Book picks similar to
Enslaved: My True Story of Survival by Emily Vaughn
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Straight Up: Honest, Unfiltered, As-Real-As-I-Can-Put-It Advice for Life’s Biggest Challenges
Trent Shelton - 2020
Trent reaches millions of followers of all ages each week with his videos and messages about relationships, personal success, life, and faith.Who do you have in your life who’s not afraid to tell you the honest-to-God truth? Who do you have who’s a real source of wisdom when life gets real?With his trademark combination of raw honesty and practical next-steps, Trent Shelton will help you navigate through some of the most confusing topics of life, including relationships, friendships, fear, depression and your own past trauma. And while you might not make it out of the storms of life unscathed, the wisdom and lessons in this book can help you can make it out stronger.This book is:imminently honest and practical, helping you take real next steps toward being the best you.easy-to-read. It is organized into 64 different bite-sized chunks of content that you can pick up and read when you have time.real and raw. Trent vulnerably shares his own story, including his own missteps that have resulted in the hard-won lessons he shares.
Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir
Chris Packham - 2016
But when he stole a young kestrel from its nest, he was about to embark on a friendship that would teach him what it meant to love, and that would change him forever. In his rich, lyrical and emotionally exposing memoir, Chris brings to life his childhood in the 70s, from his bedroom bursting with fox skulls, birds' eggs and sweaty jam jars, to his feral adventures. But pervading his story is the search for freedom, meaning and acceptance in a world that didn’t understand him.Beautifully wrought, this coming-of-age memoir will be unlike any you’ve ever read.
Rolling with the Punchlines: A Memoir
Urzila Carlson - 2020
Urzila talks candidly about her childhood with a great family, apart from her abusive dad, and about growing up in South Africa. She shares crazy but true tales about her OE, her move to New Zealand, coming out, getting married and having children, and her life in comedy. This is a great listen from one of our most loved and most popular comedians.
Dear Nobody: The True Diary of Mary Rose
Gillian McCain - 2014
But Dear Nobody is a true teen diary so raw and so edgy its authenticity rings off every page"I am a freak."The words and drawings of Mary Rose present a gritty, powerful, no-holds-barred true experience of a teen girl so desperate to be loved, so eager to fit in that she'll go to extremes that could cost her her life.This is not a story about addiction. Or sexual promiscuity. Or cystic fibrosis. It's the story of a young woman with a powerful will to live, who more than anything wants to be heard...and loved.This compelling, emotional account ensures her voice will not be forgotten.
If You Were There: Missing People and the Marks They Leave Behind
Francisco García - 2021
Unemployed, addicted to drink and drugs, and adrift in life, Christobal decided he would rather disappear altogether than carry on dealing with the problems in front of him. So that’s what he did, leaving his young wife and child in the dead of night. He has been missing ever since.Twenty years on, Francisco is ready to take up the search for answers. Why did this happen and how could it be possible? Where might his father have gone? And is there any reason to hope for a happy reunion? During his journey, which takes him all across Britain and back to his father’s homeland of Spain, Francisco tells the stories of those he meets along the way: the police investigators; the charity employees and volunteers; the once missing and those perilously at risk around us; the families, friends and all those left behind.If You Were There is the moving and affecting story of one man’s search for his lost family, an urgent document of where we are now and a powerful, timeless reminder of our responsibility to others.
Sheriff's Pregnant Ex
Leslie North - 2021
So when the owner of the diner hires a troubled waitress to help out, Brian agrees to provide summer lodging for her new employee.But to Brian's surprise, the waitress turns out to be his old college girlfriend, Caitlin Baker. The same Caitlin Baker he shared a night of passion with, not long ago. Still, that's all in the past. He’s got a town to protect and no time to frolic. So why does he feel so disappointed when Caitlin agrees to keep things strictly platonic?Caitlin spent most of her adult life trying to get away from a town filled with bad memories. She thought she was finally going to make it in the city, until her plans for opening a tattoo parlor went bust after her ex stole her life’s savings. Now, she’s back, and wondering if her feelings for Brian are strong enough to overcome the past…It was just supposed to be one summer. But how can she leave behind the only man she’s ever loved?
