Including More Than 450 Adoptee-Recommended Titles!

Books About Search and/or Reunion

  • The Mistress’s Daughter

    The Mistress’s Daughter

    by A. M. Homes

    The acclaimed writer A. M. Homes was given up for adoption before she was born. Her biological mother was a twenty-two-year-old single woman who was having an affair with a much older married man with a family of his own. The Mistress’s Daughter is the…

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  • The Mouse Room

    The Mouse Room

    by Susan Ito

    Susan Ito is a struggling college student, a young adult on the cusp of parental independence, when she meets her birth mother for the first time. Instead of launching into adulthood, she finds herself entangled in longing for this new kind of mother love where…

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  • The Mysteries of Eva Miller Revealed

    The Mysteries of Eva Miller Revealed

    by Eva D. Miller

    Former American Idol contestant Eva Miller takes you on an inspiring journey of both tragedy and triumph. Through her courage and faith Eva set out on a mission to unravel the mysteries that shrouded her life, she never knew what could possibly await her. Join…

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  • The Presence of Absence: A Story About Busyness, Brokenness, and Being Beloved

    The Presence of Absence: A Story About Busyness, Brokenness, and Being Beloved

    by Linda Hoye

    We wear busyness as a badge of accomplishment and personal success. But when we use it to fill a void, being busy can become an addiction. Busyness helps us feel better—or feel nothing—but the benefit doesn’t come without cost. Adoptee Linda Hoye used it to…

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  • The Search for Anna Fisher

    The Search for Anna Fisher

    by Florence Fisher

    The document lay in the bottom of the bureau drawer. Written in longhand was a name: Anna Fisher. “Who is Anna Fisher?” seven-year-old Florence asked her mother. The woman yanked the paper out of her hands and told her never again to mention that name.…

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  • The Sound of Hope: A True Story of an Adoptee’s Quest for Her Origins

    The Sound of Hope: A True Story of an Adoptee’s Quest for Her Origins

    by Anne Bauer

    Anne Bauer, an adoptee, cannot pretend that she had another life and another family before being adopted. Much of Anne’s childhood was spent wondering about her other mother. She desperately wanted to know where she was, what she looked like and most importantly, why she…

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  • The Tangled Red Thread

    The Tangled Red Thread

    by Elle Cuardaigh

    Born into the social experiment of closed adoption in the early 1960s, Noelle was taken home directly from the hospital at the age of three days. Her early life in rural Washington state seemed idyllic. With loving parents, two brothers, and her beloved pets, she…

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  • The Truth Book: A Memoir

    The Truth Book: A Memoir

    by Joy Castro

    Adopted as a baby and raised by a devout Jehovah’s Witness family, Joy Castro is constantly reminded to tell the truth no matter what the consequences. Nevertheless, Castro finds this tenet to be the most violated. Here, in her very own Truth Book, Castro bears…

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  • The Truth So Far: A Detective’s Journey To Reunite with Her Birth Family

    The Truth So Far: A Detective’s Journey To Reunite with Her Birth Family

    by Jennifer Dyan Ghoston

    How do you use a document like the amended birth certificate given to an adoptee as a legal representation of the entire truth? In this memoir, Jennifer Dyan Ghoston examines that question based on her role in law enforcement for over two decades. She shares…

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  • The Wall of Secrets: Memoir of The Almost Daughter

    The Wall of Secrets: Memoir of The Almost Daughter

    by Claire Hitchon (with Janice Harper)

    Do you feel you belong; that you fit-in in this world? Have you experienced abuse, adoption, loss, and grief? The Wall of Secrets was how I survived those feelings of not belonging, not fitting-in; not being wanted or loved. Each drawer holds one of my…

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  • They Chose Me: An Adoption Story

    They Chose Me: An Adoption Story

    by Denise Lynnette Defoe

    Raw and informative, They Chose Me: An Adoption Story shares the gripping story of Denise Defoe who was relinquished for adoption at birth. Adopted at the age of two by a loving family, Denise still struggled intensely with feelings of grief, abandonment, lack of self…

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  • Through Adopted Eyes: A Collection of Memoirs From Adoptees

    Through Adopted Eyes: A Collection of Memoirs From Adoptees

    Edited by Elena S. Hall

    Through Adopted Eyes explores the world of adoption from the viewpoint of adoptees. Russian adoptee Elena S. Hall shares her own story and thoughts on the subject of adoption in addition to interviews from other adoptees of different ages, heritages, and perspectives. Whether you are…

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  • Together At Last: Stories of Adoption and Reunion in the Age of DNA

    Together At Last: Stories of Adoption and Reunion in the Age of DNA

    Edited by Paul Lee Cannon, Nancy Lee Blackman, Cerrissa Kim, Katherine Kim, and Linda Papi Rounds

    Together At Last is a collection of first-person stories that explores the intersection of multiple histories: the Korean War, military camptowns, immigration, and transnational adoption. Taken together, they challenge us to rethink the legacies of the un-ended Korean War and re-evaluate the foundational role that…

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  • Too Afraid To Cry

    Too Afraid To Cry

    by Ali Cobby Eckermann

    In Too Afraid to Cry, Ali Cobby Eckermann―who was recently awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize, one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world―describes with searing detail the devastating effects of racist policies that tore apart Indigenous Australian communities and created the Stolen Generations of adoptees,…

