Book picks similar to
The Last Orphan: The Heartbreaking True Story of Britain's Last Child Mirgrant by Rex Wade
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Rememberings
Sinead O'Connor - 2021
Her recording of Prince's Nothing Compares 2 U made her a global icon. She outraged millions when she tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II on American television.O'Connor was unapologetic and impossible to ignore, calling out hypocrisy wherever she saw it.She has remained that way for three decades.Now, in Rememberings, O'Connor tells her story - the heartache of growing up in a family falling apart; her early forays into the Dublin music scene; her adventures and misadventures in the world of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll; the fulfilment of being a mother; her ongoing spiritual quest - and through it all, her abiding passion for music.Rememberings is intimate, replete with candid anecdotes and full of hard-won insights. It is a unique and remarkable chronicle by a unique and remarkable artist.
Rival
Jacqui Rose - 2020
Perfect for fans of Kimberley Chambers’ Queenie and Martina Cole.AS THE OLD SAYING GOES…Franny Doyle has one thing in common with Wan Huang, head of the notorious Triads gang: they both want Vaughn Sadler six feet under. KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSEWhen Harry Jacobs brings Vaughn into his business and his fold, his life is protected – for now. AND YOUR ENEMIES CLOSERBut when Franny finds out the truth about Wan and Harry’s dark dealings, all hell breaks loose in Soho. And Vaughn is the key to helping Franny with the score she now has to settle Together with Alfie Jennings, they were once a formidable trio. But can bitter enemies once again become allies? Because in a life of crime – no one lets bygones be bygones… THREE GANGSTERS. TWO FUNERALS. ONE LAST OPPORTUNITY FOR REVENGE.
The Street Where You Live
Roisin Meaney - 2017
It's the hottest heatwave in years and as preparations for an end-of-summer concert get underway, the notes soar. But so, too, do the scandals and secrets ...
Choir member Molly sees a young boy who she's convinced is her grandson, but how does she find out the truth when her son Philip ran away to New Zealand five years ago?Meanwhile Molly's daughter Emily has fallen in love for the second time in her life. Except this time it's with the wrong man ... While choir leader Christopher, who closed off his heart to love a long time ago, is making do with snatched trysts with new member Jane - who also happens to be married. But then American author Freddie moves in next door and suddenly things begin to get complicated.As performance night approaches, the heatwave breaks and members of the choir discover that their lives intertwine more than they could ever have imagined. But are the inhabitants of the town ready for what happens next?
Four Meals for Fourpence
Grace Foakes - 2011
With a child’s uncluttered eye, she describes the small details—shopping in the market, men waiting for work at the dock gates, the rituals of washday, and the sights, sounds, and smells of the old East End of London. She also describes the fear—of illness, of unemployment, of the workhouse—that hung over her family and thousands like them, and her determination that her own children would never know the kind of poverty she had experienced.
Nobody Cared: An Evil Predator, A Vulnerable Girl Who Fought Back
Terrie O'Brian - 2012
Instead, her earliest memories are of her father abusing her. But when he died and her mother's mental illness made it impossible for her to care for her daughter, Terrie went to live with a family friend. Things seemed perfect at first, but the biggest betrayal was yet to come.