I'm Not Holding Your Coat: My Bruises-and-All Memoir of Punk Rock Rebellion
Nancy Barile - 2021
She made her place behind the boards and right in the front row as insurgents such as SSD, Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Dead Kennedys and Black Flag wrote new rules and made history. She survived punk riots and urban decay, ran the streets with outcasts, and ultimately found true love as she fought for fairness and found her purpose.
Fight for the Forgotten: How a Mixed Martial Artist Stopped Fighting for Himself and Started Fighting for Others
Justin Wren - 2015
Like many kids, Justin was bullied as a child, but had a dream that kept him going. Fueled by the anger he felt toward his tormenters, Justin trained hard and propelled his dream of becoming a UFC fighter into reality. But the pain from his childhood didn't dissipate and Justin fell into a spiral of depression and addiction, leading him on a path toward destruction. After getting kicked out of his training community, his career was in shambles and he had nowhere else to go, so Justin attended a men's retreat, and it was there he found God.As Justin began piecing his life back together, he joined several international mission trips that opened his eyes and his heart to a world filled with suffering deep in the jungle of the Democratic Republic of Congo. There he came across the Mbuti Pygmy tribe, a group of people persecuted by neighboring tribes and forced into slavery. His encounter with the Pygmy tribe left him wondering who was there to help them and in that moment Justin stepped out of the ring and into a fight for the forgotten.From cage fighter to freedom fighter, Justin's story is a deeply personal memoir with a bigger message about a quest, justice, and the amazing things that can happen when we relinquish our lives to God.
999 - My Life on the Frontline of the Ambulance Service
Dan Farnworth - 2020
There was the time he was called to take away a dead body - only for the 'corpse' to jolt back into life and demand to know what he was doing in her house. Earlier in his career, he unwittingly disturbed a crime scene as he shared the sad news of the victim's death with her son. There is a special camaraderie among paramedics, and 999 - Life on the Frontline is packed with stories that are sometimes sad, occasionally hilarious, often moving but always inspirational. However, the work also takes its emotional toll, and Dan won an ITV NHS Heroes Award after setting up the Our Blue Light Campaign that helps those in his profession suffering from PTSD - something that struck him after a truly shocking event. His story will make you see our ambulance service in a completely new way.
The Imperfect Art of Caring
Jessica Ryn - 2021
She listens but never talks about herself. She’s friendly but doesn’t have many real friends. She’s become good at keeping people at a distance ever since she left home at eighteen and never looked back.But when Violet is forced to return home to care for her estranged mother Glenys, she quickly finds out that life as a carer isn’t easy. Feeling overwhelmed, she’s forced to turn to the other local carers, including childhood friend Adam, for help. Although returning home still feels like a mistake, maybe it will help Violet right some wrongs. After all, she can’t keep running from her past forever, and in learning to look after others, perhaps Violet can start to finally love herself.
The Bigamist: The True Story of a Husband's Ultimate Betrayal
Mary Turner-Thomson - 2007
The woman on the other end of the line told her that Will Jordan, Mary's husband and the father of her two younger children, had been married to her for fourteen years and they had five children together. The Bigamist is the shocking true story of how one man manipulated an intelligent, independent woman, conning her out of £200,000 and leaving her to bring up the children he claimed he could never have. It's a story we all think could never happen to us, but this shameless con man has been doing the same thing to various other women for at least 27 years, spinning a tangled web of lies and deceit to cover his tracks. How far would you go to help the man you love? How far would he go to deceive you? And what would you do when you found out it was all a lie?
