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.

    Aged seven, she has a paranoid schizophrenic for a mother and her father is a distant memory. So when Tina gets a new step-dad, who lavishes sweets and cuddles upon her, she feels wanted for the first time ever.Sadly, her new daddy isn't all that he seems. He begins to sexually abuse Tina, using chilling threats to scare her into silence.Tina is so terrified, she even gives birth to four of her step-father's children without breathing a word. Her world becomes so warped the cruelty she endures seems normal. Until eventually, the tragic death of one of her innocent children makes her see otherwise...This is the inspiring true story of how a frightened little girl grew into a fighter and finally found the strength to escape the man who stole her childhood.

    After 10 years of marriage, Billy's breakdown forced him—and Alix—to face up to the truth of his tormented childhood. Unbeknown to Alix, Billy had been living with a terrible burden: he was ruthlessly and shockingly abused as a child, and he had carried the mental scars into adulthood. When it all became too much for him, Alix, his devoted and loving wife, stood by him and helped him to work through the pain and begin the healing.

    David Murphy was supposed to be his carer, instead he lifted his victims from their beds in the dead of night, and Tom was powerless to stop it.Tom endured years of horrific abuse which led to years of silence and self-torture. He grew up to be a troubled man, stumbling through care homes, schools, borstal and eventually prison. The damage that was done to him in those early years had destroyed his life.Then, one day, Tom read a newspaper article which unlocked the terrible memories he'd kept hidden for over forty tormented years. And a painful battle for justice began...

    She became the helpless victim of a sociopath—bullied, dominated, and sexually abused by a man only fourteen years her senior: her stepfather. For nearly two decades she was held prisoner, both physically and emotionally. But at the age of twenty-one she escaped . . . and then she fought back.The Little Prisoner is the shocking, astonishing, and ultimately uplifting true story of one woman's shattering twenty-year ordeal—and how she triumphed against an evil and violent human monster when honesty and bravery were her only weapons.

    I should have been able to trust him. But he made me do unspeakable things!It is a tale of innocence lost and a life shattered, but above all it is a tale of survival, of a young girl who found love and hope in the darkest of places.

    And, yet, the caterpillar lives in the butterfly and they are but one.” - John HarricharanThey belong to each other. Nancy and Nicole—mother and daughter. They’re two halves of a whole, two facets of the same breath—until the day Nicole exhales. . . and never inhales again. After the death of her daughter, and quickly losing her own battle with grief, Nancy moves from the house she can no longer bear to live in. While packing, she finds a box in the attic. Inside she uncovers treasures she didn’t know existed and evidence that her and her daughter’s lives had been more divinely entwined than she could’ve imagined.The Truth About Butterflies is a true story of grief, hope, and transformation, and a single enduring truth: Life cannot be restrained by death._______Nancy Stephan was named Georgia Author of the Year at the 48th annual GAYA Banquet. Stephan’s book, “The Truth About Butterflies” won in the “Memoir” category. Over 100 authors were nominated in 12 categories. The Georgia Author of the Year Awards (GAYA) are the oldest literary awards in the Southeast.

    Taylor never knew her father and her mother wasn’t around much. She just didn’t understand people, and was alone and scared most of the time.That was until, aged just 11, an older married man called Tom befriended her. She loved having someone who would talk to her, listen to her, a protector. But when he moved away a few months later she was easy prey to the gang of drug dealers and petty criminals who groomed and abused her, using her as a form of currency to appease their debtors and amuse their friends.Increasingly isolated and desperate, it began to look as though the pattern of Taylor's life had been set – until she started to fight back, determined to build a safe future for herself, however long it took.

    Amber is introduced to drugs and becomes addicted without her mother's knowledge. She meets a dealer who feeds her habit. Whilst living together, they are raided by the police. Bailed to her mother's address with a £200-a-day addiction, Amber doesn't think her family will accept her back when they discover the truth. When she's charged by the police with dealing class A drugs and accepting stolen goods, she fears she'll go to prison. Trying to feed her habit alone, Amber meets a fellow addict who offers to introduce her to prostitution. The prospect terrifies her, but will her mother help her?An unflinching story that looks at drug addiction from two sides. The book's concluding section offers two sets of personal guidelines; one for addicts, the other for parents or partners of addicts, while the in-depth, harrowing real life story vividly illustrates the difficulties of overcoming addiction. In a society where 50% of teenagers experiment with drugs, Amber is every mother's child. She could be yours.

