Liz Harvie was born in Northampton in 1974. She stayed with her mother in a maternity home for ten days before being taken by a social worker and placed into foster care. Her adoptive parents took her home eight weeks later. Liz is a victim of forced adoption, among 185,000 other babies taken throughout thirty or so years after the Second World War.

As an adoptee, Liz has appeared in several press articles, radio and television pieces and has featured in a BBC Documentary, If You Love Your Baby, on historical forced adoption. In 2022, Liz gave written and oral evidence when she spoke in parliament for the Joint Committee on Human Rights Inquiry into Forced Adoption - the right to family life: adoption of children of unmarried women 1949-1976. After having known only 1 other adoptee as a child, Liz has since met many other adult adoptees. In them, she found kindred spirits, comfort, solace and reassurance that in fact she never was the only one.

In May 2022, with this newfound sense of togetherness and community, Liz and six other women formed The Adult Adoptee Movement, which aims to challenge attitudes to and change the narrative on adoption, campaigning to raise awareness of the lifelong trauma adoptees face and ensure appropriate support is available for all those involved.

A lover of creative writing, Liz has always wanted to write a book, but she never knew what about. She is empowered, touched and humbled to have the chance to use her experience as an adoptee to share her story, in the hope that it reaches other adoptees, and all those affected by forced adoption and its aftermath. Liz lives in Camberley, Surrey with her husband, two daughters and two dogs. She is an end of life and pastoral care companion volunteer at her local hospital and hospice.

Eve Hatton is the co-author, with Shy Keenan, of the bestselling Broken (Mardle Books, 2022).

Stolen Lives Books