Wonderland
Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption
Patricia Knight Meyer
The story of one paperless baby who refused to be erased — a tumble down the rabbit hole of America’s baby trade, part detective story, part searing family portrait.
“Meyer’s haunting debut… both a poignant personal narrative and a work of impressive reporting.”Publishers Weekly
- WinnerIndieReader Discovery Award, True Crime
- GoldCIPA EVVY Book Award, Memoir
- FinalistEric Hoffer Book Award, Memoir
- FinalistNext Generation Indie Book Awards, Memoir
- FinalistIndiesToday Memoir Award
- FinalistStoryTrade Prodigy Award, Nonfiction
- Distinguished FavoriteNYC Big Book Award, Memoir
Book Info
Publisher: Unsolicited Press (November 3, 2026)
Price: 24.95
Coming soon in Paperback, eBook and Audio.
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-969421-96-9
Audio Rights, YAYDNA Press
ISBN: 979-8-9940523-2-7
128 reviews were rated 4 or 5 stars.
Built from the words used in the 4 and 5 star review text.
One Bartered Baby that Refused to be Erased
In January 1970, Patricia Knight Meyer was handed to her parents along a Houston hospital curb in an illegal, attorney-brokered adoption: no agency, no judge, no paperwork. The attorney then blackmailed her parents, who paid $30,000 over time to keep their paperless child. Patricia grew up celebrating a made-up birthday, navigating her mother’s violent alcoholism and caring for her disabled father, unaware that at any moment someone could come back for her. She had no legal birth certificate until age 47.
Part detective story and part searing family portrait, Wonderland follows her decades long search from age 18 to 47: to the attorney who trafficked her, to a cousin he trafficked as well, and to her birth mother, who led her to her birth father, whose testimony finally delivered her first legally obtained birth certificate. Using Alice in Wonderland as its guiding metaphor, the book frames adoption and reunion as a rabbit hole, confusing and exhilarating at once, and traces what it means to discover “Who in the world am I?”
Beyond one family. The memoir is also a reported critique of the Baby Scoop Era (1945 to 1973), when an unregulated, profit driven adoption industry coerced birth mothers and falsified records. It avoids simple heroes and villains, asking instead how systems built on secrecy make ordinary people complicit in harm, and whether we are ready for Baby Scoop 2.0.
It sells beyond the adoption shelf. Advance readers with no connection to adoption say it reads like fiction: a family mystery with a true crime spine. Numerous chapters open with an epigraph from Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, a ready made hook for displays and programming.
Editorial Reviews
“Meyer’s haunting debut… is both a poignant personal narrative and a work of impressive reporting.”
— Publishers Weekly
“…Meyer’s story offers a powerful howl of outrage… A resonant, relatable, and moving story of one woman’s efforts to reclaim her past.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“More than a personal memoir… a close examination of flawed systems, their lasting impacts, and how trauma, memory, and experience create layers of complexity… Librarians will want to highly recommend it for an exceptionally wide circle of readers.”
— Midwest Book Review
“WONDERLAND proves to be a once in a lifetime kind of work, staying with readers long after the last page is turned.”
— Indie Reader
If They Liked… Hand Them Wonderland
- Before We Were YoursLisa Wingate
The most frequent reader comparison: children sold through a corrupt adoption system, and the adults who search for the truth. This one is nonfiction.
- The Glass CastleJeannette Walls
A child parenting her parents through addiction and chaos, told with clear eyes and love.
- EducatedTara Westover
Breaking from a family’s version of reality and building an identity from evidence and documents.
- The Liars’ ClubMary Karr
East Texas, a gritty tell it all tone, and a hard drinking mother whose secrets surface over time.
- I’m Glad My Mom DiedJennette McCurdy
Candor about a damaging mother, and the dark humor that survivors use to tell it.
- Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and The WhaleRebecca Wells, Samuel D. Hunter
Complex Southern mother and daughter bonds; a daughter and a housebound, severely obese father.
- Relinquished, Taken at Birth and Who Is a Worthy Mother?Sisson, Blasio, Wellington
Nonfiction companions on adoption’s history and its black market. All three authors blurbed Wonderland.
Handselling Wonderland
Who buys it
- Memoir readers who loved The Glass Castle and Educated and want a family story with a mystery driving it.
- True crime readers tired of murder. This is a crime with a living victim telling it, and a lawyer who was never charged.
- The adoption constellation: adoptees, adoptive parents, birth parents, and the therapists and social workers who serve them.
- Genealogists and DNA testers looking for how to navigate reunion successfully.
- Gift buyers for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and National Adoption Month in November.
Describing it to a customer
“She was handed to her parents on a Houston hospital curb in 1970, no judge, no paperwork. Then the lawyer blackmailed them. She didn’t have a legal birth certificate until she was 47.”
“Before We Were Yours meets The Glass Castle.”
Shelf talker: Sold as a newborn along a Texas hospital curb. 47 years without a birth certificate. One woman’s search for the truth. Part detective story, part family portrait. Reads like a novel.
What booksellers and readers are saying
“This is not a light read, but it’s an important one… the raw honesty and resilience behind the story made it a memorable and worthwhile memoir.”
