Showing titles in Child Abuse

Following her disastrous first year in the adult world, it's hard to imagine how seventeen-year-old Keri's life could possibly get any worse. However, as anyone who's ever been down can attest to, getting back up can often be difficult without a helping hand...But what if all the hands around you only want to push you down further?

Stephen Smith is the boy who did not exist. Born out of wedlock in the early 1960s, Steve's parents hid him away from the world by locking him in the cellar...for thirteen years. Starved and beaten, the little boy's world was a darkened room that measured just eight feet by ten with a single...

Diego and his siblings live in desperate poverty, but nobody seems to notice or care as they come close to starving, scouring food banks to survive. But he’s wrong–someone has noticed him. County Lines gang members can see his vulnerability. With an absent father, alcoholic mother and dependent young siblings, Diego is the perfect mark.

When a parent singles out a child for special privileges and attention, that child is often unaware that the relationship is unhealthy - even incestuous. As adults, these children struggle to feel validated, because while they have not been directly abused, they feel a sense of violation and crossed boundaries - usually done in the name of 'love' and 'caring'. The parent's love feels more confining than freeing, more demanding than giving, more intrusive than nurturing. Yet these children suffer from what psychologist Kenneth Adams calls The Silent Seduction.

Sister Fidelma follows a trail that is as suspenseful as it is tortuous in the riveting third novel in Peter Tremayne's unputdownable series. In the mid-7th Century AD, the Venerable Dacán, a much respected and beloved scholar of the Celtic Church, has been found murdered while on a visit to a...

Slave Girls, a new series by bestselling author Louise Allen, reveals a shocking modern-day scandal of County Lines–the single most dangerous form of systematic child abuse prevalent today.

Maggie Hartley is one of the UK's most prolific foster mothers. These heartwarming and inspiring short stories show the power of a foster mother's love, and her determination to help the children who come into her care. Includes 'Too Scared to Cry', 'The Girl No One Wanted' and 'A Family for Christmas'.
 

Petit, il n'a pas raconté ce qui lui était arrivé. Petit, on n'a pas les mots, et on lui avait imposé de se taire. Alors il s'est tu. Et il a enfoui ses souvenirs, sans savoir que, même profondément ensevelis, ils continueraient à le hanter de mille façons. Construit comme une tragédie en cinq actes, « Derrière les arbres » est l'histoire d'un long retentissement, celui que les viols ont eu sur la vie d'un homme.

IS IT MY FAULT MUMMY? Seven-year-old Paris is trapped in a prison of guilt. Devastated after the death of her baby brother, Joel, Maggie faces one of her most heartbreaking cases yet as she tries to break down the wall of guilt surrounding this damaged little girl. A DESPERATE CRY FOR HELP...

Rejected by her mother and excluded by her school, Flip is a little girl desperate to be loved. ‘Am I ugly, Mummy?’ are the first words that little Phillipa says to Mike and Casey as she stomps into their lives on a hot August afternoon. She has a Barbie doll in one hand and a pink vanity...

Aged nine Joss came home from school to discover her father's suicide. She's never gotten over it. This is the true story of Joss, 13 who is angry and out of control. At the age of nine, Joss finds her father’s dead body. He has committed suicide. Then her mother remarries and Joss bitterly...

Born into the slums of Glasgow in the late '70s, a 4-year-old John's life is filled with the debris of alcoholism and poverty. Soon after witnessing a drowning, his mother's addictions take over their lives, leaving him starving in their flat, awaiting her return. A concerned neighbor reports her, and he is forcibly taken away from his mother and placed into the care system. There, he dreams of being reunited with her.

After taking a few weeks off work, Casey is presented with a new foster child: 14-year-old Elise, whose Mum left her at just five years old. At first, she’s no trouble at all, that is until she falsely accuses another carer, Jan, of acting inappropriately towards her. It turns out this isn’t the first lie Elise has told—her previous carer was constantly following up allegations Elise had made of people bullying her, trying to have sex with her or hurting her physically. 

Kim Chown was just 11 when her father Bernard Beaumont took her from her mother to Kenya. There, he tormented Kim with extreme sexual and emotional abuse, safe in the knowledge that as a pillar of the expat community his word would be believed over hers. Aged 20, Kim returned to England...

'One of the best books I've read this year. Just astounding.' - Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train. Law student Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, working on a retrial for death-row convicted murderer and child molester, Ricky Langley, finds herself thrust into the tangled story of his...

Growing up in a quiet, middle-class suburb outside of Amsterdam, childhood best friends Anna and Olivia had their whole lives ahead of them. But every parent's worst nightmare came true when the teenagers fell in with the wrong crowd. Eleven years their senior, Ryan was charming and good-looking...

Faith Jones was raised to be part of an elite army preparing for the End Times. Isolated on a farm in Macau, she practised devotions and read letters of prophecy written by her grandfather, the leader of the now infamous cult The Children of God. A direct decedent of the founding family, Faith featured in international media coverage - she was celebrated as extraordinary and then published doubly as a sharp reminder that she was not. With indomitable grit, Faith created a world of her own, pilfering books and educating herself in secret. 

PARIS: A MILLION MEANINGS IN A SINGLE NAME Heiress. Party girl. Problem child. Selfie taker. Model. Reality star. Self-created. The labels attached to Paris Hilton. Founder. Entrepreneur. Pop Culture Maker. Innovator. Survivor. Activist. Daughter. Sister. Wife. Mother. The roles Paris embraces...

Based on a true story, The Forgotten Child is a heart-breaking memoir of an abandoned newborn baby left to die, his tempestuous upbringing, and how he came through the other side. It’s a freezing winter’s night in 1954. A baby boy, a few hours old, is left by his mother, wrapped in nothing...

'He said he loved me.' Fourteen-year-old Hannah comes to live with foster carer Maggie Hartley after her mum pleads with Social Services to take her into care, unable to cope with her daughter anymore. Previously a good student, a loving daughter and sister, Hannah is now playing truant...