     Life was never easy for little Siobhan. Born with cerebral palsy, she already has extra difficulties to contend with. But her disability isn’t her only problem. For Siobhan, life is a nightmare of constant verbal and physical attacks. The verbal and physical abuse soon turns more serious, even violent. And Siobhan plunges deeper into a relentless hell of daily attacks. As the abuse escalates, Siobhan begins to fear for her life. The urge for survival takes over and Siobhan must take drastic and extreme action to escape the torment. But her safety is short lived and the abuse returns once again to her life. And this time, it is worse than ever. The story builds to a powerful crescendo, and one final, shocking act of sexual violence changes the lives of all concerned for ever. Kate Skylark has previously co-authored two child abuse memoirs. But now, it’s time for Kate to tell her own story. Ugly Child, is the touching and shocking account of the author’s own childhood bullying and sexual abuse hell. Kate Skylark’s real name is Siobhan. This is her horrendous story… The author believes no child should ever have to undergo such torment. So for every book sold, a donation will be made to the NSPCC.

    At first, it was a typical whirlwind romance. But one day Bledi told her that love always comes at a price ...Bledi tricked Sophie into travelling to Italy, where he forced her to sell her body to help him pay off a debt. Terrified and ashamed, Sophie worked the dangerous Italian streets without rest, seeing as many as 30 clients in a night. She was completely at Bledi′s mercy for food, clothes and shelter. And without money, friends or family, she was trapped.But Sophie found the strength to keep going, clinging to life by a single thread of hope: that somehow she′d find a way to escape.

    In a raw, first-person account, Waite recounts each heartbreaking discovery, every life-destroying lie, and reveals what happens once the dust finally settles on her demolished marriage.After a disturbing email sparks Waite's suspicion that her husband is having an affair, she tries to uncover the truth and rebuild trust in her marriage. Instead, she finds more lies, infidelity, and betrayal than she could have imagined. Waite obsessively analyzes her relationship, trying to find a single moment from the last five years that isn't part of the long-con of lies and manipulation. With a dual-timeline narrative structure, we see Waite's romance bud, bloom, and wither simultaneously, making the heartbreak and disbelief even more affecting.

    Landing a job at a prestigious L.A. law firm, complete with a six figure income, signaled the beginning of the good life for Ian Graham. But the harsh reality of life as an associate quickly became evident. The work was grueling and boring, the days were impossibly long, and Graham’s sole purpose was to rack up billable hours. But when he took an unpaid pro bono case to escape the drudgery, Graham found the meaning in his work that he’d been looking for. As he worked to free Mario Rocha, a gifted young Latino who had been wrongly convicted at 16 and sentenced to life without parole, the shocking contrast between the greed and hypocrisy of law firm life and Mario’s desperate struggle for freedom led Graham to look long and hard at his future as a corporate lawyer.Clear-eyed and moving, written with the drama and speed of a John Grisham novel and the personal appeal of Scott Turow’s account of his law school years, Unbillable Hours is an arresting personal story with implications for all of us.

    He didn't talk. He hid under tables and surrounded himself with a cage of chairs. He hadn't been out of the building in the four years since he'd come in. He was afraid of water and wouldn't take a shower. He was afraid to be naked, to change his clothes. He was nearly 16.Desperate to see change in the boy, the staff of Kevin's adolescent treatment center hired Hayden. As Hayden read to him and encouraged him to read, crawling down into his cage of chairs with him, Kevin talked. Then he started to draw and paint and showed himself to have a quick wit and a rolling, seething, murderous hatred for his stepfather.

    They lead a very traditional way of life, the men are down the pub, the women are gossiping at the toddler group in the working men's club and the children stay out late in the long summer evenings, playing in the park and roaming the streets carefree. In the sweltering heat, Grace Ballantyne leaves her son Adam playing in his toy car in the garden. When she returns, she finds the door to the car open and her four-year-old son is nowhere in sight. As Grace frantically searches, panic creeps in and so the nightmare begins.A series of horrific assaults on young children spreads through the neighbourhood, each one more brutal; there is only so much this close community can take. As they cling to one another for hope and survival, the men beat up the school caretaker who they believe to be the perpetrator of this twisted abuse. But have they got the right man?Finally, it is the women who take control. In a battle to protect their families - and seek revenge - they make sure the attacker gets his just desserts.