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 only ascend to Heaven by entering into polygamous marriages and giving birth to as many children as possible. After Ruth's father—the man who had been the founding prophet of the colony—is brutally murdered by his brother in a bid for church power, her mother remarries, becoming the second wife of another faithful congregant.In need of government assistance and supplemental income, Ruth and her siblings are carted back and forth between Mexico and the United States, where her mother collects welfare and her stepfather works a variety of odd jobs. Ruth comes to love the time she spends in the States, realizing that perhaps the community into which she was born is not the right one for her. As Ruth begins to doubt her family’s beliefs and question her mother’s choices, she struggles to balance her fierce love for her siblings with her determination to forge a better life for herself.Recounted from the innocent and hopeful perspective of a child, The Sound of Gravel is the remarkable true story of a girl fighting for peace and love. This is an intimate, gripping tale of triumph, courage, and resilience.

    Deeply scarred by a childhood of maternal neglect, she attempts to find solace in self-harm and delinquent behaviour. Before long, she is addicted to alcohol. Hidden behind a painted smile, Cathy begins a promising career as an actress and model, rubbing shoulders with royalty and the rich and famous. But Cathy is her own worst enemy and her continued dependence on alcohol hurtles her down a path of self-destruction. She endures a string of abusive, often horrific relationships, anorexia, poverty and almost loses her children. In this harrowing true story, Cathy never loses her sense of humour and is determined to win the battle with the

    I am an only child, and she is a single parent. My mother is a trash hoarder. Ever since I can remember the house was always messy and stunk. At around age 9ish I noticed that something was wrong. I started throwing bags of trash away every day, just to have my mom freak out when she got home. We didn’t eat at home anymore because the fridge was disgusting, and she used the sink as a trash can, so it got clogged. We always ate out, we never had a home-cooked meal, and I’ve never had a family dinner at a dinner table. I had a stool in the corner of the living room. That is what I sat on, and that alone. I kept that corner as clean as I could. Made sure there was foot space, and that there wasn’t dust on the walls. That was my corner, my space. It never seemed to matter though, eventually that spot would get overrun with trash too...’Trash is Britney Fuller's shocking account of growing up in the house of a hoarder.

    She’s a radical, self-styled hippie, and he is New York’s famous district attorney, a legal luminary of the establishment; she’s a prizewinning New York Times journalist who has chained herself to fences, bloodied draft files, and otherwise broken the law for her beliefs, and he is a secret iconoclast who could have put her in jail.     Timeless: Love, Morgenthau, and Me is the memoir of their triumph against the odds, their ongoing thirty-five-year marriage, a union between two people so deeply in love but so different—and with so many decades separating them—that their family and friends fought to keep them apart.     Franks offers a confidential tour of their marriage, as well as the never-revealed, behind-the-scenes details of Morgenthau’s famous cases. We see a red-faced Ronald Lauder storm into Morgenthau’s office after the DA seizes a priceless Egon Schiele painting from the walls of the Museum of Modern Art; we witness the CIA dismissing Morgenthau’s discovery of the growing terrorist cell in New York that would become al-Qaeda headquarters. This is an unusually close look at the privates lives of two well-known people who have always refused to reveal themselves to the public.

    With her father wanted by the FBI for killing anyone who tried to leave his cult--a radical branch of Mormonism--Anna and her siblings were constantly on the run with the other sister-wives. Often starving and always desperate, the children lived in terror. Even though there were dozens of them together, Anna always felt alone.She escaped when she was thirteen . . . but the nightmare was far from over. A shocking true story of murder, fear, and betrayal, The Polygamist's Daughter is also the heart-cry of a fatherless girl and her search for love, faith, and a safe place to call home.

    As a little girl growing up in Currock, Carlisle, she yearned to be something bigger, to go somewhere better.Hungry traces Grace’s story from growing up eating beige food to becoming one of the much-loved voices on the British food scene. It’s also everyone’s story – from treats with your nan, to cheese and pineapple hedgehogs, to the exquisite joy of cheaply-made apple crumble with custard. It’s the high-point of a chip butty covered in vinegar and too much salt in the school canteen, on an otherwise grey day of double-Maths and cross country running. It’s the real story of how we have all lived, laughed, and eaten over the past 40 years.

    Sometimes dark, sometimes funny, and often magical, his childhood memories are vividly portrayed and give the reader a snapshot of a time and lifestyle that has all but disappeared.

