Postcards from Cookie: A Memoir of Motherhood, Miracles, and a Whole Lot of Mail

Chronicling a few of the critical moments of her life, Clarke, a journalist and the host of the Black Business Report, wrote this sensitive memoir of identity and self-discovery, as an adopted person seeking to find her birth mother after a list of health woes forced her to uncover her genetic heritage despite the wall of adoption agency secrecy. Currently married to the son of a prominent businessman, she investigates her origins following the revelation that she was adopted almost 30 years earlier. The clues come fast and furious, until the final realization that she is the daughter of Carole “Cookie” Cole, the oldest daughter of the legendary Nat King Cole. The book reaches an emotional peak when Clarke calls her birth mother for the first time, laying the foundation of a tightly knit relationship that would develop over the course of many postcards, letters, and e-mails. Like an onion being peeled, Cookie and Clarke trade secrets, insecurities, trials and triumphs throughout this splendid, soul-baring memoir, aware of the past but building toward a future together. (Apr.)