Faith Under Fire: Betrayed by a Thing Called Love


Lajoyce Brookshire - 2006
    Brookshire boldly shares her truth after more than ten years of silence.

I Know My First Name is Steven: The True Story of the Steven Stayner Abduction Case


Mike Echols - 1991
    Now, the next terrible chapter unfolds as his brother Cary admits he's the Yosemite Killer.Bright and likeable, seven-year-old Steven Stayner always listened to his mother. Especially about talking to strangers. But when soft spoken "Reverend" Parnell asked to speak with his mother about church, Steven guessed it would be okay. Until he got into the man's car. By then, it was too late.Held captive by convicted child molester Kenneth Eugene Parnell for seven years as his "son Dennis," Steven was forced to endure abuse so terrible that he forgot his own name. Parnell evaded a statewide search for Steven, keeping his young prisoner moving from one cheap motel to the next. Finally, Steven made a desperate escape with five-year-old Timmy White, another kidnapped boy, return home to their parents, then courageously testifying to convict Parnell for his inhuman crimes.The basis for the blockbuster TV movie, I Know My First Name Is Steven is the compelling true account of Steven Stayner's seven years of horror and of his parents who never gave up hope for his safe return. It is also the complete, updated story of how Cary Stayner made headlines of his own—as the cold-blooded killer who terrorised Yosemite.

The Fear of the Blow: A Young Woman's Gut-Wrenching True Story of Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Alcoholism and Redemption


Jena Parks - 2017
    A true tale of wickedness, despair, and redemption. Not to be missed. Born into a Dark and Secretive World of Domestic Violence ”What kind of life is this you live? Can you remember even one day you didn’t go to bed afraid and wake up afraid?” These are the words Jena Parks says, looking in the mirror as a child. Imagine being a child and every day a desperate struggle to survive. This was the life Jena endured from birth until the day she escaped the living nightmare of her father’s abuse. In The Fear of the Blow, Jena tells her candid personal story of the cruelty, abuse, and terror her father inflicted upon her, her brother, and her mother. She provides an insider perspective on the horrors of domestic violence and child abuse that inform and inspire the reader to help those who struggle. Unthinkable Horrors - a True-Life Story From the opening passages, Parks tells us of being witness to spousal abuse as her father would hit and kick her mother. She then begins to recount stories of her father’s “games” in which he would routinely nearly strangle his children. Verbal and physical beatings were a daily occurrence. Jena lived in terror of her father’s rage, often made worse by his alcoholism. She tells of the delight he would take in threatening to kill her or her mother. How Could This Kind of Domestic Abuse Continue Unchallenged? Parks helps the reader to understand how domestic violence can take root and go unchallenged for years - often until too late. She reminds us that child abuse, spousal abuse, and domestic violence thrive in silence - and that they form the most secretive and horrific epidemics known today. It is through educating ourselves about the reality of domestic violence that we can gain insight into the extensive and crippling effects on the children who are born into and raised inside of that dark world. And this empowers us to speak up and take action to help those in need. The Fear of the Blow is sure to break your heart, open your mind, and inspire courage and faith. Join the Fight to Raise Awareness Jena Parks is a committed to raising awareness about the prevalence of Domestic Violence and Child Abuse. She has written The Fear of the Blow in the hope of empowering others to speak up and to find a safe way out before it's too late. Because Child Abuse and Domestic Violence thrive in the silence please join Jena on her mission to shine a light on this epidemic. The only way we can stop it is to reveal it, to stand up and tell the truth, tell our stories and create real change in a still broken system that traps so many helpless women and children inside this Russian roulette life. Jena’s experiences expose the extreme cruelty and wickedness of which some are capable, but also points you to the place where one can always find hope and a safe harbor. Click the Buy button on this page to get your copy today.

A Watershed Year


Susan Schoenberger - 2011
    Two months after his funeral, she is haunted by the power of things left unsaid. But then she receives the first of his e-mails arranged to be sent after his death. So begins the year that everything changes � Lucy�s watershed year.In an e-mail, Harlan says something that consumes her: He�s certain Lucy is destined for motherhood. In her grief, she suddenly rediscovers hope, journeying to Russia to adopt a four-year-old boy. Just as they�re learning to trust each other, they must face a threat that might shatter their fragile little family forever.Susan Schoenberger�s breathtaking and powerful story of love, loss, redemption and what it means to be a mother will leave you in awe as Lucy, in the depths of her despair, somehow finds joy and embraces the beauty of second chances.�With subtle humor and grace, A Watershed Year draws out the ways in which our closest relationships can be imperfect and yet continue to transform us.� � Juliette Fay, bestselling author of Shelter Me

Push


Sapphire - 1996
    But when Precious, pregnant with a second child by her father, meets a determined and highly radical teacher, we follow her on a journey of education and enlightenment as Precious learns not only how to write about her life, but how to make it her own for the first time.

Funny, You Don't Look Like a Grandmother


Lois Wyse - 1988
    The perfect book for the Nana of today, it will make you laugh, it will make you cry...it will make you want to run out and buy something nice for your grandchild!

