’m an adult but I feel like a starved child locked away in a dark closet with no magic key. That magic key is LOVE. However, when someone tries to get close, I’m that venomous snake ready to bite. I want to reach out and enjoy life without the fear of being let down.

In 1995, Viorica Culea was adopted from a Romanian orphanage. She was adopted by an abusive alcoholic; her adoptive father failed to protect her from her mother’s drunken rage. She went through years of verbal and some physical abuse by her adoptive parents but was strong enough to remove herself from the toxic situation. Viorica always had a curiosity to find her family back in Romania, but her adoptive parents discouraged it and made attempts to prevent her from discovering her roots. It took her several years to find her family, but with scary tenacity, she made it happen! Her journey is full of unexpected twists and turns, but she learns that everything happens for a reason. Most importantly Viorica learns never to give up.

A story of love, and sacrifice, and wholeness. Experience first-hand the letters written by a mother in 1958 and finally discovered by her twin daughters in 1996. This story is told by the twin daughters as they search for their biological family, leading to the discovery of three sets of twins, separated by adoption, and the reunion with their family of origin.

From the Back Cover: From the renowned organization seen by millions on countless national talk shows, three unforgettable true stories of birth parents and adopted children...

TOGETHER AGAIN

Patsy had always loved the kind couple who took her in when she was two years old. But now—encouraged by her ailing adoptive father—she sets out to learn the mysterious circumstances of her troubled birth family.

Allison, caught in a cycle of abuse, had been forced to give up her first two children. Now, years later, she dreams of once again seeing her beloved son and daughter.

Laura thought her unexpected pregnancy would lead to marriage and a loving, stable family—but it was not to be. With the help of International Locator, Inc., though, she may rediscover her long-lost hope.

These touching, true stories from the files of International Locator, Inc., bring us into the heart of the struggle as birth parents and adopted children seek reunion—and let us share in the triumph as their faith, love, and determination bring them together again...

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First founded in 1990 under the name National Locator, International Locator, Inc., is the largest and most successful search organization in America, appearing numerous times on virtually every national talk show in the country. Founded by Troy Dunn and Virgil Klunder, the organization pioneered a new system for locating missing loved ones and has already reunited thousands of families.

Seen or unseen, angels are all around us. In this collection of 101 miraculous stories of faith, divine intervention, and answered prayers, real people share their incredible experiences with angels and the many ways they touch our lives. You only have to look to find the angels in your life. These divine guides, guardian angels, and heavenly messengers help and guide us when we need it most. You will be awed and inspired by these true personal stories from religious and non-religious, about hope, healing, and help from angels. Compiler’s Note: See, particularly, “Imogene’s Girls” by Sioux Roalawski (pp. 303-305).

Toxic Mom Toolkit takes on super toxic mothers with humor, kindness and practical tools to help readers build a peaceful and happy life. The book includes Wolfe’s memoir of growing up brave and scrappy in 1950s San Francisco, the daughter of three mothers: an absent birth mother, an abusive adopted mother and a wonderful step-mother. Coupled with her honest memoir, are mini-memoirs of women from all over the world, whose stories of growing up with toxic mothers shine light on the varied ways in which toxic parents can hurt, damage and undermine their children even into adulthood. There are helpful self-tests; positive affirmations and prompts; tools for contact and boundary setting; and lots and lots of wisdom wrapped in laughter. Toxic Mom Toolkit offers readers a starting point for the messy work of gaining perspective, setting boundaries, and breaking the cycle of toxic parenting. Join the Toxic Mom Toolkit community on Facebook.

How can you have a decent middle and end after a toxic beginning? Amanda Smith’s raw, witty memoir reveals how after growing up in a hate-filled household with adoptive parents, she thought she’d found domestic bliss with the love of her life. Er ... nope. Instead she fell, reckless, hopeless and powerless into..a psychiatric unit, alcoholism and a second failed marriage, finally succumbing to a relationship with a psychopath who encouraged her to commit suicide. At rock-bottom she realised her five children really needed their mother alive—and “present.” She lives to tell the tale.

