This book tell the story of the foreign adoption process of the author’s youngest daughter, Kim.

From the Publisher: There are many kinds of adoption—and in this workbook the children of The Adoption Club find out about all of them! The children of The Adoption Club are all different. There’s Mary who was adopted from China by her single mum, Alice, who is still in touch with her birth parents in an “open adoption”; siblings Angela and Michael who lived in different homes for many years but are now back together; Robert who loves to do stunts in his wheelchair; and Alexander who grew up with lots of children in a care home. Written for counsellors and therapists working with children aged 5-11, as well as adoptive parents, this workbook is one of a set of five interactive therapeutic workbooks written to address the key emotional and psychological challenges they are likely to experience. They provide an approachable, interactive and playful way to help children to learn about themselves and have fun at the same time.

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About the Author: Regina M. Kupecky, LSW, has worked in the adoption arena for more than thirty years as an adoption placement worker and therapist. She was named “Adoption Worker of the Year” in 1990 by the Ohio Department of Human Services. She is currently a therapist with Dr. Keck at the Attachment and Bonding Center of Ohio, where she works with children who have attachment disorders. She trains nationally and internationally on adoption issues, sibling issues, and attachment. Ms. Kupecky authored a resource guide, Siblings Are Family Too, which is available through the Three Rivers Adoption Council in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She has coauthored a curriculum with Dr. Keck and Arleta James called Abroad and Back: Parenting and International Adoption and has written a curriculum on sibling issues titled My Brother, My Sister: Sibling Relations in Adoption and Foster Care.

Seattle technology entrepreneur and freelance author Ed Harris shares the heartwarming, funny and endearing story of his multiracial, international Jewish family. Ed is from New York, his wife Anne is from Amsterdam and they met in Israel as teenagers. After a series of adventures, including inadvertently sharing an apartment with a prostitute in Tel Aviv who threatened to have them cut into pieces by the Israeli mafia, and then renting a flat from a mobster in Amsterdam, they make their way to New Jersey to pursue their educations and settle down. After getting an MBA, Ed begins his career and they buy a home in a charming small town, Montclair, NJ. There is only one problem: they discover they aren’t getting pregnant, and so at a relatively early age they begin to pursue adoption. Eventually, they find their way to Cuzco, Peru, ancient capital of the Incas, and become a family when a tiny brown baby girl is put into their arms and transforms their lives forever. They manage to flee Cuzco on the eve of a change of government that brings in a new dictator and closes the country to future international adoptions. Eventually, after a move from NJ to Seattle, a biological boy is born the old fashioned way, and third child, a baby boy from Guatemala, is finally added to the mix. A family with an assortment of skin colors, countries of origin, and, it later turns out, alternative sexual orientations, provides endless amusement and holds lessons on family life and parenting. Readers will be both fascinated and richly entertained by this well-told tale of a modern American family that has carved out an identity on its own terms, maintaining traditional values in a rapidly changing world.

From the Publisher: The authors of Let’s Talk About Adoption are themselves adoptive parents; Elton Klibanoff is also the Deputy Director of the Massachusetts Office for Children. Their book was written because their experience brought home to them the almost total lack of information or the confused misinformation on adoption prevalent on every socio-economic level in spite of the fact that some 200,000 children were adopted in this country last year. “For too long,” they write, “adoption has been a ‘closet’ subject ... At best, the children were ‘special’ or ‘chosen’; at worst they were ‘different’ or ‘strange.’ ” Believing that adoption affects almost everyone at some point, either centrally or peripherally, the authors hope to correct misconceptions and clarify the facts. Their chapters discuss the varieties of adopting families and adopted children—childless couples, families with one or more biological children, the single parent, “special” children, the foreign child—and even touch on subsidized adoption. We are shown briskly the hurdles, delays, frustrations, uncertainties, social discomforts, and the great rewards of beginning or adding to a family by adoption. The legal steps are sketched out and the epilogue includes model bylaws for an adoptive patents’ organization and model reform laws.

This book is intended to act as a guide to would-be adopters as to how the process works within the Local Authority network. A must read for anybody contemplating adoption.

Are you or are your family and friends confused about openness in adoption? A Letter to Adoptive Parents on Open Adoption is an introduction to the subject. This book is a compilation of information that is helpful in preparing for an open adoption. You’ll need extra copies to give to other people in your life who may not understand or agree with you about open adoption.

