
Twice a Daughter
A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Katie Hagman
-
By:
-
Julie Ryan McGue
About this listen
What does it mean to grow up without a sense of who you are and where you come from?
Julie is adopted. She’s also a twin. Because their adoption was closed, she and her sister lack both a health history and their birth parents’ names - which becomes an issue for Julie when, at 48 years old, she finds herself facing several serious health issues.
Julie’s search for her birth relatives spans five years and involves a search agency, a PI, a confidential intermediary, a judge, an adoption agency, a social worker, and a genealogist. By journey’s end, what began as a simple desire for a family medical history has evolved into a complicated quest - one that unearths secrets, lies, and family members that are literally right next door.
©2021 Julie Ryan McGue (P)2021 Julie Ryan McGueListeners also enjoyed...
-
Normal Family
- On Truth, Love, and How I Met My 35 Siblings
- By: Chrysta Bilton
- Narrated by: Chrysta Bilton
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is a “normal family,” and how do you go about making one? Chrysta Bilton’s magnetic, larger-than-life mother, Debra, yearned to have a child, but as a single gay woman in 1980s California, she had few options. Until one day, while getting her hair done in a Beverly Hills salon, she met a man and instantly knew he was the one she’d been looking for. Beautiful, athletic, artistic, and from a well-to-do family, Jeffrey Harrison appeared to be Debra’s ideal sperm donor.
-
-
Absorbing, literary memoir, best of the genre
- By Sue Kasdon on 07-20-22
By: Chrysta Bilton
-
American Daughter
- A Memoir
- By: Stephanie Thornton Plymale, Elissa Wald
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The sharp and surprising true story of a woman who finally sets out to understand her past, and the mother she had one day hoped to forget. Full of unexpected twists and unbelievable revelations, American Daughter is an immersive memoir that will have you on the edge of your seat to the very last minute.
-
-
Amazing memoir
- By talltower4 on 09-02-21
By: Stephanie Thornton Plymale, and others
-
The Foundling
- The True Story of a Kidnapping, a Family Secret, and My Search for the Real Me
- By: Paul Joseph Fronczak, Alex Tresniowski
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Foundling tells the incredible and inspiring true story of Paul Fronczak, a man who recently discovered via a DNA test that he was not who he thought he was - and set out to solve two 50-year-old mysteries at once. Along the way he upturned the genealogy industry, unearthed his family's deepest secrets, and broke open the second longest cold-case in US history, all in a desperate bid to find out who he really is.
-
-
Prepare yourself for a journey that will take you to shocking places!
- By OUChris on 04-04-17
By: Paul Joseph Fronczak, and others
-
Before and After
- The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society
- By: Judy Christie, Lisa Wingate
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the 1920s to 1950, Georgia Tann ran a black-market baby business at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis. The publication of Lisa Wingate’s novel Before We Were Yours brought new awareness of Tann’s lucrative career in child trafficking. Adoptees who knew little about their pasts gained insight into the startling facts behind their family histories. Encouraged by their contact with Wingate and award-winning journalist Judy Christie, who documented the stories of 15 adoptees in this book, many determined Tann survivors set out to trace their roots.
-
-
Badly written
- By Stacie on 02-25-20
By: Judy Christie, and others
-
His Secret Daughter
- By: Melissa Wiesner
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Our family of three is perfect. Just me, Noah and our teenage daughter Maya. The day the police knock at our door, telling us about the car accident, is the worst day of my life. My heart shatters, but what they say next almost makes it stop beating: Noah was in the car with another woman who died at the scene. Her two-year-old girl, Luna, miraculously survived. With Noah fighting for his life, I’m desperate for the truth, and when I search his desk, I find checks made out to Luna’s mother. Did my loving, loyal husband have a secret family all along?
-
-
Amazing
- By Connie Peters on 09-27-23
By: Melissa Wiesner
-
Never Simple
- A Memoir
- By: Liz Scheier
- Narrated by: Amy Landon
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Scheier’s mother Judith was a news junkie, a hilarious storyteller, a fast-talking charmer you couldn’t look away from, a single mother whose devotion crossed the line into obsession, and—when in the grips of the mental illness that plagued every day of her life—a violent and abusive liar whose hold on reality was shaky at best. On an uneventful afternoon when Scheier was eighteen, her mother sauntered into the room to tell her two important things.
-
-
Fine
- By Rae Rae’s Travels on 03-21-22
By: Liz Scheier
-
Normal Family
- On Truth, Love, and How I Met My 35 Siblings
- By: Chrysta Bilton
- Narrated by: Chrysta Bilton
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is a “normal family,” and how do you go about making one? Chrysta Bilton’s magnetic, larger-than-life mother, Debra, yearned to have a child, but as a single gay woman in 1980s California, she had few options. Until one day, while getting her hair done in a Beverly Hills salon, she met a man and instantly knew he was the one she’d been looking for. Beautiful, athletic, artistic, and from a well-to-do family, Jeffrey Harrison appeared to be Debra’s ideal sperm donor.
