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A Duck – but Tall in the Water . . .
by Lesley Wells
Lesley was one of six children whose mother gave them all away. Fostered then adopted by people who were simply not fit for purpose she experienced a lot of pain and cruelty in her childhood, but also found a lot of joy in the most…
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Against All Odds
by Theresa Hiney Tinggal
The true story of Irish woman Theresa Hiney Tinggal, who at the age of 48 discovered that she was illegally registered as the biological child of her adoptive parents. Her subsequent quest for the truth led her on a journey where she discovered that there…
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An Affair with My Mother: A Story of Adoption, Secrecy and Love
by Caitríona Palmer
Caitríona Palmer had a happy childhood in Dublin, raised by loving adoptive parents. But when she was in her late twenties, she realized that she had a strong need to know the woman who had given birth to her. She was able to locate her…
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As I Lay Me Down to Sleep
by Eileen Munro with Carol McKay
The harrowing true story of how one woman was betrayed by everyone who was supposed to care for her. When Eileen Munro’s mother became pregnant at 17, she was told to give her baby away to a “good family,” but the couple who paid the…
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Billie’s Kid: A True Story About Adoption
by Steve Tucker
Jazz musician Steve Tucker has always known he was adopted and has spent nearly fifty years tormented by thoughts of who he is, where he came from, and whom he looks like. Like many adoptees, he embarks on a journey of discovery when he goes…
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Black Anthology: Adult Adoptees Claim Their Space
Edited by Susan Harris O’Connor, MSW; Diane René Christian; Mei-Mei Akwai Ellerman, PhD
People who identify as Black adoptees are vaguely known within both adoption circles as well as universal discussions. We are just beginning to be introduced to one another. This anthology allows for the opportunity to see the rich diversity of a people; the uniqueness within…
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Bloodshot Monochrome
by Patience Agbabi
A glorious poetic take on all things black, white, and read. Reinventing the sonnet, Patience Agbabi shines her euphoric, musical lines on everything from growing up to growing old, from Northern Soul to contract killers, from the retro to the brand new. Whether resurrecting the dead…
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Flip the Script: Adult Adoptee Anthology
Edited by Diane René Christian, Amanda H.L. Transue-Woolston, and Rosita González
Flip the Script: Adult Adoptee Anthology is a dynamic artistic exploration of adoptee expression and experience. This anthology offers readers a diverse compilation of literature and artistry from a global community of adoptees. From playwrights to poets, filmmakers to photographers, essay writers to lyricists—all have…
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Gold from the Stone: New and Selected Poems
by Lemn Sissay
Lemn Sissay was seventeen when he wrote his first poetry book, which he hand-sold to the miners and millworkers of Wigan. Since then his poems have become landmarks, sculpted in granite and built from concrete, recorded on era-defining albums and declaimed in over thirty countries.…
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If I Should Die Before I Wake
By Eileen Munro
In her memoir As I Lay Me Down to Sleep, Eileen Munro vividly documented the abuse she experienced at the hands of her adoptive parents and, later, within the care system. The birth of her son, Craig, and her escape from the authorities’ clutches should have…
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Life In-Between: A Story of Adoption, Recovery and Connection
by Julia F. Richardson
Born in 1958 and given up for adoption Julia’s story is an exploration of a search for love, belonging and identity. It is a story of relinquishment and reunion, of trauma and hope. It is a tale of overcoming addiction and learning to live with…
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Mother Me: An Adopted Woman’s Journey to Motherhood
by Zara H. Phillips
The adopted daughter of loving parents, Zara Phillips nonetheless felt out of place in her family and a misfit in the world around her. Although cherished by a well-meaning mother and father, she grew up feeling deeply insecure and alone, consumed by a void she found…
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Mum’s the Word!