From the Publisher: A flip book, a letter to birth mom from child and the other side is a letter from adopted mom.

From the Publisher: “Amazing Grace” transformed John Newton from a wretched sea captain of slave ships to a passionate pastor and hymn writer. Grace further equipped Newton, who was childless, to become a tender, loving, and compassionate father. He adopted his two orphaned nieces, Elizabeth and Eliza. Newton took no courses in parenting, nor did he have the opportunity to read the countless volumes of self help books on child rearing that grace bookstore shelves today. He wholly relied on the guidance of his heavenly Father. Through prayer and the reading of the Bible, he discipled his daughters in the love and counsel of the Lord.

It is clearly evident in the compilation of these letters and memoirs to his daughters that he embraced the words of 3 John:4 “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” Newton’s godly mother faithfully instructed him in the truth through prayer and the reading of the Scriptures. She died when he was only six years of age and left him to be raised by his irreligious father. What joy and thanksgiving would fill her heart to know that the seeds of truth that she sewed in the life of her young son grew and blossomed. Newton accepted God’s gift of salvation as an adult and further shared this gift with his own children.

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About the Author: Jody Moreen, adoptee, is the editor of Adoption Blessings Journal, a Christian publication and facilitator of Adoptees, Birth Parents and Adoptive Parents Together, a Chicago area adoption support group. She is a freelance writer, speaker, and mentor celebrating adoption and the sanctity of life. Jody has been a volunteer for over a decade in the adoption community locally and online. She resides in Naperville, IL, with her husband Scott and three sons.

Letters from the Heart is a collection of letters by adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents written to Adoption Triangle Ministry in response to Sandy Musser’s guest appearance on the 700 Club and PTL during the early 1980s.

A must-have resource guide for any family adopting a child from Liberia. It’s one thing to make it through the process of adopting internationally; it’s an entirely different thing to be properly prepared for a child’s homecoming. In this book, written by Liberia Adoption Coordinator Angel Rutledge, adoptive families learn about the history of Liberia, cultural influences that affect Liberian adoptions, common post adoption challenges, medical issues, and how to ensure the best transition possible for their family and child. About the Author: Angel Rutledge is a Liberia Adoption Coordinator for Christian Adoption Services, a Hague accredited adoption agency founded in 1979. Angel is a wife and mother of four children, two of whom were adopted from Liberia. She lives in Charlotte, NC, with her family and can be found at www.rutledge6.blogspot.com where she writes about her experiences as a mother and as an adoption coordinator to Liberia.

From the Dust Jacket: “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bronson. I know this is going to be hard on you. But your son is suffering from hepatitis B. We found morphine in his blood. The kid is on the needle. He’s an addict.”

In 1984, Jill Ireland should have been on top of the world. Her first book, Life Wish, was more than a national bestseller: It had become the battle cry of millions of women who, like Jill, had faced the pain and uncertainty of breast cancer. Her twenty-year marriage to actor Charles Bronson was thriving, despite the high odds of Hollywood divorce. But most of all, Jill herself was flourishing. Holding her own against the odds, she was ready to resume her professional life as an actress, film producer, and author.

Yet fate had scripted a more challenging part for Jill Ireland. Only months after her remarkable recovery from the devastating effects of cancer, she learned that one of her children was confronting a frightening condition of his own: heroin addiction.

A personal account of extraordinary power, written by a woman of extraordinary courage, LIFE LINES is a book that strikes to the depths of every mother’s heart. In its pages, the author relates how a tragic miscarriage led to a profound blessing: the adoption of her son, Jason. For a time, it seemed as though the bond of love between mother and son would be lifeline enough to keep him from harm— until Jason began to experiment with marijuana, alcohol, and cocaine ... until his initial curiosity grew to a dangerous obsession.

Even as Jill rushed to her son’s aid, confronting his disease with the same courage with which she had battled her own, she was dealt another blow. Her once-gregarious father had been paralyzed by a stroke. The resulting illness—aphasia—had already stolen his ability speak. And now it was threatening steal his life.

As an accomplished actress for more than two decades, Jill Ireland had chosen to believe that there was no challenge she could not meet head-on. And although her behind-the-scenes roles as wife, parent, and daughter had proven to be the most demanding of all, they are roles she has played with unflagging strength and unblinking honesty.