When Kim Sunée was three years old, her mother took her to a marketplace, deposited her on a bench with a fistful of food, and promised she’d be right back. Three days later a policeman took the little girl, clutching what was now only a fistful of crumbs, to a police station and told her that she’d been abandoned by her mother. Fast-forward almost 20 years and Kim’s life is unrecognizable. Adopted by a young New Orleans couple, she spends her youth as one of only two Asian children in her entire community. At the age of 21, she becomes involved with a famous French businessman and suddenly finds herself living in France, mistress over his houses in Provence and Paris, and stepmother to his eight-year-old daughter. Kim takes readers on a lyrical journey from Korea to New Orleans to Paris and Provence, along the way serving forth her favorite recipes. A love story at heart, this memoir is about the search for identity and a book that will appeal to anyone who is passionate about love, food, travel, and the ultimate search for self. About the Author: Kim Sunée is the founding food editor of Cottage Living. She was born in South Korea and adopted and raised in New Orleans, and lived in Europe for ten years. She now resides in Birmingham, AL.

The Translation of Han is a collection of poetry and prose about the spiritual, psychological, personal and political aspects of historical and intergenerational trauma amongst a people; it explores issues of race, adoption, culture, gender, lateral oppression, violence, love, family, and grief and loss. It is argued that Han cannot be understood by others who are not raised within the culture, including adopted Koreans; however, Hei Kyong Kim argues that adoptees were born out of trauma, out of Han. This body of work reflects an immigrant experience that has too often been forgotten.

From the Publisher: While numerous oral histories of Holocaust survivors have been collected, few have been the stories of those who were children at the time. The popular misconception is that child survivors were “too young to remember.” The stunning detail of this oral history is testament to the fallacy of that assumption. Thea Feliks Eden was born in Cologne, Germany in 1926. She became a refugee who escaped to England in the Kindertransport program which saved 10,000 Jewish children by bringing them to England before war broke out. In her oral history she powerfully articulates the seldom talked about effects of the Holocaust on child survivors. In this time of war displacing millions of people, many of them children, this time of exile, this time of Holocaust revisionism, Thea Feliks Eden’s courageous words are essential.

A memoir in which the author describes how he was raised during the Great Depression in an orphanage run by the Masons.

From the Back Cover: Sometimes the answers that we are seeking are closer than we think! Mark, a young teenaged boy, was in search of answers to questions: “What was the true meaning of being adopted?” “Where do I fit into this family?” “Why are some kids so mean?” “How in the world will I ever survive high school?” A near death experience lead to answers for a lifetime for this young man through the treasures from the Cove.

True Love Waits promotes saving sex for marriage after a courtship long enough to get to know your potential partner on all levels of a relationship: intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. The author’s social conservatism is not based on any religious teachings. Rather, it is based on achieving a holistic intimacy with your boyfriend or girlfriend before becoming physically intimate. The book describes the author’s journey from the hippie days of free love to a conservative philosophy of waiting for marriage. The author’s transformation is a direct result of growing up in the 1950s and her teenage years in the late 1960s as well as her raising six children over the course of forty years.

From the Back Cover: Though she may have entered the world alone Gaby Naher was destined to know the most genuine, heartfelt fathering a girl could hope for—through her adoptive father, her beloved Daddo.

Yet still she had never seen her features reflected in another’s face, never felt truly comfortable in her own skin. And so in her twenties she set out to find her “other” father. What she didn’t know at the time was that her journey would end in unspeakable tragedy—or how that tragedy bound her destiny even more closely to that of her adoptive father.

The Truth About My Fathers interweaves the stories of Gaby’s loving adoptive father; the father who virtually abandoned him, inspiring him to become the most wonderful parent to her and her adopted sister; and her glamourous and enigmatic biological father. Of the three fathers, two spectacularly failed to father and the other was an exceptional parent; he was the only one who had not fathered biologically.