-
-
Absorbing, literary memoir, best of the genre
- By Sue Kasdon on 07-20-22
By: Chrysta Bilton
-
American Daughter
- A Memoir
- By: Stephanie Thornton Plymale, Elissa Wald
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The sharp and surprising true story of a woman who finally sets out to understand her past, and the mother she had one day hoped to forget. Full of unexpected twists and unbelievable revelations, American Daughter is an immersive memoir that will have you on the edge of your seat to the very last minute.
-
-
Amazing memoir
- By talltower4 on 09-02-21
By: Stephanie Thornton Plymale, and others
-
The Foundling
- The True Story of a Kidnapping, a Family Secret, and My Search for the Real Me
- By: Paul Joseph Fronczak, Alex Tresniowski
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Foundling tells the incredible and inspiring true story of Paul Fronczak, a man who recently discovered via a DNA test that he was not who he thought he was - and set out to solve two 50-year-old mysteries at once. Along the way he upturned the genealogy industry, unearthed his family's deepest secrets, and broke open the second longest cold-case in US history, all in a desperate bid to find out who he really is.
-
-
Prepare yourself for a journey that will take you to shocking places!
- By OUChris on 04-04-17
By: Paul Joseph Fronczak, and others
-
Before and After
- The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society
- By: Judy Christie, Lisa Wingate
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the 1920s to 1950, Georgia Tann ran a black-market baby business at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis. The publication of Lisa Wingate’s novel Before We Were Yours brought new awareness of Tann’s lucrative career in child trafficking. Adoptees who knew little about their pasts gained insight into the startling facts behind their family histories. Encouraged by their contact with Wingate and award-winning journalist Judy Christie, who documented the stories of 15 adoptees in this book, many determined Tann survivors set out to trace their roots.
-
-
Badly written
- By Stacie on 02-25-20
By: Judy Christie, and others
-
His Secret Daughter
- By: Melissa Wiesner
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Our family of three is perfect. Just me, Noah and our teenage daughter Maya. The day the police knock at our door, telling us about the car accident, is the worst day of my life. My heart shatters, but what they say next almost makes it stop beating: Noah was in the car with another woman who died at the scene. Her two-year-old girl, Luna, miraculously survived. With Noah fighting for his life, I’m desperate for the truth, and when I search his desk, I find checks made out to Luna’s mother. Did my loving, loyal husband have a secret family all along?
-
-
Amazing
- By Connie Peters on 09-27-23
By: Melissa Wiesner
-
Never Simple
- A Memoir
- By: Liz Scheier
- Narrated by: Amy Landon
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Scheier’s mother Judith was a news junkie, a hilarious storyteller, a fast-talking charmer you couldn’t look away from, a single mother whose devotion crossed the line into obsession, and—when in the grips of the mental illness that plagued every day of her life—a violent and abusive liar whose hold on reality was shaky at best. On an uneventful afternoon when Scheier was eighteen, her mother sauntered into the room to tell her two important things.
-
-
Fine
- By Rae Rae’s Travels on 03-21-22
By: Liz Scheier
-
Tell Me Everything
- A Memoir
- By: Minka Kelly
- Narrated by: Minka Kelly
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fans know her as the spoiled, rich cheerleader Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights or as the affluent, mysterious Samantha on the HBO megahit Euphoria. But as revealed for the first time in this book, Minka Kelly’s life has been anything but easy. Raised by a single mother who worked as a stripper and struggled with addiction, Minka spent years waking up in strange apartments as she and her mom bounced around the country, relying on friends and relatives to take them in. Now an established actress and philanthropist, Minka takes this next step in her career as a writer.
-
-
Had me until the white privileged and cis comments
- By Rachel Gilbert on 06-02-23
By: Minka Kelly
-
Inheritance
- A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love
- By: Dani Shapiro
- Narrated by: Dani Shapiro
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inheritance is an audiobook about secrets - secrets within families, kept out of shame or self-protectiveness; secrets we keep from one another in the name of love. It is the story of a woman's urgent quest to unlock the story of her own identity, a story that has been scrupulously hidden from her for more than 50 years, years she had spent writing brilliantly, and compulsively, on themes of identity and family history.
-
-
Author makes too much out of too little...
- By River Holmes-miller on 01-16-19
By: Dani Shapiro
-
Hollywood Park
- A Memoir
- By: Mikel Jollett
- Narrated by: Mikel Jollett
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hollywood Park is a remarkable memoir of a tumultuous life. Mikel Jollett was born into one of the country’s most infamous cults and subjected to a childhood filled with poverty, addiction, and emotional abuse. Yet, ultimately, his is a story of fierce love and family loyalty told in a raw, poetic voice that signals the emergence of a uniquely gifted writer.