Billie Eilish: From e-girl to Icon: The Unofficial Biography
Adrian Besley - 2020
All That Was Lost
Alison May - 2018
Fifty years later she is Patrice Leigh, a nationally celebrated medium. But cracks are forming in the carefully constructed barriers that keep her real history at bay.Leo is the journalist hired to write Patrice's biography. Struggling to reconcile the demands of his family, his grief for his lost son, and his need to understand his own background, Leo becomes more and more frustrated at Patrice's refusal to open up.Because behind closed doors, Patrice is hiding more than one secret. And it seems that now, her past is finally catching up with her.May thrills in this English familial mystery, adding enticing plot layers as intricate and divisive as the themes she introduces.'Intriguing with a cast of complex characters that keep you fascinated, this is a page-turner and surprisingly tender' Katie FForde'A resonant, emotional story about grief, loss and love with a complex, tragic heroine--a fake psychic reaching the end of her career. Although it's about death, this story is never depressing, and ultimately it's about recovery and healing' Julie Cohen'A beautiful and compelling story that delves into what is real, what we are willing to believe and the power of grief' Liz Fenwick'"All That is Lost" is a bold, beautiful thought-provoking novel, that sensitively confronts difficult themes' Rowan Coleman'It is a triumph. What Alison May has produced is an intimate and affecting study of loss, grief and identity that is just wonderful.' Linda's Book Bag'What an interesting and unique book... a fascinating, at times heart-wrenching, look at secrets, the cost of keeping them hidden, and whether hiding them requires lies.' Fireflies and Free Kicks
Take My Hand
Kerry Fisher - 2020
They shine a light on what it really feels like when your world shatters and how they found hope in the deepest despair.Best friends since they met at university, Kerry and Pat had no idea that thirty years later, they’d need every ounce of their friendship to survive. In 2017, their worlds came crashing down when their teenage sons were both diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses within weeks of each other.During the following rollercoaster months, Kerry and Pat regularly snatched time to message each other – often with black humour – providing a momentary refuge from their frightening realities. Together these two ordinary mums found a way to survive their extraordinary challenges and to navigate a new normal in an alien and isolating world. With raw honesty, they share the things they’ve learnt and what they wish they’d known – from how to tame raging mother guilt to restoring their natural optimism in the aftershock of tragedy.In this profoundly moving book, Kerry and Pat take readers on a very personal exploration of the universal experiences of grief and loss, love and friendship that connect us all. Like a wise companion offering comfort, Take My Hand is a lifeline both to those overwhelmed by heartbreak and for friends and family who don’t know how to help. Most of all, it’s a powerful reminder that no matter how difficult life gets, you are not alone.
Leaving the Pink House
Ladette Randolph - 2014
From the isolated farmhouse of her childhood, to the series of houses her family occupied in small towns across Nebraska as her father pursued his dream of becoming a minister, to the equally small houses she lived in as a single mother and graduate student, houses have shaped her understanding of her place in the world and served as touchstones for a life marked by both constancy and endless cycles of change. On September 12, 2001, Randolph and her husband bought a dilapidated farmhouse on twenty acres outside Lincoln, Nebraska, and set about gutting and rebuilding the house themselves. They had nine months to complete the work. The project, undertaken at a time of national unrest and uncertainty, led Randolph to reflect on the houses of her past and the stages of her life that played out in each, both painful and joyful. As the couple struggles to bring the dilapidated house back to life, Randolph simultaneously traces the contours of a life deeply shaped by the Nebraska plains, where her family has lived for generations, and how those roots helped her find the strength to overcome devastating losses as a young adult. Weaving together strands of departures and arrivals, new houses and deep roots, cycles of change and the cycles of the seasons, Leaving the Pink House is a richly layered and compelling memoir of the meaning of home and family, and how they can never really leave us, even if we leave them.
Saving Sara: A Memoir of Food Addiction
Sara Somers - 2020
In this brutally honest and intimate memoir, Somers offers readers an inside view of a food addict’s mind, showcasing her experiences of obsessive cravings, compulsivity, and powerlessness regarding food.Saving Sara chronicles Somers’s addiction from childhood to adulthood, beginning with abnormal eating as a nine-year-old. As her addiction progresses in young adulthood, she becomes isolated, masking her shame and self-hatred with drugs and alcohol. Time and again, she rationalizes why this time will be different, only to have her physical cravings lead to ever-worse binges, to see her promises of doing things differently next time broken, and to experience the amnesia that she—like every addict—experiences when her obsession sets in again.Even after Somers is introduced to the solution that will eventually end up saving her, the strength of her addiction won’t allow her to accept her disease. Twenty-six more years pass until she finally crawls on hands and knees back to that solution, and learns to live life on life’s terms. A raw account of Somers’s decades-long journey, Saving Sara underscores the challenges faced by food addicts of any age—and the hope that exists for them all.