From a small village in the Emmental in Switzerland, to post-Civil War Dublin, to the sumptuous and legendary Belvedere Hotel, an oasis of European sophistication and charm in the middle of Sydney’s Kings Cross, Gaby Naher traces her adoptive father’s rich history. In Canada she is embraced by her biological father and his brothers—and at the same time is reminded of the unique and irreplaceable bond with her adoptive father.

A moving, life-affirming memoir of family secrets, sacrifice and the power of love, The Truth About My Fathers will touch the lives of fathers and daughters everywhere.

From the Dust Jacket: Joy Castro is adopted as a baby and raised by a devout Jehovah’s Witness family. As a child, she is constantly told to always tell the truth, no matter the consequences, for she must model herself on Jehovah, and Jehovah does not lie. She dutifully studies the truth book, a supplemental religious text that contains the principles of the faith.

When Joy is ten years old, her parents divorce. Earlier, her father had been disfellowshipped, or excommunicated from the congregation, for smoking. When Joy is twelve, her mother marries a respected brother in their church. He has an impeccable public persona, but behind closed doors at home he is a savage brute. Joy and her younger brother Tony are forbidden from seeing their father and are abused mercilessly—to the point they both think they are going to die. Their battered mother does nothing to protect them. Nor does their church, to which Joy voices her appeals. For two years they suffer, until one day Joy reaches out to her father, and together they plan and execute the children’s daring escape.

In her very own Truth Book, in prose beautiful in its simplicity and captivating in its honesty, Joy Castro bears witness to a childhood lost but a life regained.

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About the Author: Joy Castro’s fiction and essays have appeared in Mid-American Review, Quarterly West, and North American Review, among other journals and anthologies. A professor of English at Wabash College, she lives in Crawfordsville, Indiana, with her husband and son.

The author will be donating a portion of her earnings from this book to Childhelp USA®, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to the treatment and prevention of child abuse and neglect.

From the Dust Jacket: DO ANY OF THESE THOUGHTS AND BEHAVIORS DESCRIBE YOU?

• I reject others before they can reject me.

• I put on a strong front to cover up my lack of self-esteem.

• I often feel out of place, even in my adoptive family.

• I conform to what others expect of me.

If you feel this way, you’re not alone. In fact, your feelings are common for many adults who were adopted as infants or children. These are just a few of the unique challenges adoptees face, even those who grew up in a loving adoptive home.

But take heart! The twenty life-transforming choices for adoptees discussed in this book can change your life. In these pages, you’ll explore the realities of adoption. What you discover will lead you to a newfound joy and a peace about your tough questions.

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From the Back Cover: NOW IT’S YOUR CHOICE

For adoptees, the past is full of mixed emotions. There’s joy and sadness, confusion and relief. Often, difficult and inescapable questions can linger well into adulthood. These questions include:

• Does my birth mother still think about me?

• Why was I given up?

• Was I unworthy for some reason?

If you feel this way, you’re not alone. In fact, your feelings are common for many adoptees. Even if you grew up in an open, loving adoptive home, you still might be asking some of these questions. The final question you need to ask yourself is this: Will choose to heal?

Author Sherrie Eldridge has interviewed more than seventy adoptees, who transparently share their powerful stories. For and by adoptees, this book invigorates the healing process by engaging the difficult questions and emphasizing your ability to take control of your emotions through the choices you make.

A celebration of adoption, Twenty Life-Transforming Choices Adoptees Need to Make is based on the fact that adoption raises some of life’s most difficult questions but also creates opportunities to truly understand yourself.

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About the Author: Sherrie Eldridge is a reunited adoptee, an internationally known speaker, and the author of four adoption workbooks as well as the highly acclaimed Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew. Sherrie and her husband, Bob, live in Fishers, Indiana, and have two married daughters and six grandchildren.