-
-
An honest and heartbreakingly beautiful memoir
- By Jeannete Coronel on 05-28-20
By: Mikel Jollett
-
Taken at Birth
- Stolen Babies, Hidden Lies, and My Journey to Finding Home
- By: Jane Blasio
- Narrated by: Jane Blasio, Lisa Larsen
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the 1940s through the 1960s, young pregnant women entered the front door of a clinic in a small North Georgia town. Sometimes their babies exited out the back, sold to Northern couples who were desperate to hold a newborn in their arms. But these weren't adoptions - they were transactions. And one unethical doctor was exploiting other people's tragedies. Jane Blasio was one of those babies.
-
-
Fascinating
- By La Raine Kingsbury on 09-01-21
By: Jane Blasio
-
True Identity
- Cracking the Oldest Kidnapping Cold Case and Finding My Missing Twin
- By: Paul Joseph Fronczak, Alex Tresniowski
- Narrated by: Paul Joseph Fronczak
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When he was 10 years old, Paul Fronczak was snooping around for Christmas presents in a crawl space in his family’s Chicago home. There, he found hundreds of old newspaper clippings about the kidnapping of a one-day-old infant in a hospital in 1964. He also learned that, two years later, the boy was found and returned to his family - and that the boy was him. Nearly 50 years later, Paul, acting on long-held suspicions, took a DNA test that proved he was not the kidnapped boy. In an instant, he found himself at the center of two half-century-old mysteries.
-
-
Amazing Quest
- By bookworm on 12-28-21
By: Paul Joseph Fronczak, and others
-
A Billion Years
- My Escape from a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology
- By: Mike Rinder
- Narrated by: Mike Rinder
- Length: 14 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mike Rinder’s parents began taking him to their local Scientology center when he was five years old. After high school, he signed a billion-year contract and was admitted into Scientology’s elite inner circle, the Sea Organization. Brought to founder L. Ron Hubbard’s yacht and promised training in Hubbard’s most advanced techniques, Rinder was instead put to work swabbing the decks. Still, Rinder bought into the doctrine that his personal comfort was secondary to the higher purpose of Hubbard’s world-saving mission.
-
-
From a former SO Child
- By Chantal on 09-29-22
By: Mike Rinder
-
Why Didn't You Tell Me?
- A Memoir
- By: Carmen Rita Wong
- Narrated by: Carmen Rita Wong
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Carmen Rita Wong has always craved a sense of belonging: First as a toddler in a warm room full of Black and brown Latina women, like her mother, Lupe, cheering her dancing during her childhood in Harlem. And in Chinatown, where her immigrant father, “Papi” Wong, a hustler, would show her and her older brother off in opulent restaurants decorated in red and gold. Then came the almost exclusively white playgrounds of New Hampshire after her mother married her stepfather, Marty, who seemed to be the ideal of the white American dad.
-
-
Why didn’t they tell me this was such a negative listen?
- By laurie on 09-24-22
By: Carmen Rita Wong
-
Silent Sisters
- A True Story
- By: Joanne Lee, Ann Cusack, Joe Cusack
- Narrated by: Melanie Crawley
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Growing up, Joanne suffered at the hands of a violent boyfriend and controlling relatives, as her mother lapsed into a downward spiral following the break-up of her marriage. But the consequences of her mother's lifestyle turned out to be worse than Joanne could ever have imagined. She already knew about the baby buried in a shallow makeshift grave next to the family plot. But when Joanne came across a red plastic bin in her mother's wardrobe in 2009, she realised that the family home held an even more sinister secret.
-
-
save your money
- By Amazon Customer on 03-31-20
By: Joanne Lee, and others
-
The Sound of Gravel
- A Memoir
- By: Ruth Wariner
- Narrated by: Ruth Wariner
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ruth Wariner was the 39th of her father's 42 children. Growing up on a farm in rural Mexico, where authorities turned a blind eye to the practices of her community, Ruth lives in a ramshackle house without indoor plumbing or electricity. At church, preachers teach that God will punish the wicked by destroying the world and that women can ascend to heaven only by entering into polygamous marriages and giving birth to as many children as possible.
-
-
Unputdownable
- By Lesley A. on 01-16-16
By: Ruth Wariner
-
Stella's Story
- Thrown Away Children, Book 1
- By: Louise Allen
- Narrated by: Melanie Crawley
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Named after the lager that christened her at birth, Stella's life is characterised instability and neglect. Her teenage mother abandons her in the first few weeks of her life, and left in the 'care' of her father, she ends up lying deserted in a house with no food, no water, no clothes and no warmth. She eventually lands in the care of foster carer Louise, who is determined to change her life for the better.
-
-
Heartbreaking and wonderful!