In this candid book, Jill Ireland McCallum Bronson reveals one of the toughest lessons of parenthood: No matter how much you love your child, there are certain problems he must battle alone. And she reveals the single, timeless truth that spans generations: The will to live is made in the heart, mind, and soul of the individual.

A gift to the parent and child within us all, this inspiring volume is a moving testament to the resiliency of the human spirit and to the deep and abiding faith that are our most precious lifelines.

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About the Author: Born in England, Jill Ireland burst onto the Hollywood scene in the 1960s, establishing herself as an accomplished actress and singer. In 1984, she authored the New York Times bestseller, Life Wish, the chronicle of her courageous victory over breast cancer. Since its publication she has become National Crusade Chairwoman and a major fund-raiser for the American Cancer Society. She was also recently awarded the Medal of Courage by President Reagan, along with the Betty Ford Award from the Susan G. Komen Foundation and the prestigious Stanley G. Kay Memorial Award for her efforts in this area. The wife of actor Charles Bronson, she regards the several children she has raised as her proudest achievements.

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Compiler’s Note: The title is variously rendered as one or two words. I have chosen to render it as two throughout this description.

Additionally, I note for the record that at no point in Life Wish, her memoir of her battle with breast cancer, does Ireland indicate that she and her first husband, David McCallum, had adopted their son Jason. Readers with an interest can read this book, but I choose not to include it in this bibliography based upon its lack of any acknowledgment of Jason’s adoption.

Marta Brown’s childhood was one of struggle—growing up in a dysfunctional family with a physically, emotionally, and sexually abusive father, she could have very easily considered herself a victim of circumstance and given in to anger and hatred. Instead, she turned toward God to find her way—a choice that led her to a beautiful, strong, lifelong marriage as well as a steadfast Christian faith. Despite her many challenges in life, Marta’s story is one of strength, persistence, and optimism—of learning to move beyond her circumstances by abiding within her faith in God and His plans for her. None of us knows what lies on the road ahead for us, but with her story, Marta offers us a guiding light for the journey. Marta Brown has been married for more than fifty years to a wonderful, compassionate, Christian man who has encouraged her to overcome her childhood traumas and use writing as an outlet for expressing herself. Over the years, Marta has tried to instill in her children and grandchildren that the circumstances in our childhoods are often out of our control—but as an adult, you have choices to make. You can either stay in patterns you learned at home or take a chance and move in a new direction in life—a direction of faith, forgiveness, and happiness. Marta and her husband currently reside in Reno, Nevada.

From the Back Cover: Through words, pictures, photographs, certificates and other “little treasures,” a Life Story Book provides a detailed account of the child’s early history and a chronology of their life.

This clear and concise book shows a new family-friendly way to compile a Life Story Book that promotes a sense of permanency for the child, and encourages attachments within the adoptive family. Joy Rees’ improved model works chronologically backwards rather than forwards, aiming to reinforce the child’s sense of belonging and security within the adoptive family before addressing the child’s past and early trauma. The book contains simple explanations of complex concepts, practical examples and helpful suggestions.

Perfect for busy social workers in local authority children and adoption teams, approved adoption agencies and adoptive parents, Life Story Books for Adopted Children is a refreshing, innovative and common-sense guide.

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About the Author: Joy Rees is an adoption support worker in a local authority adoption and permanence team in the London borough of Merton, and a Family Futures Associate. She has 30 years’ experience as a social worker specialising in children and family work.

From the Dust Jacket: Over twenty years ago, in a small Israeli town, a desperate mother told a remarkable lie. She told her friends and family that her newborn child had died. That lie became the catalyst for the unfolding truth of the adoption of that same baby—Michael—who is, in fact, very much alive and now twenty-two years old. He also has Down syndrome.

When Kathryn Hulings adopted Michael as an infant, she could not have known that he would save her life when she became gravely ill and was left forever physically compromised. Her story delights in how Michael’s life and hers, while both marked by difference and challenge, are forever intertwined in celebration and laughter. With candor and a sense of humor, Life With a Superhero wraps itself around the raucous joy of Michael’s existence with his four older siblings who play hard and love big; how Kathryn and her husband, Jim, utilize unconventional techniques in raising kids; the romance between Michael and his fiancée, Casey; the power of dance in Michael’s life as an equalizing and enthralling force; the staggering potential and creativity of those who are differently-abled; and the mind-blowing politics of how Kathryn navigated school systems and societal attitudes that at times fought to keep Michael excluded from the lives of kids deemed “normal.”