by Lorna Little
What happens when you receive a piece of information that changes your life? Mum’s the Word is not just one way to react, but also a 40,000-word memoir that takes you through how the author handled such news. Suspense builds as a story of family…
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My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past
by Jennifer Teege and Nikola Sellmair (translated by Carolin Sommer)
This is the extraordinary and moving memoir of a woman who learns that her grandfather was Amon Goeth, the brutal Nazi commandant depicted in Schindler’s List. When Jennifer Teege, a German-Nigerian woman, happened to pluck a library book from the shelf, she had no idea…
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My Name Is Why
by Lemn Sissay
How does a government steal a child and then imprison him? How does it keep it a secret? This story is how. At the age of seventeen, after a childhood in a foster family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given…
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Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
by Jeanette Winterson
Winner of the Whitbread Prize for best first fiction, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a coming-out novel from Winterson, the acclaimed author of The Passion and Sexing the Cherry. The narrator, Jeanette, cuts her teeth on the knowledge that she is one of…
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Phantom Parents: Memoir of an Adoptee
by David Enker
An unusual adoption, a gruesome family discovery, a lonesome journey through North America, a miraculous death escape at the 7/7 bombings in the London Underground and a life-altering diagnosis are just some of the ingredients in this collection of short stories and illustrations. This book will…
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Problem Child
by Caradoc King
Adopted at eighteen months, Caradoc King was brought up in a large and growing family. His adoptive mother, a complex woman, was unable to bond with her newly adopted son and treated him with a harshness bordering on cruelty. At the age of six, he…
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R.A.W.
by Patience Agbabi
First poetry collection by UK poet Patience Agbabi. Portions of the collection are reportedly autobiographical. Adoptee Author: Patience Agbabi Publication Year: 1995 Critical Reviews Adoptee Reviews: Other Reviews: All Bookshop and Amazon links on this site are affiliate links. We earn a small commission to help keep…
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Red Dust Road
by Jackie Kay
From the moment when, as a little girl, she realizes that her skin is a different colour from that of her beloved mum and dad, to the tracing and finding of her birth parents, her Highland mother and Nigerian father, Jackie Kay’s journey in Red…
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Searching for Enda
by Paul G. Denny
Everyone has a story to tell. Some are of heartbreak, some of loss, some of passion. In Searching for Enda, a brave man asking questions about his adoption in Britain leads him to discover buried secrets swept under a conservative carpet of shame. We all…
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Secrets, Spies and Spotted Dogs: Unravelling mysterious family connections behind a secret adoption
by Jane Eales
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…
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Somebody’s Daughter
by Zara H. Phillips
Zara H. Phillips seemed to live a charmed life — backing singer to the stars with an incredible career here and across the Atlantic — but her smile masked a difficult childhood and the reality that she was adopted as a baby in the ’60s.…
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Survival Without Roots: Memoir of an Adopted Englishwoman (Book 1)
by Anna Anderson
The Survival Without Roots memoir trilogy portrays the melting pot of emotions experienced by many adoptees associated with their lack of identity, as they spend a lifetime wondering … “Is there anyone out there who looks like me, talks like me and thinks like me?” As an…
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Telling Tales
by Patience Agbabi
In Telling Tales, award-winning poet Patience Agbabi presents an inspired 21st-century remix of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, retelling all of the stories, from the Miller’s Tale to the Wife of Bath’s, in her own critically acclaimed poetic style. Celebrating Chaucer’s Middle-English masterwork for its performance element…
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The Adoption Machine: The Dark History of Ireland’s Mother & Baby Homes and the Inside Story of How “Tuam 800” Became a Global Scandal
by Paul Jude Redmond
MAY 2014. The Irish public woke to the horrific discovery of a mass grave containing the remains of almost 800 babies in the “Angels’ Plot’ of Tuam’s Mother and Baby Home. What followed would rock the last vestiges of Catholic Ireland, enrage an increasingly secularised…
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The Adoption Papers
by Jackie Kay
Jackie Kay tells the story of a black girl’s adoption by a white Scottish couple- from three different viewpoints: the mother, the birth mother, and the daughter. Adoptee Author: Jackie Kay Publication Year: 1991 Critical Reviews Adoptee Reviews: Other Reviews: All Bookshop and Amazon links on this…
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The Boy from Nowhere
by Gregor Fisher with Melanie Reid
The warm, funny memoir of Gregor Fisher, the much loved Scottish actor best known for Rab C. Nesbitt, told as he uncovers his dramatic family history. Growing up in the Glasgow suburbs, Gregor was 14 when he asked where he was christened and was told…
Including More Than 450 Adoptee-Recommended Titles!