    It was the smile that one woman gives to another and not the chilly facial movement from Matrons of old. "Do you think you would be able to work 9 to 3.30?" For a moment I couldn't think at all. There seemed something not quite right in being paid for so little labour.' At the end of the Second World War, as husbands came back to Civvy Street their wives had the luxury of staying at home with the children. For a short while at least. Soon Evelyn realised she had to find part-time work to make ends meet, and to her astonishment she was offered part-time hours at her old hospital.The day-to-day job hadn't changed much, but she was now a nurse and mother. Whooping cough and measles could still kill a small child, and the early '50s polio epidemic left the whole country in shock.But the nurses worked hard, moaned incessantly about their aching feet and yet found things to laugh at, just as they did from the start of their training. If old soldiers never die, then neither do nurses.

    Parties were punishable with violence. Fear was part of the daily norm. Growing up in a Catholic cult, under the unforgiving eye of her abusive father, Kathleen knew from an early age that if she were to survive, she’d have to do it on her own.But when the time came to escape, she found herself in a damaging spiral of self-destruction. At rock bottom, and with nowhere to go, Kathleen stepped off a bus in the last place she ever thought she’d find peace: a remote community in rural Canada. Spending a year in almost complete silence, Kathleen feared this experience would prove to be just another step in her unraveling. Instead, with her demons quieted, she emerged with a fresh understanding of self, an empowering new purpose, and a sense of worthiness that she would never let be challenged again.Wholly Unraveled is Keele Burgin’s gripping and inspiring journey of self-discovery and of finally finding her voice against nearly insurmountable odds.

    They filled them with a deep longing to see the world and little else.It began in 1983, a time before the Internet, Instagram or Skyscanner. It was a journey of connections with people and situations that stretched the limits of their patience and perseverance. It was often hard and sometimes dangerous. But it was a journey of self-discovery, to places where simple choices led to profound transformation, where anything was possible if you just believed in yourself and the power in your hands and heart.Grab your copy today and follow the path of this young woman who set out to find herself in the world and find answers to the eternal questions who am I and why am I here?

    As she awaited the verdict, she looked at the man who robbed her of so many years, who never showed any remorse, and realised that she was the one who was strong, she was the survivor. Caryn knew that it was time for her to tell her full story - and that of her dead sister, Jennifer. Against all the odds, she fought. And she won.

    In She, which Windham was putting the finishing touches on when she died in June 2011, the author describes how she woke up one day to find that she had an unwanted houseguest, an old woman who had suddenly moved into her home and was taking over her life. Windham referred to this interloper simply as She, and here the reader has been invited into the lively colloquy between the author--whose spirit has not changed--and her alter ego, who moves haltingly toward her earthly end. She will leave you laughing and crying, but also grateful and hopeful.

    Determined to turn her life around, she created the hugely successful weblog The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl and, hiding behind her Lycra-clad roly-poly alter-ego, her transformation from couch potato to svelte goddess began. Today, 8,000 miles, seven years and twelve-and-a-half stone later, the gloriously gorgeous Shauna is literally half the woman she used to be.In turn hysterically funny and heart-wrenchingly honest, The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl follows the twists and turns of Shauna's lard-busting adventure as she curbs the calories and learns to love the gym. There are travel tales from Red Square to Reykjavik, plus romance and intrigue as she meets the man of her dreams during a pub quiz in Glasgow. As her UK visa rapidly runs out, will she be deported back to Australia or will love triumph?Entertaining and action-packed, this is the uplifting true story of a young woman who defeated her demons and conquered her cravings to become a weight-loss superhero to inspire us all.

    I knew he would never stop, so I just had to do what I could to survive." Mandy Thomas was just 18 when she met the man who would change her life forever. She was soon under his spell – and then her real nightmare began. Mandy found herself part of a cruel and violent relationship that she couldn’t escape. Until one day he went too far… You Can’t Run is Mandy’s searingly honest and moving true story.

    We were human toys. Just a piece of meat for someone to play with.'Barbara O'Hare was just 12 when she was admitted to the psychiatric hospital, Aston Hall, in 1971. From a troubled home, she'd hoped she would find sanctuary there. But within hours, Barbara was tied down, drugged with sodium amytal - a truth-telling drug - and then abused by its head physician, Dr Kenneth Milner.The terrifying drug experimentation and relentless abuse that lasted throughout her stay damaged her for life. But somehow, Barbara clung on to her inner strength and eventually found herself leading a campaign to demand answers for potentially hundreds of victims.A shocking account of how vulnerable children were preyed upon by the doctor entrusted with their care, and why it must never happen again.