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By the Same Author: Twenty Things Adoptive Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew (1999, Dell Trade Paperback); Forever Fingerprints: An Amazing Discovery for Adopted Children (2007, EMK Press); Questions Adoptees Are Asking: About Beginnings, About Birth Family, About Searching, About Finding Peace (2009, NavPress); Twenty Things Adoptive Parents Need to Succeed (2009, Delta); Under His Wings: Truths to Heal Adopted, Orphaned, and Waiting Children’s Hearts (with Beth Willis Miller; 2012, Jewel Among Jewels Resources); and Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish: A Daily Devotional for Adoptive and Birth Parents (2015, New Hope Publishers), among others.

From the Dust Jacket: Michael Reagan’s life is much more than just an interesting story. It is a testimony of healing from many of the issues that confront our culture today, such as sexual abuse, divorce, loneliness, the feeling of rejection, and the belief that God does not care about us. Michael Reagan’s first adoption gave him an identity, but his true identity was discovered in his second adoption as a child of God.

Twice Adopted shows how you can meet a God who loves you, and who wants to embrace you and bring you healing and a life of meaning and purpose.

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About the Author: For over a decade, Michael Reagan, the eldest son of the late President Reagan, has been entertaining and informing a loyal following that exceeds 5 million listeners with The Michael Reagan Show—heard across over 200 stations every day.

Mike is the author of many successful books including, The Common Sense of An Uncommon Man: The Wit, Wisdom, And Eternal Optimism of Ronald Reagan, The City on the Hill: Fulfilling Ronald Reagan’s Vision for America, Michael Reagan Making Waves: Bold Exposés From Talk Radio’s Number One Nighttime Host, a best-selling autobiography, On the Outside Looking In, and is also coauthor of the Great American Quote Book.

Mike has also received an appointment to the National Moment of Remembrance Committee from President George W. Bush. He also sits on the board of the John Douglass French Alzheimer’s Foundation.

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By the Same Author: On the Outside Looking In (with Joe Hyams) (1988, Zebra).

From the Dust Jacket: “Who am I?” The riddle of identity perplexes all of us—but especially those who are adopted, who have been born into a society that deprives them of the knowledge of their origins by sealing the records of their birth.

Betty Jean Lifton was seven years old when her mother told her the “secret” that she was to keep locked inside herself for most of her adult life, the secret that she was warned never to discuss with other people, not even with her father, for fear it might hurt him. She had been adopted when she was two and a half years old. She grew up believing that her natural parents were dead.

This book is the story of a journey into the past. It is a psychological detective story in which the answer ro the question “Who am l?” is sought in the files of an adoption agency, in birth and death certificates, in the pages of phone books—and finally in the meeting and establishment of a relationship with the woman who is the author’s natural mother. It was a search whose emotional obstacles were even more difficult to contend with than the legal obstacles. One does not break taboos without the risk of guilt, and there is also the risk of disillusionment with what one finds. For Betty Jean Lifton “the pain of not knowing where one comes from” came to outweigh all such risks.

The foundling’s search for roots, for the natural heritage, is one of the great themes of myth and literature. Few writers have dealt with it autobiographically, as Betty Jean Lifton has done. Writing with exquisite sensitivity, with anguish, with the courage to confront her own anger and ambivalence, she explores the condition of the adopted in all its psychological and philosophical ramifications.

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About the Author: Betty Jean Lifton is a journalist, playwright, and author of many books for young readers. Much of her writing reflects her interest in the culture and politics of the Far East, where she and her husband, psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, lived for seven years. In Return to Hiroshima, she wrote about the survivors of the atomic holocaust; Children of Vietnam is about the lives of the children caught in the war. The Liftons and their young son and daughter now live in New York City.

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By the Same Author: Lost and Found: The Adoption Experience (1979, The Dial Press); I’m Still Me (1981, Alfred A. Knopf); Tell Me a Real Adoption Story (1994, Alfred A. Knopf); and Journey of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness (1994, BasicBooks), among others.

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Compiler’s Note: Betty Jean Lifton passed away on November 19, 2010, at the age of 84.