No other books about the parenting experience outline what to do when, say, a child runs across the roof of a tri-level house pretending he can fly, or shows up in a 7th grade social studies class dressed like Spiderman, or calls 911 when his girlfriend breaks his heart. But, as Michael’s mom, Kathryn has been trying to figure how to be a mother in just such circumstances—sometimes with success, sometimes with dismal failure—for over two decades.

Most of the books about parenting a child who has Down syndrome are concerned with only the first few years of life and are based in biological births. Life with a Superhero is fresh and new in that it engages the reader with the parenting journey all the way into young adulthood and it also involves the spectrum of adoption. This memoir chronicles not only the early years—filled with both trepidation and joy—of raising a child who has Down syndrome, but also the ups and downs of twelve years of public schooling, the slippery slope of the transition process into the population at large, navigating puberty and adolescence, friendships, community involvement with typical folks and folks with special needs, and the exuberant glee of finding love and contemplating marriage and an independent life.

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About the Author: Kathryn U. Hulings has called Fort Collins, Colorado, her home for over thirty years. While raising her family of five kids with her husband, Jim, Kathryn worked as sn advocate for children with special needs. Kathryn earned an MA in English/Creative Nonfiction from Colorado State University, where she is now an adjunct faculty member teaching composition and literature courses.

From the Back Cover: Charley is funny, ridiculous, ornery, and charismatic. He also has Down syndrome, and Sherry Palmer thanks her stars each and every night for the blessing that is Charley.

Sherry knew that her life would change drastically when she and her husband decided to adopt a baby boy with Down syndrome, and she knew they would struggle at times with his developmental challenges, with other people’s perceptions, and with their own emotions. What she didn’t know was just how amazing their world would become once Charley was in their lives—and in their hearts.

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About the Author: Sherry Palmer has been a writer since she was able to hold a pen. Her stories have appeared in Chicken Soup for the Christian Family Soul (HCI, 2000), I’m Glad I’m a Mom (Harvest House Publishers, 2008) and Foliate Oak Online Literary Magazine. Her guest columns have appeared in The Breathitt County Voice, The Tennessee Star Journal, and Monroe Life magazine. A graduate of Spalding University’s Low residency MFA program in Louisville, Kentucky, Sherry studied creative nonfiction with what she calls the greatest mentors and colleagues ever. She currently lives in Knoxville, Tennessee with her husband, Brad, their son, Charley, and their two ill-mannered cats, Gizmo and Gravy Train. Sherry’s latest work, Life With Charley: A Memoir of Down Syndrome Adoption, is the result of a love story, twenty-four years in the making.

From the Publisher: Noel Barber was a famous adventurer and journalist: the first Briton to reach the South Pole since Scott in 1912; it was he who first told the world about the 1956 Battle of Budapest (he was shot in the head by a Russian sentry); he was stabbed by a terrorist in N. Africa; he was first with the story of the flight of the Dalai Lama and the invasion of Tibet by Red China. This book, however, is about his private life, his true love story, covering six years of uninterrupted domestic bliss; how he changed from a blissfully contented bachelor of 43 years, living on the Left bank in Paris, to a married man living with his beautiful Italian wife Titina (plus a baby son, a Rumanian mother-in-law, a French stepson, an adopted Italian daughter, a Danish nanny and a German-speaking Swiss helper) in a farmhouse that he could not really afford on the banks of Lake Geneva.

From the Back Cover: When Lady Colin Campbell’s international best-seller Diana in Private was published in 1992, the consensus amongst reviewers was that, though fascinating, royal revelations were as nothing compared to the author’s own extraordinary life.

The victim of a rare cosmetic condition, Lady Colin Campbell was born a girl but brought up as a boy; she had to wait until the age of twenty-one before receiving corrective medical treatment, and suffered a turbulent and short-lived marriage in the 1970s to the son of the 11th Duke of Argyll, with whom, twenty years later, she was still involved in a legal battle to save the reputation he had sought to destroy. Yet she also enjoyed an idyllic childhood, a glamorous career as a New York model, love affairs with some of the world’s most eligible bachelors and connections with leading members of the royal family, before becoming one of Britain’s most respected international charity organisers, and, more recently, the mother of two adopted Russian children. A true assortment of riches, this is her own candid, poignant and remarkable story.

