“The day I realized I had two mothers, I was cut in half. One mother had had me in her belly and brought me to the special nursery, while this mother I called Mommy took me home from the nursery to live. One half of myself resided here with my family, and the other half was lost, lost to a shadowy woman floating somewhere out there in the world… You see, I’m adopted.”

So begins the compelling memoir of Anne Bauer, born out of wedlock, surrendered to a Catholic adoption agency at just ten days old and placed into a turbulent Irish family. Anne’s household is filled with a hot-tempered father obsessed with cleanliness, an emotionally distant mother who worked nights and spent her days sleeping and secrets at every corner concerning her origins. Yet, Anne never wavers in her devotion to her family nor her desire to unravel the mysteries surrounding her own beginnings.

Anne, at age twenty-two, finally set out to find her original family against dogged opposition from her family, her fiancé and the legal system which sealed all of Anne’s records. The Sound of Hope is a realistic journey into the hidden side of adoption that is deeply moving as it is sorrowful. The complex reactions to a long-delayed reunion, as well as the emotional fallout experienced by everyone in the adoption triangle will haunt you long after the last page is turned.