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.

    With a father who drives his Ford pickup with a Kodak movie camera sitting shotgun just in case he sees an accident, and whose home movies feature more footage of disasters than of his children, Monica is primed to become a morbid child.Yet in spite of her father's bouts of violence and abuse, her mother's selfishness and prim denial, and her siblings' personal battles and betrayals, Monica never succumbs to despair. Instead, she forges her own way, thriving at school and becoming fast friends with Julie Kilner, whose father is the town mortician.She and Julie prefer the casket showroom, where they take turns lying in their favorite coffins, to the parks and grassy backyards in her hometown of Elk Grove, Ohio. In time, Monica and Julie get a job driving the company hearse to pick up bodies at the airport, yet even Monica's growing independence can't protect her from her parents' irresponsibility, and from the feeling that she simply does not deserve to be safe. Little does she know, as she finally strikes out on her own, that her parents' biggest betrayal has yet to be revealed.Throughout this remarkable memoir of her dysfunctional, eccentric, and wholly unforgettable family, Monica Holloway's prose shines with humor, clear-eyed grace, and an uncommon sense of resilience. "Driving with Dead People" is an extraordinary real-life tale with a wonderfully observant and resourceful heroine.

    My Daddy the Pedophile tells the harrowing true story of a teenage girl’s affair with her manipulative sociopathic father. After a terrible dark secret comes to light, the real story unfolds. "If you are easily shocked by what occurs behind closed doors in some average suburban neighborhoods, do not read this book. If you want to read a riveting tale of manipulation, abuse, and courageous healing, then this is the book for you." —Sharyn Higdon Jones, MFT, author of Healing Steps: A Gentle Path to Recovery for Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse "Lily Palazzi's memoir, My Daddy the Pedophile is a riveting, well-paced account of both how her father's calculated manipulation of her desperate need to be loved subjected her to the wounding distortions of incest and how through therapy and the true love of her husband she ultimately finds the healing she had once thought would never be possible." —Catherine McCall, author of the international bestseller Never Tell: A True Story of Overcoming a Terrifying Childhood “[My Daddy the Pedophile] pulls you along from page to page as the narrator skillfully recreates her naivete about her father, and then its replacement by sad knowledge that he was a predator towards girls, boys, daughters and sons. There's no self pity, no hate—just a suspenseful, honest, highly readable account of how a human being can emerge whole from even the worst of childhoods.” —Adair Lara, author of Naked, Drunk, and Writing: Shed Your Inhibitions and Craft a Compelling Memoir or Personal Essay “[Lily] tells the complicated story of love and abuse that needs to be brought out of the shadows of shame and into the light of understanding.” —Allison Elwood, MFT

    Instinctively, I reached out my arms to stop my fall and ended up grabbing the live fence. My hands clamped around the thin wires, and my body collapsed to the ground as the electricity coursed through it. I opened my eyes and saw my mother standing over me with the strangest smile on her face. “Oh, my God, I’m going to die!” I thought in panic.Imagine never being able to close your eyes and remember the feel of your mother’s arms wrapped around you. Now imagine closing your eyes and remembering your mother’s tears splashing down on your face as she is on top of you, crying as she is trying to choke you to death. My mother left me these memories and many more during my traumatic childhood. After many years of struggling with trying to understand “Why Me?” I took back control of my life and started saying, “It was me, now what am I going to do?” The answer is my book, “Why Me?”. It is my childhood journey through the terrors of physical and mental abuse from first grade until the day I moved out. It is my way of letting the world know what was really going on behind closed doors.

    LGBT Studies. Lesbian. Queer. Child sexual abuse. Mothers. Parenting."A true story about Ellen's discovery that her daughters were being sexually abused by their father. There are no arrests, no happy endings and no one gets "healed". Instead, it's a painful account of how the children are harmed and how communities respond to such accusations. At a time when so much focus is on convictions and criminals, I found this a moving reminder that the reality of these situations is much more complex." (Ros Coward Observer)"Ellen Prescott writes with a literary flair that adds to the power of her story. She hits the reader in the gut on page 1: "In 1982, when my daughters were four and one, I decided to kill them . . . I was so in love with them, there at the door of their bedroom, that all I could think of was murder." You'd have to be anesthetized to put the book down at this point." (Toronto Star)"I recommend it to anyone, including most physicians who need a better understanding of human responses to suffering." (Willard Edwin Smith, BSc, MD, FRCP)"Well paced and … excruciatingly well written." (Quill and Quire)"This is a gripping story which I read from start to finish at one sitting." (Geist)"I liked Mondays are Yellow, Sundays are Grey so much that I bought a couple of copies for my office and they are rotating amongst my clients. I’m sure that it will be of tremendous help to both survivors and mothers of survivors." --Caren Durante, M.Ed."I was very impressed with the writer’s account and with her accomplishment of dealing with her own and her daughters’ abuse experiences. I appreciate your bringing this book to my attention." Dr. J. Adler, Registered Psychologist"I’m writing to tell you how much I admired and relished Mondays are Yellow, Sundays are Grey. I stayed in bed for 2 days and read it slowly. The story’s truth had my inner organs hiding behind each other, shifting all around. Having been abused as a kid myself, I was the victims; being a parent, I was the mother; being a man, I was the abuser. The critical me admired the smooth, unblinking text." –a reader"Thank you for writing about your experience. It helped me understand a lot about myself and my relationships to read about all of you. I have never read a personal account that so closely mirrored mine. I wish I had had a mother like you to hold me and comfort me and reassure me that not all life was pain. You’re a heck of a writer." –a reader'You'd tell me if Daddy touched your private parts, wouldn't you, Carolina?''No,' said Carolina firmly.'Why not, honey?''Because it's a secret.'It is only when long-buried memories from her own childhood start to surface that Ellen realises the terrible truth about her two young daughters: Carolina and Amy are being sexually abused by their father.Ellen writes with unflinching honesty about the heartbreak of finding out her daughters were abused, her fears of losing custody and her fight to have her story believed by sceptical doctors and social workers.A harrowing true story of sexual abuse from a mother's point of view, No More Hurt is a deeply affecting chronicle of Ellen's hard-won battle to create a place of safety and love for herself and her daughters.

    She was wrong. Her relative came too. And, as her parents had to work nights, Jayne's abuser became her 'carer'.Raped repeatedly by him, beaten, abused and battered, Jayne's life was a living hell.One thing kept Jayne sane: the love and care of her older brother, Stuart. But he had demons of his own, and Jayne watched in helpless despair as the boy who had always protected her turned into an adult consumed by rage. Out of control and on the edge, Stuart went on to commit one of the most terrible crimes of recent years....DESTROYED is the heart-stopping tale of an innocence destroyed and a family torn apart - told by a woman who has finally managed to confront her harrowing past.

    Just twelve, she’s tall, skinny, and weak. It’s four o’clock, and she hasn’t been allowed to eat anything all day. Her mother, on the other hand, seems curiously excited. She's about to suggest open-heart surgery on her child to "get to the bottom of this." She checks her teeth for lipstick and, as the doctor enters, shoots the girl a warning glance. This child will not ruin her plans.SickenedFrom early childhood, Julie Gregory was continually X-rayed, medicated, and operated on—in the vain pursuit of an illness that was created in her mother’s mind. Munchausen by proxy (MBP) is the world’s most hidden and dangerous form of child abuse, in which the caretaker—almost always the mother—invents or induces symptoms in her child because she craves the attention of medical professionals. Many MBP children die, but Julie Gregory not only survived, she escaped the powerful orbit of her mother's madness and rebuilt her identity as a vibrant, healthy young woman.Sickened is a remarkable memoir that speaks in an original and distinctive Midwestern voice, rising to indelible scenes in prose of scathing beauty and fierce humor. Punctuated with Julie's actual medical records, it re-creates the bizarre cocoon of her family's isolated double-wide trailer, their wild shopping sprees and gun-waving confrontations, the astonishing naïveté of medical professionals and social workers. It also exposes the twisted bonds of terror and love that roped Julie's family together—including the love that made a child willing to sacrifice herself to win her mother's happiness. The realization that the sickness lay in her mother, not in herself, would not come to Julie until adulthood. But when it did, it would strike like lightning. Through her painful metamorphosis, she discovered the courage to save her own life—and, ultimately, the life of the girl her mother had found to replace her. Sickened takes us to new places in the human heart and spirit. It is an unforgettable story, unforgettably told.

    No-one knew the London businessman was born into a world beyond poverty, the son of a rapist father and disturbed mother. Abandoned as a baby, he spent most of his childhood in care and suffered appalling sexual abuse. But no-one knew. But a call from the abuser's wife, 30 years on, proved he was living in a house of cards.The youngest of five children, David was the son of a drunkard rapist father and a mentally unhinged mother. His father was jailed and his mother deserted the family, leaving five urchins to battle to survive in an inner city Glaswegian slum. Rescued, but separated, David grows up with vague memories of Ma, but no memory of his siblings.For the next years of his young life David was shipped from pillar to post, until the authorities decided the best place for him and his youngest sister was Quarriers Children's village, where he was delivered into the hands of a paedophile.Helpless, powerless and alone, it was beaten into David that no-one cared for him and no-one loved him.Finally David escapes and goes on to build a life of success, determined to bury his secret and never tell anyone what happened to him. Then he receives a phone call from his abuser's wife, and all that he has built comes tumbling down. She asks David to be a character witness on behalf of the man who stole his childhood. Instead David chooses to tell the truth, turning the tide for detectives involved in a massive investigation and changing his own life forever. This is his remarkable story.

    They survived in part because of their closeness and their determination to be there for each other. Both sisters left home at the earliest opportunity to escape but before long, Jenny was embroiled in a relationship with an abusive man that kept her locked in a cycle of violence and fear. Their lives followed parallel paths, with first marriage, then kids and always the terror that things would never change. Eventually, with a lot of love, grit and courage they helped each other to climb out of the pit of despair and truly free themselves from the legacy of the past. Every bit as harrowing and inspiring as Behind Closed Doors, this is a story of the power of unstintingly loyal love.

    Now I’m letting my guard down.” —Hillary Rodham Clinton, from the introduction of What HappenedFor the first time, Hillary Rodham Clinton reveals what she was thinking and feeling during one of the most controversial and unpredictable presidential elections in history. Now free from the constraints of running, Hillary takes you inside the intense personal experience of becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major party in an election marked by rage, sexism, exhilarating highs and infuriating lows, stranger-than-fiction twists, Russian interference, and an opponent who broke all the rules. This is her most personal memoir yet. In these pages, she describes what it was like to run against Donald Trump, the mistakes she made, how she has coped with a shocking and devastating loss, and how she found the strength to pick herself back up afterward. With humor and candor, she tells readers what it took to get back on her feet—the rituals, relationships, and reading that got her through, and what the experience has taught her about life. She speaks about the challenges of being a strong woman in the public eye, the criticism over her voice, age, and appearance, and the double standard confronting women in politics. She lays out how the 2016 election was marked by an unprecedented assault on our democracy by a foreign adversary. By analyzing the evidence and connecting the dots, Hillary shows just how dangerous the forces are that shaped the outcome, and why Americans need to understand them to protect our values and our democracy in the future. The election of 2016 was unprecedented and historic. What Happened is the story of that campaign and its aftermath—both a deeply intimate account and a cautionary tale for the nation.

    What started as a short term arrangement quickly became complex and all consuming. Nobody was surprised that the children appeared wary, mistrustful and deeply traumatised - they had witnessed the killing of their baby sister by their mother's boyfriend. However, nothing could have prepared Grace and her husband Andy for what the children eventually revealed about their home life. This book details the ups and downs of caring for two very damaged children, and the fight that Grace and Andy have on their hands when dealing with abusive parents and a care system which seems tailored to the needs of everyone but the children.

    In the style of Studs Terkel (Working, Hard Times, The Good War) and Dave Isay (Listening Is an Act of Love), Londoners offers up  the stories, the gripes, the memories, and the dreams of those in the great and vibrant British metropolis who “love it, hate it, live it, left it, and long for it,” from a West End rickshaw driver to a Soldier of the Guard at Buckingham Palace to a recovering heroin addict seeing Big Ben for the very first time. Published just in time for the 2012 London Olympic Games, Londoners is a glorious literary celebration of one of the world’s truly great cities.

    Not the kind of abuse that leaves a bruise, but the sort of coercive control that breaks your spirit and makes it almost impossible to walk away. As she listened to the unfolding story, Helen Walmsley-Johnson was forced to confront her own agonizing past.Helen’s first husband controlled her life, from the people she saw to what was in her bank account. He alienated her from friends and family and even from their three daughters. Eventually, he threw her out and she painfully began to rebuild her life.Then, divorced and in her early forties, she met Franc. Kind, charming, considerate Franc. For ten years she would be in his thrall, even when he too was telling her what to wear, what to eat, even what to think.Look What You Made Me Do is her candid and utterly gripping memoir of how she was trapped by a smiling abuser, not once but twice. It is a vital guide to recognizing, understanding and surviving this sinister form of abuse and its often terrible legacy. It is also an inspirational account of how one woman found the courage to walk away.

    The government’s ferocious response, and the refusal of the demonstrators to back down, sparked a brutal civil war that over the past five years has escalated into the worst humanitarian catastrophe of our times.Yet despite all the reporting, the video, and the wrenching photography, the stories of ordinary Syrians remain unheard, while the stories told about them have been distorted by broad brush dread and political expediency. This fierce and poignant collection changes that. Based on interviews with hundreds of displaced Syrians conducted over four years across the Middle East and Europe, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled is a breathtaking mosaic of first-hand testimonials from the frontlines. Some of the testimonies are several pages long, eloquent narratives that could stand alone as short stories; others are only a few sentences, poetic and aphoristic. Together, they cohere into an unforgettable chronicle that is not only a testament to the power of storytelling but to the strength of those who face darkness with hope, courage, and moral conviction.

    In 2002, drawing on a deep well of empathy, she found her true calling: as a humanitarian and advocate for those suffering in neglected parts of the world.Asked why she was opting out of a successful career, walking away while she was one of the highest-paid women in Hollywood, Ashley herself could not provide an answer. She simply knew that after her first trip to the notorious brothels, slums, and hospices of southeast Asia, her own life depended on advocating on behalf of the vulnerable. Promising each new sister, “I will never forget you,” Ashley began writing extraordinary diaries—on which this memoir is based—expanding her capacity to relate to, and to share with a global audience, stories of survival and resilience.Along the way, Ashley realized that the coping strategies she had developed to deal with her own emotional pain, stemming from childhood abandonment, were no longer working. Seeking in-patient treatment in 2006 for the grief that had nearly killed her, Ashley found not only her own recovery and an enriched faith but an expanded kit of spiritual tools that energized and advanced her feminist social justice work.Now, in this deeply moving and unforgettable memoir, Ashley Judd describes her odyssey, as a left-behind lost child attains international prominence as a fiercely dedicated advocate. Her story ranges from anger to forgiveness, isolation to interdependence, depression to activism. In telling it, she resoundingly answers the ineffable question about the relationship between healing oneself and service to others.