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About the Author: Lady Colin Campbell was born in St. Andrew, Jamaica in 1949, into one of the island’s wealthiest and most influential families. The author of Diana In Private, The Royal Marriages and the Guide To Being A Modern Lady, she lives in Belgravia with her sons, Misha and Dima, and her three dogs.

The opportunity to document our adopted children’s history and special moments is the project of a lifetime. This easy-to-use guide offers suggestions for page topics, writing samples from adoptive parent’s lifebooks, and background on the social and cultural issues of china that contributed to our children’s unique life stories.

From the Publisher: In this adoption classic, Beth (who is both an adoptee, adoptive parent, and social worker of 28 years) guides you step-by-step and page-by-page just as if she were right there with you. It’s all explained in full detail with a light touch of humor. Would you like to preview an actual sample before you get started? That’s covered, too, with three full-length examples in the back section which include: Domestic/Infant, Foster-Adopt, and International. This bestseller is an easy-to-read guide. It is filled with sample wording explaining many difficult topics. It contains help for toddlers as well as teens.The lifebook process prepares you to talk about delicate subjects as well as adoption basics. Best of all, in the end, your child has an unique book that captures their often complicated life story.

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About the Author: Beth O’Malley spent her first five months in foster care. Her life experiences, as an adoptee and a seasoned adoption worker, enhance her approach to LifeBooks.

By day, Ms. O’Malley helps to create families. In her spare time she helps families to create LifeBooks.

From the Dust Jacket: Lynn Caine has become a source of inspiration, comfort, and courage to thousands of women across the country through her best-selling personal memoir, Widow. She has lectured, taught, and answered thousands of letters—daring to share with total honesty her own experience with death and grief.

Now, in Lifelines, Lynn Caine addresses the woman—alone or married—who feels lonely and isolated. She describes her search for fulfillment as a single woman, her struggles as a single parent, and the devastating effect which the success of her first book had on her life. With down-to-earth warmth and understanding she discusses the particular problems which women have dealing with loneliness: a loss of a sense of their own worth, depression, self-pity, the fear of success, and that “trapped” feeling. By giving examples from her own life she shows women how to take charge of their lives and offers guidance on how to manage money and business transactions, how to handle love affairs, how to discipline your children, how to develop trust in other women, and enrich your personal life.

A blend of personal testimony, holistic philosophy and practical advice, this is a book by a woman who has lived through the problems she describes and who has learned, slowly and painfully, how to overcome them.

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About the Author: Lynn Caine has long been well-known in the New York publishing scene, first as a publicist and now as the author of the best-selling Widow. She is in great demand as a lecturer, teacher, and seminar and workshop leader, and has published articles in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Ms. Caine lives in New York City with her two children. Lifelines is her second book.

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By the Same Author: What Did I Do Wrong?: Mothers, Children, Guilt (1985, Arbor House).

From the Publisher: A Lifetime of Channie is a true story of another of the precious children that has been rescued from the horrors of abuse and neglect. You will be inspired as you read the saga of the real-life miracles Jerilyn experienced as she fought to save Channie’s life, often in the face of seemingly overwhelming obstacles placed in her way by Channie’s biological relatives and state agencies.

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About the Author: Jerilyn Minerva developed an early love for reading. As a child, she spent her after-school hours helping out in her hard-working parents’ furniture store and reading until closing time in the evening. She whiled away summer vacations in her small hometown of Yuma, Arizona, and long waits for rides home after dance lessons, with her nose buried in a book. She read out loud and with unfeigned emotion to anyone who would listen—her baby sister, her dog, her pet rooster.

Jerilyn has a long-standing love for words. As a child, she found a dictionary and set of encyclopedias to be nearly as interesting as her favorite book, Half Magic, by Edward Eager. Along with the requisite reading of children’s classics, Jerilyn was reading Hemingway and Steinbeck in grade school, and developed a love of Shakespeare long before high school.

Writing didn’t come until a husband and three children later, with an opportunity to take a college extension course in creative writing in San Diego. After her divorce, with children grown and gone, Jerilyn moved to Seattle, left her career as a corporate meeting planner, and began to take her long-postponed education seriously. Focusing on English, psychology, and professional writing courses, she intended to enter law school after graduation. Then the adopted children started to arrive.

Adjustments had to be made, with college graduation set aside temporarily, in order to care for the children. Staying home with her second round of children evolved into an opportunity to get back to Jerilyn’s true passions—reading, rearing children, and writing.