Lecretia's Choice: A Story of Love, Death and the Law
Matt Vickers - 2016
In Lecretia’s Choice, Matt tells the story of their life together, and how it changed when his proud, fiercely independent wife was diagnosed with a brain tumour and forced to confront her own mortality. The death she faced—slow, painful, dependent—was completely at odds with how she had lived her life. Lecretia wanted to die with dignity, to be able to say goodbye well, and not to suffer unnecessarily—but the law denied her that choice. With her characteristic spirit, she decided to mount a challenge in New Zealand’s High Court, but as the battle raged, Lecretia’s strength faded. She died on 5 June 2015, at the age of forty-two, the day after her family learned that the court had ruled against her. Lecretia’s Choice is not only a moving love story but compulsory reading for everyone who cares about the dignity we afford terminally ill people who want to die on their own terms. In 2015 Matt Vickers supported his wife, Lecretia Seales, in her campaign to gain the right to choose how she died. Lecretia’s Choice is his first book.
Life on a Knife’s Edge: A Brain Surgeon’s Reflections on Life, Loss and Survival
Rahul Jandial - 2021
He followed his head over his gut and Karina was left permanently paralysed, altering both patient and surgeon's lives for ever. This decision would haunt Rahul for decades, a constant reminder of the fine line between saving and damaging a life.As one of the world's leading brain surgeons, Rahul is the last hope for patients with extreme forms of cancer. In treating them, he has observed humanity at its most raw and most robust. He has journeyed to unimaginable extremes with them, guiding them through the darkest moments of their lives.Life on a Knife's Edge is Rahul's beautifully written account of the resilience, courage and belief he has witnessed in his patients, and the lessons about human nature he has learned from them. It is about the impossible choices he has to make, and the fateful consequences he is forced to live with.From challenging the ethics of surgical practices, to helping a patient with locked-in syndrome communicate her dying wish to her family, Rahul shares his extraordinary experiences, revealing the depths of a surgeon's psyche that is continuously pushed to its limits.
This Is Really Happening
Erin Chack - 2017
Erin recounts everything from meeting her soulmate at age 14 to her first chemotherapy session at age 19 to what really goes on behind the scenes at a major Internet media company. She authentically captures the agony and the ecstasy of the millennial experience, whether it's her first kiss ("Sean's tongue! In my mouth! Slippery and wet like a slug in the rain.") or her struggles with anxiety ("When people throw caution to the wind, I am stuck imagining the poor soul who has to break his back sweeping caution into a dustpan"). Yet Erin also offers a fresh perspective on universal themes of resilience and love as she writes about surviving cancer, including learning of her mother's own cancer diagnosis within the same year, and her attempts to hide the diagnosis from friends to avoid "un-normaling" everything.
The French Escape
Suzie Tullett - 2018
Loved it." Sarah Hardy - By The Letter Book Reviews"Charming and thoroughly enjoyable" Rachel Gilbey - Reviewer
It’s fair to say that Flick has had a terrible year. Her beloved father died, she had the wedding of her dreams and only hours after the ceremony her husband ran out on her.
Brenda, fed up with her daughter living like a hermit, decides to drag Flick off to France to stay in a chateau. What could be better than an idyllic escape?But when they arrive Flick discovers the chateau is all but abandoned.The only upside of her French escape is the handsome and mysterious neighbour, Nate.Nate loves his life living in the cottage on the grounds of the abandoned chateau but that is about to be put in jeopardy…
Can Nate and Flick ever learn to come to terms with the past and find love again?
What everyone is saying about The French Escape:
"I loved this book! The characters were delightful, the setting was dreamy and the story perfectly paced, with some surprises."
Kaye Barley - reviewer
"a feel good, easy and satisfying read."
Joan Hill - Reviewer
"a really lovely book, full of happily ever afters, family, friendship, love, happiness, funny moments and idyllic French countryside"
Karen Whittard - reviewer
"The story has all the right ingredients in the right proportions to make you go all warm and fuzzy."
Shree Janani - reviewer
Suze Tullett is the author of Little White Lies and Butterflies and The Trouble With Words. The French Escape is an uplifting and laugh-out-loud Romantic comedy which will appeal to fans of authors like Sue Roberts, Marian Keyes and Sarah Morgan.