Philomena

New York Times Bestseller The heartbreaking true story of an Irishwoman and the secret she kept for 50 years When she became pregnant as a teenager in Ireland in 1952, Philomena Lee was sent to a convent to be looked after as a “fallen woman.” Then the nuns took her baby from her and sold him, like thousands of others, to America for adoption. Fifty years later, Philomena decided to find him. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Philomena’s son was trying to find her. Renamed Michael Hess, he had become a leading lawyer in the first Bush administration, and he struggled to hide secrets that would jeopardize his career in the Republican Party and endanger his quest to find his mother. A gripping exposé told with novelistic intrigue, Philomena pulls back the curtain on the role of the Catholic Church in forced adoptions and on the love between a mother and son who endured a lifelong separation.

Born in the Caribbean, Philomena Jones is abandoned by her mother and left to the mercy of her grandmother, who, after raising eight children and grandchildren, is not capable of dedicating herself to another child. Love-starved, Philomena is easy prey for the island’s new pastor. She leaves home for America, hoping to find her mother, but ends up drifting and battling mental illness. Relocated to a supportive housing facility, Philomena meets a diverse cast of women who, despite their wildly differing backgrounds and difficulties, share one common bond; their history of abuse. In this most unexpected of places, will Philomena finally find the family she has been longing for?

His Cinderella bride? Plain Philomena Parsons has never met someone as devastatingly handsome as Dr. Walle van der Tacx! So, when he offers her a nursing job in Holland she jumps at the chance. How could she not when it would mean she could see more of him? Philomena knows she’s not the only one after the charismatic doctor’s affections, but her fairytale ending might just be within her grasp. Because Walle knows Philomena’s one of a kind, and he’s prepared to convince her—with a ring! Originally published in 1978 New to ebook!

Sometime in 2002, a young pet prairie dog was abandoned on a Long Island, N.Y., beach. This book is based on her story. Here is what two authors have to say about "Philomena's Homecoming:" "Philomena travels across the country and into my heart. Her tale involves big dangers along her way to family, love and home. This is a story that, by implication, describes wildlife rehabilitation without ever mentioning the phrase." -- Chet Gottfried, wildlife photographer, author of "The Steel Eye." "For those children spending hours on the Internet, alienated from reality yet yearning to connect, Caryn Eve Murray's poignant true tale of a little lost prairie dog who finds a loving new home will entice them, comfort them, and make them feel whole." --Dr. Jud Newborn, Author, "Sophie Scholl and the White Rose," and member, Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

The forgotten children of London are going missing, apparently being sold by their own families. Can Flora save them before it's too late... Flora Maguire's life is perfect – a beautiful home in Belgravia teeming with servants, a loving husband, and new baby Arthur to enjoy. But when she is invited to tour St Philomena's Children's Hospital in deprived Southwark, she gets a harsh insight into the darker side of Edwardian London. Shocked by the conditions people are living in, she soon uncovers a scandal with a dark heart – children are going missing from the hospital, apparently sold by their own families, and their fate is too awful to imagine. With the police seemingly unable or unwilling to investigate, Flora teams up with the matron of the hospital, Alice Finch, to try to get to the bottom of it. Soon Flora is immersed in the seedy, dangerous underbelly of criminal London, and time is running out to save the children. Will they get to them in time, or was their fate decided the day they were born poor...

In the early 1900s Czech Republic, twelve-year-old Philomena, orphaned after the death of her beloved grandmother, leaves the small village where she has always lived and travels to the city of Prague to work for a rich aunt she has never met and cannot seem to find.