Twins Found in a Box is an inspirational memoir told by Jeannine, using a Generation-X voice on the subject of life as an adoptee and the way adoption influences the sense of worth in a child into adulthood. The journey begins in 1984 prior to her father’s accident when Jeannine and her twin begin junior high. Before the accident, the twins were merely adapting to school. After the accident, they were forced to prove their worth to their mother, society and God. Hidden dynamics within the family are revealed, testing their adaptive skills and forcing them to question their beliefs. The story continues through a maze of uncertainty, inner turmoil and mysterious triumphs, ultimately causing them to view life from an unusual perspective. Every so often news of an abandoned baby finds its way into newspapers or on television. Updates about the baby’s life are generally not explored. How does loss of roots affect that child into adulthood? What can parents do to help or hinder an adopted child’s self worth? In Twins Found in a Box, adopted twins search for a sense of belonging. The journey begins with their father’s accident. How do they find peace of mind? About the Author: Jeannine Vance, a Generation-X voice and author of Twins Found in a Box: Adapting to Adoption writes her story for anyone who has ever felt out of place. As a Korean adoptee, she has first-hand experience dealing with loss of roots and feelings of self-doubt. At a young age, Jeannine has had to adapt to adoption, challenging relationships, her father’s injury, and her mother’s death. Today, Jeannine is married with two daughters. She meditates, interprets dreams and writes automatically and hesitantly. She views life with a sarcastic sense of humor, yet at the same time she is passionate about her purpose. “It’s okay to pursue truth by questioning our beliefs. In fact, asking questions is our responsibility.”

From the Dust Jacket: On a mild January night in 1963, a young man named Tony Milasi stepped from a jetliner at Miami International Airport for the most important encounter of his life. Waiting for him was Roger Brooks. It was a moment neither will ever forget. They were identical twins. Yet, at the age of 24, they were meeting for the first time. The two brothers were separated shortly after birth and were raised more than 1,000 miles apart—Tony by an Italian family in Binghamton, NY, and Roger by a Jewish family in Miami. This is the absorbing story of the separate lives of the twins, how they grew up wondering about each other, and how, finally, they were reunited through a series of incredible coincidences.

The Twins Who Found Each Other is more than just a deeply moving story of separation and reunion. Through the lives of these identical twins whose upbringings were so different, Bard Lindeman explores one of the great human enigmas; whether we act a certain way because we are born with fixed characteristics (heredity) or whether we are chiefly molded by our surroundings (environment). An eminent psychologist thoroughly tested Roger and Tony, and his surprising findings and conclusions are part of this absorbing and extraordinary book. Lindeman spent over two years researching and writing this book. In addition to Roger and Tony, he interviewed almost everyone who knew both brothers.

Lindeman spent over two years researching and writing this book. In addition to Roger and Tony, he interviewed almost everyone who knew both brothers.

Linda Hoye was in her early twenties when she found herself parentless for the second time. Adopted at five months of age, her heritage, medical history, and access to information about who she was or where she came from was sealed. It was as if she had never existed before being adopted. When she was barely in her twenties her adoptive parents died and a pattern of loss was put into motion that would continue for years as, one by one, those she called family were torn from her life. Struggling to deal with the loss of her family of origin and her adoptive parents, she ultimately reunites with members of her birth family—but there is never a reunion with the woman who gave her life and she continues to feel lost, rejected, and disconnected. Two Hearts charts a course through a complex series of relationships stemming from the author’s adoptive family, her maternal and paternal birth families, and an abusive marriage as the author seeks the one thing she so desperately wants: family. Hoye knows she must come to terms with the bitterness she harbors toward her birth mother when she becomes a grandmother and, soon after, faces the loss of the last remaining members of her adoptive family. She makes one final attempt to find something that will give her the sense of rightness that eluded her for so long. This is the story of a strong and courageous woman’s journey through unfathomable grief; of what it takes to go into the abyss of deep-seated wounding, to feel the pain, and to come out the other side, whole, healed, and thankful.

