After she’s picked up by the police, and with nowhere else to go, she is locked in a secure unit with young offenders. Social Services beg specialist foster carer Angela to take her in, but can she keep the testing 12-year-old safe? And will Angela ever learn what, or who, drove Melissa to run and hide, sometimes in the dead of night? The Girl in the Dark is the sixth book from well-loved foster carer Angela Hart. A true story that shares the tale of one of the many children she has fostered over the years. Angela's stories show the difference that quiet care, a watchful eye, and sympathetic ear can make to those children whose upbringing has been less fortunate than others.

    She is expecting it to be her daughter Riley. But it isn’t Riley. It’s a woman from the Emergency Duty Team. So begins Casey and Mike’s latest fostering challenge – a fifteen-year-old girl called Keeley who’s run away from her long-term foster home 25 miles away.The Jonathan Ross Show has just started when Casey gets the call. She thinks it will be Riley – telling her that her favourite actor is going to be on TV. But it’s something far more urgent: a fifteen-year-old girl who has run away from her foster family and accused her foster father of sexual abuse. The family deny in vehemently, but such an allegation can never be taken lightly, so a new home must be found for Keeley.Keeley is polite, but she’s sharp, and she has all the hallmarks of a child who has been in the system a long time, and knows how to play it. Whether the allegation is true or not, Casey knows there will be no winners here. If it is true, then a young girl’s life has been torn asunder. If not, then the heartache for the family will only be surpassed by the bleak outlook for Keeley.In the short term, it’s a case of providing a safe, supportive home for a vulnerable child. But with the dangerous world of the internet at her disposal, it seems this strong-minded youngster has her own ideas of where that safe place should be…

    Rosie remembers that when asked what he enjoyed most about the course, Archie said: ‘the biscuits’.Social workers are concerned that Archie and Bobbi have been neglected. As Rosie gets to know the children, she begins to suspect that something far more disturbing lies in their past.Archie, jovial and polite, bats away Rosie’s attempts to talk to him about anything serious with witty one-liners and sophisticated distractions. Bobbi reacts violently, lashing out and throwing herself around. Rosie has never seen a child as young a Bobbi behaving so viciously, but it is Archie she is most concerned about as the weeks go by.After a worrying incident at school, Archie tearfully discloses the truth – a shocking secret that has left him and his sister traumatised. Horrified at what she learns, Rosie is determined to help the young siblings find a forever-home that will provide them with the love and care they deserve.

    But you should be careful what you wish for…Mark is sorry the first time he hits Aisha. His tears make her all the more determined to be a better wife; not to let herself down again. But however hard Aisha tries, she can't live up to Mark's impossible expectations – or escape his terrifying, violent temper. Soon she is trapped in a cycle of horrific abuse and imprisonment. And with two young children to protect, Aisha must draw on what strength she has left to find an escape.What follows is something so devastating it plunges Aisha into her darkest days yet. Is the price she must pay for freedom too high?

    His parents are trying to make a fresh start, but their gangland bosses are about to catch up with the family and Craig will pay a terrible price ...Edgar is a twelve year old boy whom nobody wants, not even the staff at the residential unit where he lives. Just when it seems that there might be a way of getting through to him, his mother reveals a secret that changes everything ...innie is a teenage boy who knows exactly what his gangster father is capable of, of how he,makes problems disappear. He also knows he has become a very big problem for his father ...... One man's fight to give these children the future they deserve.IN 15 years as a child protection worker, Shane Dunphy saw children growing up in horrific situations. He also saw their amazing ability to survive those unpromising beginnings.

    This is my first impression of her. A quiet little sparrow of a girl.' In her brand new series 'Thrown Away Children', Louise Allen shares the harrowing stories she is exposed to as a foster mother. The first in the series, Stella's Story, tells the astonishing true story of a young girl scarred by an abusive past.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. Things seem to be going well - but when Stella has a startling response to having her photo taken, it becomes clear the scars of her abuse run deeper than anyone could have ever guessed.

    My throat tightens in fear…’At the tender age of five, Madeleine was living a daily nightmare. In a dark, grey building on Jersey, she was just another orphan, defenceless and alone. She was also an easy target. Unbeknownst to the outside world, the care home manager was abusing her, using her like she was his toy. “Say nothing, no one will believe a nasty little kid like you,” he’d whisper. Terrified, Madeleine would keep quiet. And, worse still, the home was selling the children to men who would inflict on them the worst possible abuse. No one cared.This is Madeleine’s heart-breaking story and her fight to survive.