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  • Tree of Strangers

    Tree of Strangers

    by Barbara Sumner

    “‘I live at the end of a gravel road at the top of a valley consumed by bush. My husband is here, and my three girls. But the bush swallows them up like the road.’ I wrote those words at the kitchen table in 1983.…

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  • Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging

    Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging

    by Julie Ryan McGue

    Julie is adopted. She is also a twin. Because their adoption was closed, she and her sister lack both a health history and their adoption papers―which becomes an issue for Julie when, at forty-eight years old, she finds herself facing several serious health issues. To…

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  • Twice Born: Memoirs of an Adopted Daughter (reissue)

    Twice Born: Memoirs of an Adopted Daughter (reissue)

    by Betty Jean Lifton

    In this significant and lasting account, Betty Jean Lifton, acclaimed author of several books on the psychology of the adopted, tells her own story of growing up at a time when adoptees were still in the closet. Twice Born recounts her early struggle with the…

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  • Two Hearts: An Adoptee’s Journey Through Grief to Gratitude

    Two Hearts: An Adoptee’s Journey Through Grief to Gratitude

    by Linda Hoye

    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…

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  • Two Peas In A Separated Pod: A True Story of Adoption

    Two Peas In A Separated Pod: A True Story of Adoption

    by Jeannie Lachman and Carole Sanguedolce

    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…

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  • Undercover Debutante: The Search for My Birth Parents and a Bald Husband

    Undercover Debutante: The Search for My Birth Parents and a Bald Husband

    by Charlotte Laws

    Forthcoming August 2019. Available for preorder. Dr. Charlotte Laws, the most well-known unknown, is a TV star, best-selling author, and world-renowned advocate for women, animals, and the LGBTQ community. NBC News calls her a crusader. BuzzFeed voted her one of the 30 fiercest women in…

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  • Unnatural Selection: A Memoir of Adoption and Wilderness

    Unnatural Selection: A Memoir of Adoption and Wilderness

    by Andrea Ross; foreword by Miriam Peskowitz

    Adopted at birth, Andrea Ross grew up inhabiting two ecosystems: one was her tangible, adoptive family, the other her birth family, whose mysterious landscape was hidden from her. In this coming-of-age memoir, Ross narrates how in her early twenties, while working as a ranger in Grand Canyon National Park, she…

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  • Voices from Across the Sea: An Adoption Memoir Uniting Two Worlds

    Voices from Across the Sea: An Adoption Memoir Uniting Two Worlds

    by Lora V. Keleher

    A memoir sharing my journey to South Korea to meet my biological family and the feelings I experienced growing up as an interracial adoptee. It touches on pain, abandonment, alienation, racism, love, and more. Adoptee Author: Lora V. Keleher Publication Year: 2019 Critical Reviews: Adoptee…

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  • Walk Away (Kindle Single)

    Walk Away (Kindle Single)

    by Michele Leavitt

    Walk Away is the unflinching and inspiring story of how author Michele Leavitt lived through the violence of her adolescence, how that violence haunted her through her escape to college and law school, and how she ultimately came to rise out of it to a…

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  • Waving Backwards

    Waving Backwards

    by V.L. Brunskill

    Imagine not knowing who you are, until you find yourself in a statue 800 miles from home. Join intensely passionate and fiercely independent New York college student Lara Bonavito on an unforgettable journey of self-discovery in sigh-worthy Savannah, Georgia. Adopted into an abusive and impoverished…

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  • We Are All Human Beings: An Adoptee Ponders

    We Are All Human Beings: An Adoptee Ponders

    by Paul Kimball

    Paul Kimball, a biracial adoptee, explores his own abandonment issues as he searches and eventually reunites with his birth parents. After a seemingly joyous reunion, his birth mother, a Caucasian professional cellist, rejects him. This causes him to seek out his Armenian birth father who,…

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  • When You Never Said Goodbye: An Adoptee’s Search for Her Birth Mother: A Novel in Poems and Journal Entries

    When You Never Said Goodbye: An Adoptee’s Search for Her Birth Mother: A Novel in Poems and Journal Entries

    by Meg Kearney

    A student at NYU in Greenwich Village, Liz McLane is pursuing her dream of becoming a poet and, at the same time, determined to find her birth mother, no matter what the results may be. Through her journals, Liz records her struggle to navigate adoption…

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  • Who Am I Really: An Adoptee Memoir

    Who Am I Really: An Adoptee Memoir

    by Damon Davis

    “Who Am I Really?” is a question many adoptees ask when they realize they have another family of genetic relation. Damon L. Davis shares his journey through life as an adoptee to becoming an adoptive parent himself. He explores his desire to find his birth…

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  • Who Am I: A Journal to Guide the Search for Your Birth Family

    Who Am I: A Journal to Guide the Search for Your Birth Family

    by Rebecca Crofoot

    Rebecca Crofoot served as a caseworker for the Nebraska Children’s Home Society for over forty-two years. About thirty of those years were dedicated to assisting clients with search and reunion. Because people are increasingly searching without the assistance of an adoption expert, Crofoot developed this…

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