There Is an Urgency


Gregrhi Arawn Love - 2009
    With Howard in prison, the only father he knew as a child was Bobby, his mother's pimp, drug dealer, and lover. In 1980, he was placed in his first foster home. While foster care was often horrifying, nothing compared to the daily near-death experiences he survived living in Father Panik Village with Bobby and Debbie. On May 23, 1980 his coerced testimony sent Debbie to prison. Now a grown man, Mr. Love uses his childhood traumas to change lives. Working as a teacher allows him to use the experiences of his life to help children who live in a similar world. His experiences give him a perspective most people do not have and knowledge that cannot be obtained from any textbook. There Is An Urgency explores these experiences in an effort to make others aware that people like him walk among us every day. There Is An Urgency is inimitable in that it juxtaposes Mr. Love's experiences as an adult, working with children in school and juvenile detention settings, with personal accounts of physical and sexual abuse from his childhood. There Is An Urgency to share this story of hard won hope and resilience after years of terrifying abuse by a real life monster.

The Book of Sarahs: A Family in Parts


Catherine E. McKinley - 2001
    Raised in a small, white New England town, she grew up with a persistent longing. After a five-year search marked by disappointment, she finds her birth mother and a half-sister named Sarah, the name originally given to her. When she locates her birth father and several of his eleven other children, she is then confronted with a revelation that threatens to destabilize all she has uncovered. In telling of her struggles, McKinley challenges us to rethink our own preconceptions about race, loyalty, and love.

As Bill Sees It


Alcoholics Anonymous - 2014
    Way of Life, this book contains material that reflects cofounder Bill W.’s personal viewpoint and experience. From his Foreword: “This volume includes several hundred excerpts from our literature, touching nearly every aspect of A.A.’s way of life. It is felt that this material may become an aid to individual meditation and as a stimulant to group discussion, and may well lead to a still wider reading of all our literature. Over the past twenty-five years, it has been my privilege to write these books about A.A.: the text of Alcoholics Anonymous, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, and Twelve Concepts for World Service, the last as part of our ‘Third Legacy Manual.’ [Retitled The A.A. Service Manual] Many pieces have been written for our monthly magazine, the A.A. Grapevine, and I have always carried on a large personal correspondence.”

The Last Cuckoo: When ghosts live on in stepfamilies


Maria Frankland - 2020
    After all, his mother Anna has been dead for nearly three weeks. What follows is an orchestrated Twitter campaign to lead those Anna loved, and didn’t love so much, to the truth behind her “accidental” death.

Satan's Garden


Kit Lyman - 2014
    It chronicles their experiences in parallel over the course of six years, unfolding the independent challenges they face while struggling to survive worlds apart from each other. This book club pick inspires readers to see that love, friendship, and faith can survive in spite of the most terrible circumstances.Dani and Keely imagined that life was more magical than others believed. If they had to be summed up, their one plus one would equal three. Together, they became something greater. It was twin sisters against the world. But the world had different plans. The man followed them to their secret tree house that unusually warm day in September. He only came for one, there and gone in the blink of an eye. Satan’s Garden takes you on the six-year journey of two sisters who learn what it means to survive. It’s a story of resiliency, hope, and above all, a bond that cannot be taken away. It teaches us how quickly life can change and yet how much of it we can change ourselves.

My Brother's Book


Maurice Sendak - 2013
    With influences from Shakespeare and William Blake, Sendak pays homage to his late brother, Jack, whom he credited for his passion for writing and drawing. Pairing Sendak's poignant poetry with his exquisite and dramatic artwork, this book redefines what mature readers expect from Maurice Sendak while continuing the lasting legacy he created over his long, illustrious career. Sendak's tribute to his brother is an expression of both grief and love and will resonate with his lifelong fans who may have read his children's books and will be ecstatic to discover something for them now. Pulitzer Prize–winning literary critic and Shakespearean scholar Stephen Greenblatt contributes a moving introduction.

Orphan Train Rider: One Boy's True Story


Andrea Warren - 1996
    Some were adopted by loving families; others were not as fortunate. In recent years, some of the riders have begun to share their stories. Andrea Warren alternates chapters about the history of the orphan trains with the story of Lee Nailling, who in 1926 rode an orphan train to Texas when he was nine years old.

Whisper My Secret


JB Rowley - 2007
    Eventually, rescued from her despair by tall, dark and handsome George Rowley who fell in love her, Myrtle started a new life and had seven more children. She buried the grief of losing her first children deep within and kept her pain secret. JB and her siblings were unaware of the existence of Myrtle’s first three children until after she died. Desperate to know how such a thing could happen to a devoted and caring mother, JB went on a journey to find out. What she discovered was a heartbreaking story of loss. It was a long time before JB was able to work out that her mother kept her early life and her first family secret out of misplaced guilt and shame. To redress that, JB decided to tell the whole world her mother’s secret. Whisper My Secret is a proud declaration that Myrtle did nothing deserving of guilt or shame.

Bittersweet Blessing: 16 & Pregnant


Ashley Salazar - 2011
    Little did she know how life-altering it would actually be. Later, she applied online to be considered for the cast of MTV’s hit show 16 & Pregnant . The show responded quickly and her story will be told as the season 2 finale in a special 90-minute episode aired in December 2010. Her memoir takes the viewer further back and further forward, and chronicles the tortured indecision she faces as she decides whether its best for her baby to give her up for adoption or take the dramatic step toward motherhood.