She’ll tell you, “I have stories in my head, and they just beg to be written.” Her friends laughingly say, “Everything you tell Jerilyn is material for a story, so be careful!”

“Life is just one big story. Look around you. See it. Feel it. Taste it. Write it down,” Jerilyn encourages her children during their early-morning home school. “Anyone can write down what they know. Just do it in bits and pieces. It’s like the way my grandmother used to make her Italian gravy—no recipe and different every time. Just put in a little bit of this, a little bit of that, then—like magic—it’s a story!”

Jerilyn now resides with her family in San Diego.

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By the Same Author: The Christmas Angel: A True Story (2000).

From the Publisher: Talk about adoption has become increasingly politicized, as debates swirl around the morality and viability of various forms of adoption: interracial, international, “open,” and those involving single parents or gay and lesbian couples. Paramount in many minds is the threat to the traditional (or mythical) nuclear family. But, as Julie Berebitsky shows, such concerns are fairly recent developments in the history of adoption.

Berebitsky reveals that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the rules governing adoption were much less rigid and adoptive parents and families were considerably more diverse. In Like Our Very Own, she chronicles the experiences of adoptive parents and children during a century of great change, illuminating the prominent role adoption came to play in defining both motherhood and family in America.

Drawing on case histories, letters from adoptive parents, congressional records, and fiction and popular magazines of the day, Berebitsky recovers the efforts of single mothers, African American parents, the elderly, and other marginalized citizens to obtain children of their own. She contends, however, that this diversity gradually diminished during the hundred years between the first adoption laws in 1851 and the postwar “baby boom” era. Adoption social theory and practice was gradually transformed into a highly homogenized model that tried to match children to parents by class and background and that ultimately favored conventional middle class American families.

Changing attitudes about adoption, as Berebitsky shows, have also mirrored changing definitions of motherhood. At a time when womanhood and motherhood were socially synonymous, both birth mothers who gave up their children and adoptive mothers seeking a maternal role were viewed as transgressors of the natural order. This eventually changed, but only after proper training and outside expert approval replaced an assumed maternal instinct as the keystone of good mothering. A fascinating chapter in American social and cultural history, Like Our Very Own offers compelling evidence that adoption has always been an important factor in our evolving efforts to define the meaning and nature of both motherhood and family.

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About the Author: Julie Berebitsky is assistant professor of history and director of the Women’s Studies Program at The University of the South.

From the Dust Jacket: Everyone admires families who adopt hard-to-place children; they are often praised as modern-day heroes. But like the tragic heroes of old, adoptive parents tumble from great heights if they expose fears or second thoughts, and they often confront scorn and blame if their children have problems. In a sensitive and sobering account, Ann Kimble Loux breaks this unwritten code of silence with the painful story of her family’s adoption of two abused sisters and the traumatic years that followed. In 1974, Loux and her husband, already the biological parents of three children, had no idea how their lives would change with the addition of young Margey and Dawn, ages three and four. Knowing only a fraction of of the children’s troubled history, the couple, both college professors, introduced the two girls into their stable midwestern home and—believing that any problems would be transitory—waited for them to adjust. However, the early behavior and communication problems were only mild harbingers of disruptive, harrowing years to come.

In writing this book twenty years later, Loux is finally coming to terms with the distressing mixture of hope and disillusionment, of love, frustration, and overwhelming guilt that has characterized her relationships with her two daughters. Both young women have settled down in their mid-twenties, but their extended adolescences were a terrifying swirl of school delinquency and dropout, pregnancy, prostitution, and drug abuse. Margey has recently moved from prostitution and drug addiction to steady work and relationships. Although Dawn dropped out of high school and had two children before she was twenty-one, she and her husband have proved to be loving and reliable parents. The ending of Margey’s and Dawn’s stories are as indefinite as anyone’s, but both young women are much more at peace with themselves, and Loux has grown to respect and accept her daughters’ choices.

In The Limits of Hope, Ann Kimble Loux conveys affectingly and disturbingly the social and individual human costs of child abuse and neglect, calling for reforms in the adoption process. She speaks forcefully about the needs of adoptive families and urges adoption agencies to offer continuing support to parents as well as children. She speaks more forcefully still about the obligation of adoption services to disclose fully background information about potential adoptees. Loux presents her cautionary tale not to discourage prospective adoptive parents but to urge them to become more informed. A s much as Loux loves her children, personal experience has led this adoptive mother to challenge the notion that a stable home environment is always the best answer for abused or neglected kids. This is a candid and moving account of a woman coming to terms with her younger, naive self and of the limits of hope.