Jew[ish]
Matt Greene - 2020
Yes his family had Friday-night dinners, and yes they kept a kosher house, but somehow it was never the most important part of his identity. He wasn’t even sure what he was supposed to be believing in. And yet he had to contend with the responsibility of his ancestry. That’s what first struck me about this book—how tradition and expectation sit heavily on one’s shoulders, and how Greene offers a fresh new voice for the generations of Jews who were born after the Holocaust.
In the Shadow of the Valley: A Memoir
Bobi Conn - 2020
She remembers her tin-roofed house tucked away in a vast forest paradise; the sparkling creeks, with their frogs and crawdads; the sweet blackberries growing along the road to her granny’s; and her abusive father, an underemployed alcoholic whose untethered rage and violence against Bobi and her mother were frighteningly typical of a community marginalized, desperate, and ignored. Bobi’s rule of survival: always be vigilant but endure it silently.Slipping away from home, Bobi went to college and got a white-collar job. Mistrusted by her family for her progress and condescended to by peers for her accent and her history, she was followed by the markers of her class. Though she carried her childhood self everywhere, Bobi also finally found her voice.An elegiac account of survival despite being born poor, female, and cloistered, Bobi’s testament is one of hope for all vulnerable populations, particularly women and girls caught in the cycle of poverty and abuse. On a continual path to worth, autonomy, and reinvention, Conn proves here that “the storyteller is the one with power.”
I Will Find You: Solving Killer Cases from My Life Fighting Crime
Joe Kenda - 2017
Joe Kenda, star of Homicide Hunter, shares his deepest, darkest, and never before revealed case files from his 19 years as a homicide detective.Are you horrified yet fascinated by abhorrent murders? Do you crave to know the gory details of these crimes, and do you seek comfort in the solving of the most gruesome? In I WILL FIND YOU, the star of Homicide Hunter: Lt. Joe Kenda shares his deepest, darkest, and never-before-revealed case files from his two decades as a homicide detective and reminds us that crimes like these are very real and can happen even in our own backyards. Gruesome, macabre, and complex cases. Joe Kenda investigated 387 murder cases during his 23 years with the Colorado Springs Police Department and solved almost all of them. And he is ready to detail the cases that are too gruesome to air on television, cases that still haunt him, and the few cases where the killer got away. These cases are horrifyingly real, and the detail is so mesmerizing you won't be able to look away. The tales in I WILL FIND YOU will shock you like the best horror stories-divulging insights into the actions, motivations, and proclivities of nature's most dangerous species. Don't mind the blood.
Mummy Doesn't Love You
Alexander Sinclair - 2009
She stopped at no lengths in her campaign to tear him to pieces both mentally and physically. In his chilling memoir, Alex describes how he received the most unnecessary and appalling treatment in mental institutions because of her actions, to the point where his mental and physical health deteriorated to a perilous state. Covering her tracks with cunning deception, his mother began by beating him repeatedly and forcing him to take a dangerous mix of amphetamines and Valium. His health already in balance, and raped by an uncle, the professionals believed his mother's lies. Mental asylums in Greece and the UK followed, as did isolation cells and ECT. But his mother's hatred was to take a more sinister turn still - how much more could Alex take and still survive? Not since Sickened has there been a book that catalogues a child's experience of being made devastatingly ill at the hands of their mother. Dramatic and uniquely shocking, this is a memoir that will haunt the reader long after they close the final page.
Before You Wake: Life Lessons from a Father to His Children
Erick Erickson - 2017
"A must read." -- RedState In late 2016, prompted by the news that his wife was battling cancer and his own pulmonary medical scare, Erick Erickson posted a piece to his website, The Resurgent. Styled as a letter to his young children, the piece, titled "If I Should Die Before You Wake," was a stirring message--and challenge--about how to live a life of purpose and joy. The essay went viral, shared by figures like New York Times columnist and author of The Road to Character, David Brooks. Now, in a time when our country needs healing and a reminder of our values more than ever, Erickson has expanded the project, composing a total of ten letters, featuring a wonderful mix of the practical, inspirational, and spiritual.