- By Deb S. on 10-28-24
By: Louise Allen
-
Finding Family
- My Search for Roots and the Secrets in My DNA
- By: Richard Hill
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Finding Family: My Search for Roots and the Secrets in My DNA was a Global Ebook Awards gold medal winner and a Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist. It is Richard Hill's true and intensely personal story of how he pieced together the long-kept secret of his own origins. This highly suspenseful book is a compelling saga of personal detective work that will appeal to anyone who loves a good mystery. But this isn't fiction.
-
-
But Who's My Real Dad?
- By Kathy in CA on 05-10-17
By: Richard Hill
-
It Was Me All Along
- A Memoir
- By: Andie Mitchell
- Narrated by: Andie Mitchell
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All her life, Andie Mitchell had eaten lustily and mindlessly. Food was her babysitter, her best friend, her confidant, and it provided a refuge from her fractured family. But when she stepped on the scale on her 20th birthday and it registered a shocking 268 pounds, she knew she had to change the way she thought about food and herself; that her life was at stake.
-
-
Wanted to love this...
- By AndreaJane on 01-16-15
By: Andie Mitchell
Critic reviews
“Twice a Daughter is not just another tale of an adoptee's search for truth. This is a story about the discoveries that searching for the truth reveals, how it sets you free and offers the gift of love.” (Linda Joy Myers, founder of the National Association of Memoir Writers)
What listeners say about Twice a Daughter
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- MentorDesignerReader
- 06-19-21
Couldn’t put it down
Beautifully-written memoir with incredible twists and turns. Narrator did a great job as well.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Emma Stevens/Linda Campbell Pevac
- 03-31-22
A Journey to Embrace
Julie Ryan McGue’s book, “Twice a Daughter,” is a beautifully told story of how she and her twin sister endure a long and arduous road to finally being able to retrieve their adoption records. Hearing of the many trails she faced to obtain her own records (records that many feel should be available to all persons) depicts just some of the obstacles that face adoptees. Julie’s perseverance and strength of character prove to be just what she needed in order to discover her medical history and other important adoption truths.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Collector
- 03-03-25
The Persistent Journey for Legitimate Rightful Answers
The details in this story kept me on the ‘inside’ of the action. I felt the disappointment when things did not go right AND I felt the tremendous exhilaration when things went well. I was so immersed in this journey it felt like it was happening to me and my family. I had no idea how complex this subject was, but now will have a much better sense of how it impacts each individual. The next time I find myself interacting with an adoptee or birth family I will rely on the examples from this book to act appropriately. Thank you.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Carol R. Taylor
- 07-03-21
Why so many five star reviews?
Apparently I am the only reader wondering where the emperor’s clothes are. Every review I read was five star. Really? I found the story compelling but cringeworthy. I wish it was fiction. For a 50 year old woman to have zero capacity to see anything touching her life from anyone else’s perspective besides her own is staggering. She is cautioned by social workers at many points along the way to try and understand where others such as her birth parents, their spouses or their children, and even her adoptive parents are coming from, but at every turn she expresses that her personal desires are superior to their needs or desires. Whatever hurts she may uncover or cause, she expresses that her own rights are more important. Everything is about her, regardless of the chaos she may detonate in anyone else’s life. Spoiler : when her brother contacts her at the end, instead of her contacting him and dropping a bombshell of information about his ( their) father, I was so relieved. In spite of proclaiming that all she’s interested in is medical history, even after she has received it she plans to disrupt a whole family’s life by contacting the son of a man with a past that even he himself may not have known about, potentially wreaking havoc between father and son., just to fulfill what she can only see as her inalienable right. That doesn’t happen, thankfully. The son comes to her first, alerted by his father.
The perils and heartaches of the search process itself are instructive and enlightening. The social workers along the way who worked tirelessly to discover long hidden facts deserve high praise. I could wish that they counseled her to accept the feelings of others as legitimate rather than always taking the position that her own feelings are the only consideration.
The fixation on finding characteristics in the previous generation that are manifested in her children is puzzling. If one of my children had a habit of being late, for example, I think I am in pretty shaky ground if I blame that on genes passed down from two or three generations previous, as she is seeking to do. Nature over nurture to a ridiculous degree.
I’m glad she found most of what she was looking for. The astonishing turn of events at the end is so unbelievable that a fiction editor would require it to be made more “ realistic.” I’m glad for her in that regard. Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jennifer Bryan, Ph.D.
- 05-29-21
Wanted to Like it More
I was genuinely intrigued by the story line of Twice A Daughter but found the writing simplistic and the protagonist shallow. The author gave us plenty of surface details but I didn't come away with a strong sense of who these people were at their core. To be fair, I listened until the end because I wanted to know the outcome. but I can't say it was because I felt compelled to know the destiny of these characters. I also didn't enjoy the narration, though I guess the voice/tone suited the protagonist in that it was kind of sharp and a bit whiny.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful