From miraculous pregnancies to dirty protests, and from violent attacks on prisoners to heartbreaking acts of self-harm, she has witnessed it all. In this memoir, Amanda reveals the stories, the patients and the cases that have shaped a career helping those most of us would rather forget.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Both sought to redefine themselves beneath the stars. By the time they made it to the snowy Cascade Range of British Columbia—the trail’s end—Aspen and Justin were in love.Embarking on a new pilgrimage the next summer, they returned to those same mossy mountains where they’d met, and they married. They built a world together, three years of a happy marriage. Until a cold November morning, when, after kissing Aspen goodbye, Justin left to attend the funeral of a close friend.He never came back. As days became weeks, her husband’s inexplicable absence left Aspen unmoored. Shock, grief, fear, and anger battled for control—but nothing prepared her for the disarming truth. A revelation that would lead Aspen to reassess not only her own life but that of the disappeared as well.The result is a brave and inspiring memoir of secrets kept and unearthed, of a vanishing that became a gift: a woman’s empowering reclamation of unmitigated purpose in the surreal wake of mystifying loss.

    She was the rarest of female psychopaths, a woman who engaged in wholesale slaughter, partly out of greed but mostly for the sheer joy of it. Between 1902 and 1908, she lured a succession of unsuspecting victims to her Indiana “murder farm.” Some were hired hands. Others were well-to-do bachelors. All of them vanished without a trace. When their bodies were dug up, they hadn’t merely been poisoned, like victims of other female killers. They’d been butchered.Hell’s Princess is a riveting account of one of the most sensational killing sprees in the annals of American crime: the shocking series of murders committed by the woman who came to be known as Lady Bluebeard. The only definitive book on this notorious case and the first to reveal previously unknown information about its subject, Harold Schechter’s gripping, suspenseful narrative has all the elements of a classic mystery—and all the gruesome twists of a nightmare.

    With those in mind, I will recap briefly the series so far…In Cold Blood: Discovering Chris Watts - Part One - The FactsWe guess it’s safe to say most people will have heard of the Watts case. Christopher (Chris) Lee Watts, the dashing, seemingly genteel, affable man who murdered his entire family in a calculated attack that shocked the entire world. Shanann Watts, his pregnant, incredibly beautiful wife whose life was snuffed out because her doting husband decided he wanted a fresh start. Bella Marie and Celeste Cathryn (CeCe) Watts, adorable sisters who worshipped their father, the very man who suffocated them both in cold blood using their comfort blankets against them. He then went on to dispose of their tiny bodies into huge tanks filled with toxic crude oil. Nico Lee Watts, Chris and Shanann’s unborn son.During this series we will look at the facts, the police investigation, the evidence, hear Chris Watts’ explanation and his reasoning. We will try to make some sense of what occurred during the early hours of August 13th 2018. We will endeavour to present to you all aspects of the case, right from the initial investigation and how it unfolded, to the first and subsequent confessions all transcribed word for word (where possible) from actual video and audio footage obtained from the FBI’s Discovery Files.A Deal With the Devil - Discovering Chris Watts - Part Two - The FactsAt the end of book one, Chris Watts had finally confessed to murdering his beautiful family and disposing of their bodies at an oil field.In part two, we focus on…•… the grim discovery and recovery of the bodies.•… the chilling details of the autopsies.•… the remaining police interviews of Nichol Kessinger.•… the Plea Deal.•… the sentencing.•… Chris Watts Prison Interview.What to expect in this book…The Truth Within the Lies: Discovering Chris Watts - Part Three – The TheoriesFor anyone new to this case, the first thing they ask is why? And unfortunately no amount of reading, or watching, or studying will answer that for you. The only person who knows the absolute truth is Chris Watts himself, and for some reason he has refused to confess all up to now. Oh yes, he’s confessed to much of it, but there are so many discrepancies, changed statements, obvious lies and omissions. The online True Crime Community is rife with scenarios and theories and some of them are eye-poppingly, jaw-droppingly valid. So we’ve given you the facts, and now we intend to put forward some of the theories to see if we can work out which truths have been weaved through the lies and vice-versa.Please note: These theories are not the opinions of the authors and in no way are they saying these events are actually true. But they are most definitely food for thought…

    From her beginnings as a wunderkind producer of pirated stage productions for six-year-olds, through her spirited adventures watching self-satisfying monkeys, throwing up on Chinese food deliverymen, and stalking Leo DiCaprio, here are the goofy highs and horrifying lows of life as Kelly Oxford.

    His plan began when he adopted Maude’s mother and indoctrinated her with his esoteric ideals. Her mission was to give him a daughter as blonde as she was, and then to take charge of the child’s education. That child was Maude, on whom her father conducted his outrageous experiment—to raise the perfect ‘super-human’ being.The three lived in an isolated mansion in northern France, where her father made her undergo endless horrifying endurance tests. Maude had to hold an electric fence without flinching. Her parents locked her in a cellar overnight and ordered her to sit still on a stool in the dark, contemplating death, while rats scurried around her feet.How did this girl, with her loveless and lonely childhood, emerge so unscathed, so full of the empathy that was absent in her childhood? How did she manage to escape?Maude was sustained by her love of nature and animals and her passion for literature. In writing this memoir, Maude Julien shows that it is possible to overcome severe trauma. She recounts her chilling and deeply moving story in a compelling and compassionate voice.

    Sarah Krasnostein's The Trauma Cleaner is a love letter to an extraordinary ordinary life. In Sandra Pankhurst she discovered a woman capable of taking a lifetime of hostility and transphobic abuse and using it to care for some of society's most in-need people.Sandra Pankhurst founded her trauma cleaning business to help people whose emotional scars are written on their houses. From the forgotten flat of a drug addict to the infested home of a hoarder, Sandra enters properties and lives at the same time. But few of the people she looks after know anything of the complexity of Sandra's own life. Raised in an uncaring home, Sandra's miraculous gift for warmth and humour in the face of unspeakable personal tragedy mark her out as a one-off.

    Ours were just bigger than others. "My earliest memory is of a gun." That gun was in his father's hand - and it was pointed at his mother's head. John Davis grew up in the 1970s and '80s on the rough streets of Brooklyn, a place where no one thought twice when parents smacked around their kids-or each other. At the center of the tumultuous neighborhood, and John's world, was his larger-than-life father, Roberto. The Argentinean butcher and kingpin drug dealer was a sadistic bully whose mercurial temper left a trail of tears and chaos across his family. John, in particular, seemed to bear the brunt of Roberto's wildly swinging moods. Any wrong word could cause an explosion. Every knock on the door might be one of Roberto's enemies, or the police. In his publishing debut, Davis recounts how he spent his childhood in constant terror and his teen years learning to fight back. But it was much later, as an adult, that he learned the most shocking thing of all about his father, his past, and himself. Told with raw honesty and deep emotion, My Father's Son is a memoir of fear, abuse, survival, and identity.

     The Zodiac Killer #1 Detective Darek Blake thought the secrets of his past were long buried, but when a young girl is murdered in a familiar way, finding the killer will not only bring back memories he’s repressed, but give him a golden opportunity to impress the FBI. So, when his partner, Special Agent Lizzy McNamara digs up evidence that’s a little too close to home, he’s shaken to the core. The worst sin he’s ever committed bubbles up, threatening to destroy his future. Are the Zodiac killings a coincidence or is someone toying with him, and if so… who?
 Capricorn Book #2 Being a suspect in a murder case never happens at a good time, but for Capricorn, Tad Halston, a recovering addict and former male escort who is on the verge of reclaiming his place as an in-demand male model, the timing couldn’t be worse. With bodies piling up and more evidence pointing to him for the murders, the last thing he needs is a series of anonymous messages demanding he make the next kill for vengeance. Can he murder the uncle who abused him and sent his life hurtling down this dark path, or will his sister become the real killer’s next victim? For Tad, time is running out. Now that Darek Blake has hired Bay “The Slayer” Collins as his divorce attorney, he realizes the man’s help will come at a much higher price. Becoming an informant was never part of the deal, but with new evidence hitting too close to home, Darek is left with no other choice. With the killer targeting Darek’s old friends, he has to decide which side is most important, his role as a detective, or his past as part of the Zodiac Society.
 Pisces Book #3 With the suspicious death of Tad Halston, Detective Darek Blake finds walking the line between NYPD detective and Zodiac member a more daunting task than ever. Hannah Halston, Tad’s sister, refuses to believe the official story that her brother went on a vengeful killing spree. She’s doing her best to clear his name, which brings Darek’s partner, Special Agent Lizzy McNamara, even closer to his criminal past. Meanwhile, whoever is targeting the Zodiacs has their sights on Logan Miller. His life is complicated enough already, with his struggling career and bitter relationship with an older woman, but when he meets Hannah Halston at her brother’s funeral, lending a sympathetic shoulder turns into so much more. He’s determined to end things with the older woman until she tells him she’s dying. Stuck between a rock and hard place, does he continue his relationship, or go where his heart tells him? Will the killer choose for him?

    It is doubtful that Bennett could have made up the eccentric Miss Shepherd if he tried, but his poignant, funny but unsentimental account of their strange relationship is akin to his best fictional screen writing.Bennett concedes that "One seldom was able to do her a good turn without some thoughts of strangulation", but as the plastic bags build up, the years pass by and Miss Shepherd moves into Bennett's driveway, a relationship is established which defines a certain moment in late 20th-century London life which has probably gone forever. The dissenting, liberal, middle-class world of Bennett and his peers comes into hilarious but also telling collision with the world of Miss Shepherd: "there was a gap between our social position and our social obligations. It was in this gap that Miss Shepherd (in her van) was able to live". Bennett recounts Miss Shepherd's bizarre escapades in his inimitable style, from her letter to the Argentinean Embassy at the height of the Falklands War, to her attempts to stand for Parliament and wangle an electric wheelchair out of the Social Services. Beautifully observed, The Lady in the Van is as notable for Bennett's attempts to uncover the enigmatic history of Miss Shepherd, as it is for its amusing account of her eccentric escapades. --Jerry Brotton

    senator Joe Biden when he called her out of the blue to ask her on a date.Growing up, Jill had wanted two things: a marriage like her parents'--strong, loving, and full of laughter--and a career. An early heartbreak had left her uncertain about love, until she met Joe. But as they grew closer, Jill faced difficult questions: How would politics shape her family and professional life? And was she ready to become a mother to Joe's two young sons?She soon found herself falling in love with her three "boys," learning to balance life as a mother, wife, educator, and political spouse. Through the challenges of public scrutiny, complicated family dynamics, and personal losses, she grew alongside her family, and she extended the family circle at every turn: with her students, military families, friends and staff at the White House, and more.This is the story of how Jill built a family--and a life--of her own. From the pranks she played to keep everyone laughing to the traditions she formed that would carry them through tragedy, hers is the spirited journey of a woman embracing many roles.Where the Light Enters is a candid, heartwarming glimpse into the creation of a beloved American family, and the life of a woman at its center.

    Lost Girls is a portrait of unsolved murders in an idyllic part of America, of the underside of the Internet, and of the secrets we keep without admitting to ourselves that we keep them.

    Zek lays bare the brutality of life spent behind bars. It is naked. It is ugly. And it is beautiful.Arthur Longworth was born in Tacoma, Washington, was state-raised, and entered prison at the age of 21 with a seventh-grade education. He has written for the Marshall Project, Vice News, and Yes Magazine, and is the recipient of three National PEN awards. Completed in 2005, Zek utilizes the literary structure of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich to tell the story of a day in the life of a prisoner in the United States. It is likely Arthur Longworth’s most widely read work, as it has been passed among prisoners and prison guards for over a decade. Zek is available now for the first time on the outside.

    A long-buried personal sadness is enfolding her—and her career is stalled—when she stumbles upon an unusual group of immigrants living in rural California. She follows them on their annual return to the remote Azorean islands in the Atlantic Ocean, where bulls run down village streets, volcanoes are active, and the people celebrate festas to ease their saudade, a longing so deep that the Portuguese word for it can’t be fully translated.Years later, California is in a terrible drought, the wildfires seem to never end, and Diana finds herself still dreaming of those islands and the chuva—a rain so soft you don’t notice when it begins or ends.With her troublesome Labrador retriever, Murphy, in tow, Diana returns to the islands of her dreams only to discover that there are still things she longs for—and one of them may be a most unexpected love.