    Their mother walked out on them. (They don't remember her.) Their grandmother tried, but couldn't manage them. And now their young father has given up on them too. These cast-off kids desperately need somewhere to live and a family to love them. They've come to the right place. Trisha and Mike welcome them into their home and their hearts. There are now ten children under five in this household, where every day is filled with cuddles, fun . . . and more than a few challenges. After ten eventful years of love and laughter, they are reclaimed by their jealous mother, a stranger, who sets fire to their memories and sends them to a succession of care homes. Finally the younger one sets out on a quest to find the only two people who have ever loved him.

    He was a seemingly respectable businessman from Canada, so attentive and caring it was easy to ignore the warning signs - until he started, step by step, to take over her life. Six months after they first met Al Amin's web of lies started to unravel and Alison became aware that he had a sinister dark side. When she tried to end the relationship, the unthinkable happened and she found herself the victim of an escalating campaign of terror. Even when Al Amin was found with knives and guns, the police had no powers to detain him. Nobody could have imagined the events that were to follow, as Alison was left fearing for her life. It would take all her strength to survive. Brave and gripping, Stalked tells of one young woman's fight against the man who terrorized her, and her determination to defeat the fear and live a normal life.

    The illegitimate child was her father, a lost soul who she idolised. Protecting him instilled in her an instinct to care for the vulnerable and, after a chance meeting with a chaotic foster family, she decided fostering was her vocation.In an incredible twist of fate, the first baby she fostered was born to an unmarried Italian girl. Then came Hope, so badly damaged by her teenage mother’s alcoholism she was in hospital for a year. Finally discharged and settled in Mia’s happy home, what happened next would make Mia question if she could carry on.www.harpertrue.co.uk

     Sophie Jenkins is living a happy life in the idyllic Dorset countryside when she meets Martin Brett, the man who will go on to abuse her and haunt her dreams for years to come. A momentary act of neglect leads to a horrible series of events that leaves her changed forever. Badly let down by the adults entrusted to care for her, Sophie’s life begins to spiral downwards. However, Sophie’s message is ultimately one of hope and empowerment. She is in the process of rebuilding her life when fate leads her to encounter her childhood attacker once again. The story ends with a truly shocking climax. WARNING: This book is based upon a true story of child abuse and contains passages that some readers may find disturbing. All names and places have been changed to protect the identities of the innocent. For every book sold or borrowed, a donation will be made to the NSPCC (Cover photograph is posed by a model and is used for illustrative purposes only.)

    In Broken Angels, a more experienced Harry relates a series of extraordinary cases he encountered with Ella, a young and newly qualified social worker.Together, Harry and Ella faced the violence of forced marriage, the horror of maternal incest and the cruelty of child slavery. Their investigations took them into a mosque, a drug den and a recording studio. Just as the unrelenting caseload threatened to push the inexperienced Ella over the edge, Harry uncovered one of the most shocking cases of child abuse he'd ever encountered, forcing the duo to tread new ground in the search for justice.Broken Angels reveals why working in Child Protection has never been so tough. It also shows why, despite the fact that so many courageous people are ready and willing to meet impossible challenges, we are still unable to reach all of the broken angels that so desperately need our help.

    Then, aged fourteen, she was groomed by the father of a schoolfriend, a local businessman who seemed to love her. She ran away from home to be with him. Pregnant at sixteen, and rejected by her parents, she ended up marrying him. For years, Dawn suffered psychological abuse from her husband, who belittled and threatened her. She was also forced to work all hours in the bars he owned and realized she was good at business - better than him. As her confidence grew, she found the strength to tell the police about her brother. Gradually, Dawn realized she was more than an abused wife - she was a survivor. When she fell in love with a genuinely good man, she hatched a dangerous plan to free herself from her husband and take the thing he cared about most - his money.

    There they were to suffer brutal beatings and little care or love – they survived as best they could, looking out for each other, until the terrible morning when Terry couldn’t wake Dennis.In a time when the country was united by war and struggle, the case shocked the nation and made headlines around the world. Terry, a small figure in the courtroom, captured the hearts of mothers and families everywhere, and the public outcry against the foster services led to the instigation of the first provisions to protect other vulnerable children from neglect and cruelty.

    And he found his perfect victim. A true story of the ultimate deception.25-year-old Megan Henley put her five-year-old daughter to bed one evening and switched on her laptop. A Facebook ‘friend request’ seemed to be genuine. There were a few common friends and very similar interests, so Megan accepted.With that one simple act, she changed her life forever. In her words: ‘looking back on it, it was as if I had opened my front door to a stranger, as if I had thrown away every precaution I’d ever put in place, as if I had freely given access to my whole world – all because of some naïve belief that it was ‘just’ a friend request on a social media site.’ Megan is tricked into a relationship, paranoia and ultimately betrayal by the man she loved and trusted but nothing is as it seems.