There’s a tag dangling from the centre of the red bow which says Love from Kayla in her beautiful, swirly handwriting. I read over the three words countless times, tracing the letters with my fingertip. How is this possible? Heather’s beloved daughter, Kayla, is her world. She is fifteen, a brilliant basketball player and a fierce friend. Heather and Kayla have always had a special relationship. For so many years it was just the two of them, watching Friends, baking cupcakes and laughing together. But now Kayla knows her time is short, and she wants to give something back to the mother she loves more than anyone else in the world. A gift that will change Heather’s life. With just a handful of days left, Kayla will need help from everyone around her to make this last surprise happen. Along the way, the people whose lives have been touched by Kayla’s light will be changed by her loss, and by her plan for Heather. And as Heather’s whole world threatens to fall apart, could Kayla’s forever gift be the key to piecing her life back together?

    In rural Gloucestershire in the early 1940s, Peter's family lived in poverty. It wasn't long before his father introduced a new woman into their lives, his mistress Flossie. On meeting her, Peter made a mistake; he called her 'Mummy'. Dragged outside, trampled on and shouted at, Peter never made that mistake again. Thus began a childhood of terrible abuse from which Peter tried time and again to run away. The arrival of a new sister, who was treated like a princess, only served to intensify the harm directed towards Peter. After running away one time too many, Flossie pulled Peter into the bedroom that he shared with his brothers and sister and committed an act of unforgivable evil. It didn't end there though - the catalogue of cruelties continued until, finally, Peter was able to escape for good.In this, his heart-breaking yet profoundly moving and ultimately uplifting memoir, Peter recounts a childhood like no other and a stepmother from hell.

    For all the children who suffered in this terrible place. For all those I consider my brothers and sisters; the ones who died, the ones who lost their minds, the ones who drown their memories everyday in a bottle of whisky, I tell this for you.Because in the end we are all brothers and sisters – and if we don’t feel that bond of love between each other, just as human beings, then we are nothing. We are no better than the monsters that ran the convents.”Based in Ireland in the 1960s and 70s, Kathleen’s story is a story of extreme hardship, suffering and abuse. It is the story of 11 siblings, abandoned by their mother and torn from their father, incarcerated in convents and then driven apart in the cruellest ways imaginable; it is the story of their ruined childhoods and their fight for recompense. But more than that, it is a story of courage, survival and the incredible strength of sibling bonds against overwhelming adversities.Out of terrible darkness comes a remarkable story. In the tradition of Irish storytelling, Kathleen offers a mesmerising account of her family’s experience.

    Confused, little Suz begins to blame herself for her mother's death. Her father eventually brings them back, but instead of finding a safe haven to rebuild their family, Suz finds herself plunged into a life of misery at the mercy of an uncaring and brutal stepmother.Unwanted tells the story of Suz's struggle to escape from her broken home and leave her fractured past behind her. But lurking in the shadows is a dark family secret...

    But as the days passed with no word from Kirsty, a loving daughter who spoke to her mum every day, Cathy became increasingly anxious, until the day the police arrived at her door to tell her they had found a body, when she knew her worst fears had been realised... Through a Mother’s Tears is the poignant and heartbreaking story of how Cathy lost not only Kirsty, her youngest daughter, but Kirsty’s big sister Hayley, who died of heartbreak when the agony of her baby sister’s loss became too much to bear.

    For no apparent reason, she's singled out from her siblings, blamed for her family's problems and targeted for unspeakable abuse. The loving environment she's come to know becomes an endless nightmare of twisted punishments as she's forced to confront the dark cruelty lurking inside the mother she idolizes. Based on a true story, Call Me Tuesday recounts, with raw emotion, a young girl's physical and mental torment at the mercy of the monster in her mother's clothes--a monster she doesn't know how to stop loving. Tuesday's painful journey through the hidden horrors of child abuse will open your eyes, and her unshakable love for her parents will tug at your heartstrings.

    I was completely isolated. He made sure of that.’ Mary was ten years old when she first met her stepfather, Sean McDarby. From the very beginning he seemed to pay her special attention; his praise and compliments quickly won her trust. Then he started touching her in ways she didn’t like. When she was twelve, he raped her. The next twenty years were filled with harrowing abuse as McDarby continued to rape Mary, leading to the birth of five of her children. Finally, after years of abuse – years when justice was denied at every turn – Mary found the strength and courage to break free. Against the odds she created a safe place for her children and reclaimed her life. This is Mary’s inspirational story of courage and survival.

    Most of the time he was just violent but then he started making her do things to him she knew were wrong. Soon he was visiting her at night. Lisa begged her mother for help but she just shrugged, telling Lisa he would have his way. It was the greatest betrayal of all.At first Lisa's step-father would just make her stroke and massage his feet, hitting her if she stopped, but he soon wanted more. Much more. By the time she was 12 he was regularly abusing her. One day, when Lisa turned 16, she came home to discover that her mother had swapped bedrooms with her. 'You're my girlfriend now', her step-father told her. Lisa turned to her mother for help, but was met with a shrug. She wouldn't hear a word against her husband. 'Don't blame me,' she said. Her step-father's abuse was horrific but what completely tore her apart was knowing her mother knew and encouraged it.Trapped and increasingly desperate, Lisa tried to find a way out. But her isolation was complete. A few months later her mother told her she'd arranged for Lisa and her step-father to move into a flat together down the road. It was too much for Lisa to bear. 'Please don't make me, please,' she sobbed. But her mother just ignored her. Lisa was marched around to the flat with her possessions and her nightmare was complete.Alone with her step-father, Lisa's life became even more unbearable. Then one day, finally, she got the chance she'd been looking for to escape. Lisa bravely struck out on her own, petrified her mother would find her and hand her back into the waiting arms of her step-father. But Lisa's mother had no idea how determined she was to break away…

    Meredith May recalls the first time a honeybee crawled on her arm. She was five years old, her parents had recently split and suddenly she found herself in the care of her grandfather, an eccentric beekeeper who made honey in a rusty old military bus in the yard. That first close encounter was at once terrifying and exhilarating for May, and in that moment she discovered that everything she needed to know about life and family was right before her eyes, in the secret world of bees.May turned to her grandfather and the art of beekeeping as an escape from her troubled reality. Her mother had receded into a volatile cycle of neurosis and despair and spent most days locked away in the bedroom. It was during this pivotal time in May's childhood that she learned to take care of herself, forged an unbreakable bond with her grandfather and opened her eyes to the magic and wisdom of nature.The bees became a guiding force in May's life, teaching her about family and community, loyalty and survival and the unequivocal relationship between a mother and her child. Part memoir, part beekeeping odyssey, The Honey Bus is an unforgettable story about finding home in the most unusual of places, and how a tiny, little-understood insect could save a life.

    A report revealed that, since the 1990s, up to 1,400 young girls in the town had been regularly abused by sex gangs, predominantly comprised of Pakistani men. As the media descended on the small Yorkshire town, Sarah Wilson watched with horror and relief as her voice was finally heard after years of abuse.Sarah was just eleven years old when she was befriended by a group of older men. Bullied at school, naive and vulnerable, the gifts and attention they lavished on her were what she craved, she just wanted to belong. But soon she was hooked on alcohol and drugs, and then they owned her. She was just twelve years old when she was bundled into a car by a man in his thirties and forced to have sex with him. Soon, the gang were driving her to places where she was raped by scores of men.Falling through the system, from social services to school, no-one was able to help her. She ‘escaped’ when she became too old for the men at nearly sixteen.Finally a victim of the Rotherham scandal tells her story in the hope that other young girls will not fall prey to the same evil that she endured.

    After years of fear and isolation, Heidi knew she had to go to the police. For a long time, Chloe resented Heidi for forcing her to disclose what had happened when she wasn’t ready, while their brother, Tom, couldn’t understand how he had so misjudged his father, and at first he didn’t believe their tale. The truth threatened to destroy them all. This is the very honest story of three siblings, and how a man they trusted threatened to tear their family apart.

    Although happily ensconced in a loving second marriage, and a new family of quadruplets, Sheila never truly escaped the vicious enslavement of her ex-husband, multi-millionaire Allen Blackthorne, a handsome charmer— and a violent, controlling sociopath who subjected Sheila to unthinkable abuse in their marriage, and terrorized her for a decade after their divorce. When Sheila was slain in her home, in the presence of her four toddlers, authorities raced to link the crime to Blackthorne, the man who vowed to monitor Sheila's every move in his obsessive quest for power and revenge.

    Riots. Cell fires. Medical emergencies. Understaffed wings. Suicides. Hooch. Weapons. It's all in a week's work at HMP Parkhurst.David Berridge has spent 28 years working as a prison officer, with 22 years at Parkhurst. A tough character with a big personality and a dark sense of humour, David has had to deal with it all - serial killers and gangsters, terrorists and sex offenders, psychopaths and addicts. Inside Parkhurst is his raw, uncompromising look at what really went on behind the massive walls and menacing gates of one of Britain's highest security prisons.David has been assaulted and abused, he has tackled cell fires and attempted suicides, riots and dirty protests; he has foiled escaped plans, talked inmates down from rooftop protests, witnessed prisoners setting fire to themselves, and prisoners ruthlessly murdering other prisoners. With this book he takes us inside this secret world for the first time. Thrown in at the deep end, David quickly had to work out how to deal with the most cunning and volatile of prisoners, and how to avoid their scams - and he's been doing this for nearly three decades. Reggie Kray, Gary Glitter, Robert Maudsley, Peter Sutcliffe, Ian Brady and several senior IRA leaders were among David's most high-profile charges.With this raw, searingly honest account, he guides us around the wings, the segregation unit, the hospital and the exercise yard, and gives vivid portraits of the drug taking, the hooch making, the constant and irrepressible violence, and the extraordinary lengths our prison officers go to everyday. Divided into three parts - the first from David's early years on the wings, the second the middle of his career, and the third his disillusioned later years - David will use an episodic format to take readers to the heart of life inside and shine a light on the escalating violence, the lack of support for officers and the impact the government cuts are really having on the wings.Both horrifying and hilarious, David's book will shock, entertain and inspire in equal measure.

    The harrowing true story of a mother kidnapped and sold into prostitution and her heroic battle to be reunited with her little family.