Stacey Ferrell, Bookseller, BoxCar Books, NetGalley
Launch Livestream and Panel
At the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin: a live stage performance of a scene from the book and a panel on Texas adoptees’ right to their original birth certificates, moderated by Emily Ramshaw, cofounder and CEO of The 19th. The livestream is free and bookstores are welcome to share it: bit.ly/WONDERLANDLAUNCH
Host a Wonderland Author Evening
An author conversation and signing. About ninety minutes: an intimate conversation, a brief reading, audience Q&A, a signing, and a small reception. Patricia’s team brings professional photography, social promotion and an experienced volunteer event team, and promotes the event to her newsletter, social channels and the adoption community.
Order event stock through Asterism and return any unsold copies within 30 days, or take consignment copies direct from the author, whichever the store prefers.
Contact: Patricia Knight Meyer, 512-289-5372, pr@wonderlandthememoir.com.
Other formats for your store
- Author talk and signing
- Staged reading
- Panel on adoptee rights
- In store book club
- Memoir writing workshop
Topics Patricia can talk to
- Alice as a map
- Reporting your own life
- Navigating reunion
- The Baby Scoop Era and Baby Scoop 2.0
- Sealed records, then and now
- Loving the parents who did this
- Choosing to keep her own child
- Narrating her own audiobook
- The curb
- The blackmail
- Forty-seven years without a birth certificate
- How to do a proper search
Ordering
- Distributor
- Asterism BooksApply at asterismbooks.com/for-retailers. Questions: Molli Corcoran, molli@asterismbooks.com.
- Terms
- 40% trade discountNet 30 from ship date (event orders: net 30 from event date). Prepaid orders get an additional 8% off. No minimum; customer pays shipping.
- Returns
- Event orders returnableWithin 30 days of the event. Otherwise Asterism titles are nonreturnable; damaged books replaced or credited.
- Alternative
- ConsignmentAvailable direct from the author for stores that would rather not open a distributor account. Email pr@wonderlandthememoir.com.
Promotion, at no cost to your store
High resolution cover art and author photos, a print ready shelf talker, social graphics sized for Instagram and Facebook, the book trailer, quote cards, and event flyers with your store’s name added. Every event is promoted to Patricia’s newsletter, social channels, and the adoption community organizations she works with. Signed copies and bookplates are available for stores that can’t host an event.
⬇ Bookseller Guides by City (PDF)
Key dates
- Now to Nov 3Review copies available
Print and digital, on request. Signed bookplates too.
- Nov 3, 2026Publication day
Paperback, eBook and audiobook. Also National Adoption Awareness Month. Pair with Relinquished, Taken at Birth, and Before We Were Yours.
- Jan 11, 2027Human Trafficking Awareness Day
A first person account of infant trafficking inside the US, in the month it happened to the author.
- Apr 25, 2027National DNA Day
A natural moment for the reunion story.
- May to Jun 2027Mother’s and Father’s Day
Two mothers and two fathers in one book. Strong gift table weeks.
Advance Praise
“Meyer excavates her own identity through deep layers of trauma and trafficking, loss and longing... a coming-of-age story, a personal mystery, and a heartfelt reckoning all in one.”
“WONDERLAND is essential reading for anyone in child welfare, psychology, law, and policy. But most of all, it’s a riveting read...”
“Tender, funny, quietly devastating, and deeply moving... WONDERLAND is a profound meditation on the ways complicated family dynamics and invisible systems of power shape our lives.”
“WONDERLAND is an important contribution to everyone in the adoption world. [. . .] —it provides a much-needed reminder of why transparency, equity, honesty, and adoptee-centered practices are vital. Oh, did I mention that it’s a compelling read for almost anyone?”
“Meyer’s memoir, WONDERLAND, is its own rabbit hole. Her engaging, heart-wrenching narrative takes the reader down the windy, confusing, exhilarating tunnel that is adoption and adoption reunion.”
“In an absorbing and fast-moving narrative, Meyer conveys the complexity of the adoptee’s inner life, shaped by uncertainty, hypervigilance, and deep, hearty—sometimes incongruous—love...”
“This memoir unfolds with the momentum of a television series—propulsive and immersive... the book illuminates the complex realities of adoption, including the lasting impact of falsified records, illegal practices, and unregulated systems.”
“WONDERLAND is an unsettling and deeply necessary account of what can happen when maternal desperation collides with greed and systemic abuse... Every legislator, every advocate, everyone who touches the child welfare system should read this book.”
About Patricia
Patricia Knight Meyer’s story began along a Texas hospital curb, where by her parent’s account, she was handed over as an infant in a 1970 attorney-brokered black-market adoption. Raised without papers and never legally adopted, Patricia received her first true and accurate birth certificate at 47 years old, after an against all odds reunion with both birth parents. She tells the story in her award-winning debut memoir, WONDERLAND: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption (Unsolicited Press, November 3, 2026). A UT Austin journalism graduate, Patricia serves on the National Association of Adoptees and Parents NAAP board, runs the My Adopted Life, speaks nationally on adoption topics, teaches memoir writing, and advocates for adoption reform. She has been published in Ms. Magazine and elsewhere and splits her time between Austin, the Texas Hill Country and New Orleans.