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About the Author: Ann Kimble Loux is Professor of English at Saint Mary’s College in South Bend, Indiana.

From the Back Cover: Kira first came to foster carer Mia Marconi’s home on respite care when she was three. She had suffered an unimaginable amount of abuse in her short life. Although she couldn’t tie her shoe laces, she could smash a room to pieces; she fought against everything like a wild cat.

At the age of five Kira moved permanently to live with Mia and her family, but by the time she was nine years old the whole family was at breaking point.

Can Mia really help this lost and damaged child?

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About the Author: Mia Marconi has an Italian father and an Irish mother. She grew up in London and has been a foster carer here for over 20 years. During that time she has welcomed more than 250 children into her home. To protect the identities of people she is writing under a pseudonym.

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By the Same Author: Learning to Love Amy (2014); A Child Called Hope (2014); and If Only He’d Told Me (2014.

From the Inside Front Cover: Ashton-9, Olivia-6, have the same urchin look: their hair teems with head lice, their nails are torn and black, and their skin is covered in scabs. They smell horrific. It’s clear they’ve been living in appalling conditions.

Casey was only told they were coming two days ago, but she is desperate to help—it is an emergency, and it’s only a temporary placement after all...

But Ashton and Olivia are a challenge. They have no barriers and absolutely no sense of right and wrong. So before Casey can even start to understand the horrific things that have happened in their past, she has to teach them the most basic of behaviours.

The weeks roll into months and the months roll on, but for the first time, Olivia and Ashton are starting to feel like part of a real family. And with this new found love and security they slowly start to open up about what really happened to them.

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About the Author: Casey Watson who writes under a pseudonym, is a specialist foster carer. She and her husband, Mike, look after children who are particularly troubled or damaged by their past. While in their care, they guide them through a specially designed behavioural programme, enabling them to be moved on, either back to their parents or into mainstream foster care.

Casey is married with two children and three grandchildren. This is her third book.

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By the Same Author: The Boy No One Loved (2011); Crying for Help (2012); Too Hurt to Stay (2012); Mummy’s Little Helper (2013); Breaking the Silence (2013); A Last Kiss for Mummy (2013); The Girl Without a Voice (2014); Nowhere to Go (2014); A Stolen Childhood (2015); Skin Deep (2015); Mummy’s Little Soldier (2016); Runaway Girl (2016); Groomed (2017); and The Silent Witness (2017), among others.

Dreams do still come true. It happened to Jeff Taylor, who ventured thousands of miles from Texas to China to greet an immeasurable treasure that awaited him-a tiny daughter who would soon take possession of his entire heart. In his memoir Little Rain Drop, Taylor shares the events, emotions, and experiences that accompanied his pilgrimage through international adoption and first-time fatherhood. With candid emotion, a bit of humor, and wide-eyed wonder, Taylor begins by chronicling his life before adoption, including a battle with infertility, and continues by narrating his poignant journey across the ocean that would culminate in connecting two families and the arrival of his daughter to his home. As he details the emotions, courage, obstacles, and joy that he and his wife Debbie experienced throughout their journey to parenthood, he shares a story of love, hope, and a glimpse at God’s providence. While providing details beneficial to any couple considering international adoption, Taylor offers a powerful glimpse into the deep emotions that accompany a journey that began with heartache and longing and ended with the realization that the most profound desires of the heart always live on.

The Long Road Home chronicles how two Canadians journey to Sudan and enter into the complex world of modern-day slavery. Accompanied by numerous media organizations, Glen Pearson and Jane Roy tell and show us how average people can make a difference even against one of history’s greatest challenges.

Long Story Short: Year of the Water Goat is a must read for anyone who has adopted or is considering adopting internationally, especially from China. Columnist Jan Risher believes one of the most important aspects of international adoption is the embracing of a new culture and country for the adopting family as well. According to the Chinese zodiac, 2003 was the year of the water goat. It was a big year for newspaper columnist Jan Risher and her family. They had just returned from China with a new baby girl at the end of 2002. By October in the year of the Water Goat, Risher was heading back to her youngest child’s homeland to assist in starting an English program for the young adults too old to be adopted and remained in the orphanage where her daughter lived as an infant. Just outside the orphanage, Risher witnessed a young woman on a bike run over by a truck and the shocking aftermath of the accident. She spent the next two weeks in the Chinese state-run Social Welfare Institute growing to love and understand more of her daughter’s heritage than would have otherwise been possible. Though the insights she gained may only scratch the surface of the Chinese culture, they shaped her life as a wife, mother, friend and writer. About the Author: Jan Risher is an award-winning journalist and writer who went around the world to get from Mississippi to Louisiana—with stops in between ranging from the mountains of Slovakia, the streets of Paris, a tribal village in Burkina Faso to the hills of central Mexico. The Mississippi native has made her home in Lafayette since 2001. A columnist for Lafayette, Louisiana’s The Daily Advertiser and former managing editor of The Times of Acadiana, she’s also the mother of two daughters, ages 13 and 9. She loves reading, cooking, entertaining—and food in general.

From the Dust Jacket: After having endured enough emotional wreckage in her search for true love to fill a book (the New York Times bestseller The Between Boyfriends Book), two magazine columns, and five seasons of scripts for Sex and the City, Cindy Chupack finally, mercifully, at the age of thirty-nine, met the Perfect Man.

He did not seem to Cindy like the Perfect Man. Ian, with his bad-boy ways, struck her as someone whom she absolutely did not want as a husband, but he soon proved his worth with wit, warmth, a series of spectacularly cooked meals, and a marriage proposal made on a beautiful beach, the prospective groom perched heroically on a white stallion.

Unable to resist the romance, Cindy married him and settled in contentedly for the long and gratifying happily ever after ... or so she thought. Being a wife, Cindy discovers soon enough, is not so different from being a girlfriend, only now you have a permanent houseguest. Ian’s endearing quirks became impossible-to-ignore and slightly irksome habits; what was once charming adventurousness now seems like recklessness (just why was he rappelling down the side of a building on a garden hose?); and his impossibly big heart has space enough for an impossibly big dog, a St. Bernard that looks, as Cindy realizes once it has taken possession of her home, “like a person in a dog suit.” And then there’s all his stuff.

The Longest Date is the wonderfully funny, and ultimately, deeply moving story of a marriage, of the daily negotiations and accommodations about matters like cooking, holidays, space, money, and sex that every (newly or otherwise) wedded couple faces in the course of figuring out exactly who they are together and where they are headed. Cindy and Ian’s own ongoing courtship takes a surprising turn when they decide to have a baby—a plan that turns out to be far more complicated than they ever could have anticipated and that tests and strengthens their love for each other.

The perfect companion for anyone navigating a marriage (or even just contemplating one), The Longest Date marks the welcome return of one of our most gifted and captivating comic writers.

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About the Author: Cindy Chupack has won three Golden Globes and an Emmy for her work as a writer/executive producer of HBO’s Sex and the City. She also wrote for Everybody Loves Raymond, Coach, and a bunch of series only her parents would watch. She has written about dating and relationships for many magazines and had her own column in Glamour and O, The Oprah Magazine. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, her St. Bernard, and ... you’ll just have to read the book.

From the Back Cover: An unexpected journey toward unconditional love

Like so many men, Tim Muldoon assumed that life followed a script. More to the point, he assumed that love would follow a script—one determined by his own choices. When the script changed, as it inevitably does, Tim was forced to ask some critical questions: How could he bring his disparate desires into harmony with one another? Could he make the journey to where his true dreams seemed to be leading him? Should he—or could he—venture into the unknown territory of selfless love?

In meditative, heartfelt prose, best-selling author Tim Muldoon shows how authentic love grows through unexpected twists and turns in a relationship, and how by following the deepest desires of his heart, he found the freedom to become his best and most passionate self.

From sex to self-giving love, from the desire to be loved to the desire to serve God in the person of his wife, from resisting adoption to loving his two adopted daughters with unbridled joy, Muldoon shares with us his personal love story, whose altered script he came to embrace. Through Muldoon’s journey, each of us is invited to consider how falling in love can become our greatest adventure with God.

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About the Author: Tim Muldoon s a theologian and author of several books, including The Ignatian Workout (Loyola Press). Currently, he teaches in the Honors Program at Boston College, where he also serves in the Office of University Mission and Ministry. He lives with his wife, two daughters, and mother-in-law in Natick.