Childless couples in the twenty-first century have a number of options when they choose to adopt, but in 1936, options were fewer. There were few counsellors who could help advise those wanting to adopt. So Tommie and Minnie Brock set out to find a baby on their own and told only one person, their family doctor. The doctor connected them with a well-educated, bright, young woman, pregnant and willing to consider adoption. Then my adoptive mother and birth mother pledged in an oral pact to keep my adoption secret. For many years, no one spoke to me about my birth and adoption, and all I could find out was through some grapevine gossip. This book recounts the sequence of events in my life that led me to full disclosure of that agreement between my two mothers. My life with all its unanswered questions has been blessed beyond measure, showing that God is in control of our lives. I still know nothing about my birth father, but I am certain I have a heavenly Father, Who has made me His child by faith in His Son, Jesus Christ, and has adopted me into His family with full rights of sonship. About the Author: Nita Brock Rogers was adopted at birth and grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana. She earned her B.A. in Biblical Studies from Luther Rice Bible College & Seminary. Nita was secretary for the 1973 Billy Graham St. Louis Crusade, Administrative Assistant to the Director of Evangelism for Florida Baptists, as well as being widely known as a speaker for women’s conferences and retreats. She led a women’s seminar on prayer and spiritual awakening for the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.

From the Back Cover: Two Peas in a Separated Pod is a true story. Take a journey with two women on the road to discoveries and realizations. Jeannie and Carole write about their lives growing up. Each is unaware of the other. Jeannie is raised in the Bronx, New York. She grows up knowing that she is adopted and loved. She feels connected, yet there is a void. Carole grows up an only child in a small rural community in Northern Ontario, Canada. When their worlds collide, the book is written in each woman’s version of events. After years of searching Jeannie discovers who her birth mother is and makes contact. She wonders if she is doing the right thing by disrupting other people’s lives. Carole is shocked to learn she has a sister but stands by her mother’s side. The two families meet and relationships develop quickly. There is still a lingering question. Who is Jeannie’s birth father? Jeannie tries desperately to get information on her birth father but it seems to be a taboo subject. Even on her deathbed her birth mother is unwilling to reveal who he is. While visiting her mom in the hospital Carole stumbles on a key clue. It seemed that fate intervened. With this discovery Carole must choose whether to keep the secret that has stayed hidden for so many years or tell Jeannie who her father is. The decision Carole makes reflects the true bonds of sisterhood.

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About the Author: When telling people about their story, people always seemed to say it should be a book. Carole Sanguedolce, a bookkeeper, is a wife and a mother of a daughter. Jeannie Lachman, a homemaker, is a wife, mother of two daughters and a grandmother. Finding each other was a blessing.

From the Back Cover: America is killing its youth! Kids, pay attention; your parents, your schools and your country’s lawmakers are killing your very chances of living a happy life. You are being lied to about almost everything that once made America great. As a result, you’re dropping out, getting high, going to jail and killing yourselves in historic numbers. Only one person can stop this onslaught, YOU!

In blockbuster fashion, The Two Suggestions rips the veil off American society’s dirtiest secrets that are killing our youth; morally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. Join the author as he reveals the blunt truths about religion, abortion, addiction, homosexuality, teenage Internet porn and suicide.

Bur there is good news. Every adolescent, regardless of race, religion or social standing can change the very course of their lives by following just two simple suggestions.

Readers of Andrew McIntosh’s regular op-ed columns in The Californian—a San Diego area daily newspaper—will instantly recognize the witty, biting prose he uses to drive his points home in his first book, The Two Suggestions. Teens and parents will deeply relate to McIntosh’s personal and professional experiences as he shares his orphanage and adoption story, his big city paramedic career, and his various youth advocacy experiences spanning several decades. The Two Suggestions should be mandatory reading for every teenager, parent and youth advocate in America and Canada today, In the new America—secular, immoral, addicted and violent—The Two Suggestions offers today’s youth powerful tools to thrive in the face of confusion, anger and social chaos. A modern-day survival manual!

