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  • Published: 15 September 2012
  • ISBN: 9780091947644
  • Imprint: Vermilion
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $32.99

Love Child




Updated edition of this moving memoir of one woman's search for her birth mother, with a fascinating history of adoption in the UK weaved throughout

Adoption is one of the great, untold stories of our recent past. It is a truly epic tale of loss, guilt, identity, family feuds, reunion and redemption. It is a subject, until very recently, surrounded by secrecy and taboos.

This is the heart-warming true story of a little girl's adoption in the 1950s and her search, nearly forty years later, for her birth mother. When mother and daughter meet, Sue thinks she has finally reached the end of her journey. Then Sue discovers she wasn't the only baby her mother gave away ...

Weaved throughout is the vivid, emotional history of adoption in the UK. Drawing on a wide range of intimate personal experiences, it outlines the forces that shaped 20th century adoption practice, from baby-farming, the stigma of illegitimacy, incest and the bastardy laws, to children taken by force, the Magdalene laundries, mass emigration schemes without parental consent, to modern day adoption practices, buying babies from abroad, sperm donor fathers and tearful reunions on Trisha.

  • Published: 15 September 2012
  • ISBN: 9780091947644
  • Imprint: Vermilion
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $32.99

About the author

Sue Elliott

Sue Elliott is the author of the bestselling memoir and history of adoption Love Child (Vermilion 2005) and The Children Who Fought Hitler (John Murray 2009) about the WW2 exploits of former pupils of the British Memorial School in Ypres and was a Researcher on the BBC4 documentary of the same name made by Testimony.

Also by Sue Elliott

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Praise for Love Child

This true story of loss, guilt, identity, family feuds, reunion and redemption is one that will move all who read it

The Sun

a compelling and enlightening read

Junior

Enthralling and informative

Woman and Home

A book of family secrets, thwarted love and unexpected reunions ... A marvellous book.

Bernard Cornwell