A testament to human resilience and the power of hope, Two Thousand Minnows is the extremely moving story of an American family. Sandra, the oldest of three, was only eight when she first protected her mother against her father’s fury, helping her escape the house in the midst of winter, and later retrieving her through an open window. They had just moved to the isolated mountains of West Virginia to begin their new life. A city girl, Sandra soon lost herself in the magic of the long hot summer days full of discovery, from rope swinging into the clear river to catching minnows, all while navigating around her abusive and unpredictable father. Then her mother, pregnant again, went to the hospital to give birth—only to return without the baby. For the next ten years, her family—with her alcoholic father at the helm and her mother battling depression—traveled across the country from West Virginia to California and back again in search of stability, each destination holding out the elusive promise of “making it.” As we travel with Sandra and her family on their cross-country journey, we come to realize that in chasing a dream, they are actually running from reality. The truth about the mysterious death of the baby gradually unfolds, and with every move and adjustment, Sandra becomes more convinced that the baby her mother claimed had died is in fact alive, and that somewhere out in the world, a sister waits to be found. In a memoir full of stunning honesty, Sandra displays both fortitude and frailty. Her dogmatic belief in her lost sister propels her into the realm of magic, for it is truly a miracle when, twenty years later, the secret is finally revealed—and Sandra, performing a feat of bravery and hope, makes contact with her sister.

From the Publisher: The Ugly One in the Middle is Alex Stan Campbell’s story of the fifty-year search for two people: his birth mother, and the angelic, sensual woman of his dreams. Kind of romantic, right? But, wait. There’s humor, mystery and intrigue. Just before Stan’s sixteenth birthday, his Aunt Patsy let it slip that his mom and pop did not conceive him. Quel horror! His adoptive mom knew something dark, but she wasn’t talking. It didn’t matter much ... back then. Stan’s top priorities of the day were drowning his bashfulness in wine and rubbing alcohol. That didn’t work. He threw up and fell down a lot.

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About the Author: Alex Stan Campbell is a professional broadcaster and voice actor. He has been an electronics technician, a record producer, and a radio and television host. As a radio broadcaster, Stan has hosted entertaining morning radio shows in Cincinnati and Los Angeles. In television, he has anchored evening newscasts and for two years was the on-camera show announcer on one of the world’s longest-running network variety shows, The Tommy Hunter Show.

Stan owns and operates a recording studio in the Thousand Islands area in Canada, and is a sought-after voice for commercials, motion-picture trailers, animation, and corporate videos. He is also the host of a weekly syndicated radio show, which is laced with his usual off-the-wall humor and is targeted toward the transportation industry. His acerbic humor is evident in his writing.

From the Back Cover: For as long as he could remember, Kevin Walls has suffered both physical and sexual abuse. It started when he was just a toddler when a step-brother began torturing him and his two older brothers. But that wasn’t the end of it for the young boys. As a small child, Kevin Walls’ mother dropped him and his brothers off at a park and never returned for them. From that point forward, the Walls boys were shuffled around the State of California foster care system, enduring beatings, mental abuse, and continued sexual abuse. The young Kevin’s hell seemed never-ending, until he found himself at the doorstep of an older couple who had taken in dozens of foster children and still had plenty of love to give.

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About the Author: Kevin Walls became Winnie and Don Phillips’ thirty-fifth foster child right on the cusp of his eighth birthday and for the first time in his life, Kevin felt a kind of love he had never before experienced. The Phillipses welcomed Kevin with open arms and loving hearts, introduced him to the love of Jesus, and helped him to become a man who would go on to repay their love by caring for the elderly couple until their dying days. This book is one of sorrow, tragedy, the power of love, and most of all, hope.

From the Dust Jacket: Judy Lewis was in her thirties before she discovered what was common knowledge among the Hollywood elite—that she was the daughter of Clark Gable and Loretta Young. The two had fallen in love while on location filming Call of the Wild—but Gable was a married man and, according to Young’s Catholic beliefs and Hollywood’s strict moral code, he was off limits. On the brink of mega-stardom herself and terrified that her romance with Gable would ruin their careers, Young gave birth to Judy in secret—later “adopting” her from the orphanage to which she had been sent as an infant. While growing up, Judy, who met “Mr. Gable” once, was never told that he was her father.

Set against the backdrop of Hollywood in its heyday, Uncommon Knowledge depicts a world where home movies were filmed by studio cameramen, home was a thirty-eight-room house on a five-hundred-acre estate in the heart of Beverly Hills, friends were the children of Bing Crosby or Joan Bennett, and getting off a train could be delayed by a mob of fans clamoring to get your mother’s autograph. But it is also the story of a lonely little girl who felt she didn’t belong anywhere, and who comforted herself by sitting in a dressing room full of her mother’s clothes. Hungry for her mother’s attention, Judy felt even more excluded after Young’s marriage to advertising executive Tom Lewis—a martinet who once said to her two half-brothers, “Judy’s adopted. She’s not part of our family.”

Loretta Young was a controlling woman who had little time for the daughter whom she later described as “a mortal sin”—a child who was a reminder of the one thing she had been unable to control. To this day she has never publicly acknowledged her daughter as her own. Judy didn’t hear the truth about her parents until her own marriage, when her husband told her what Hollywood had been whispering about for years. And, for years, Loretta Young denied it—until Judy forced an admission that ultimately left the connection between mother and daughter in tatters. Only then was Judy able to claim her father: a man she would never know, except on the movie screen.

Uncommon Knowledge joins Haywire and Mommie Dearest as a fascinating behind-the-scenes memoir of Hollywood in its golden days. A devastating character portrait, it is an engrossing narrative of glamour and pathos, controlling ambition and unfulfilled longing, loneliness and resolution. It is also the account of a journey of self-discovery that was difficult but ultimately triumphant. Judy Lewis went on to her own success as actress, producer, and writer. She married, became a mother and a grandmother, and she continues to break new ground in her personal and professional life. Here is her unforgettable story.

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About the Author: Judy Lewis appeared on Broadway in Jean Kerr’s Mary, Mary and was a featured performer on a number of daytime television serials, including “The Secret Storm” and the number-one series, “General Hospital.” After a successful career behind the camera—where she was a producer for Texas and won a Writer’s Guild award for her work on the serial “Search for Tomorrow"—she became a therapist and works as a family counselor in Los Angeles, California.

From the Publisher: The long-awaited inspirational memoir by White House Champion of Change Aaron P. Dworkin. Uncommon Rhythm is a harrowing yet moving account of Aaron’s personal journey through social isolation and discrimination to found one of the nation’s cultural jewels, the Sphinx Organization. The book is a tapestry of stirring narrative, precious photos and poignant poems. A MacArthur Fellowship recipient, Aaron is driven by a single vision inclusion for all. Uncommon Rhythm will inspire all who have ever felt like outsiders to nurture their own gifts and make valuable contributions to society. Aaron is the Founder and President of the Sphinx Organization, the leading national arts organization that focuses on youth development and diversity in classical music.

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About the Author: Named a 2011 Champion of Change, a MacArthur Fellow, a Member of the Obama National Arts Policy Committee and President Obama’s first nominee to the National Council on the Arts, Aaron P. Dworkin is the Founder and President of the Sphinx Organization, the leading national arts organization that focuses on youth development and diversity in classical music. An author, social entrepreneur, artist-citizen and an avid youth education advocate, Dworkin has received extensive national recognition for his vast accomplishments. He has been featured in People Magazine, on NBC’s Today Show and Nightly News with Brian Williams and Anderson Cooper 360. He was named one of Newsweek’s 15 People Who Make America Great and featured on NPR’s The Story and Performance Today. A passionate advocate for excellence in music education and diversity in the performing arts, Dworkin has been a frequent keynote speaker and lecturer at numerous national conferences including The Aspen Ideas Festival, Chautauqua and many national service organizations.