Maude Julien's parents were fanatics who sought to turn her into the ultimate survivor through constant, elaborate abuse. But she befriended animals and read novels in secret, even though her parents had forbidden compassion as "weakness." When an outsider penetrated her family's paranoid world, Maude seized her opportunity to escape.

Growing up, Mallory "Mouse" Dodge learned that the best way to survive was to say nothing. After she escaped her terrifying childhood and spent years being homeschooled by loving adoptive parents, she is starting her senior year at a public high school. The first day, she runs into Rider Stark, the friend and protector from her childhood, and Mallory realizes that their bond never really faded. But as Rider's life spirals out of control, Mallory faces...

In this book is a story of triumph and a fierce determination to give back. The author was a runner. By twelve, she had run away from home, dropped out of school, and fled blindly into the arms of a brutal pimp, who made her walk the hard streets of central California. But even when she escaped him, she could not outrun the crushing inner pain of abuse, neglect, and abandonment. With little to hope for, she expected to end up in prison, or worse....

"You won't find a more hardcore eighties slasher fan than high school senior Jade Daniels. And you won't find a place less supportive of girls who wear torn T-shirts and too much eyeliner than Proofrock, nestled eight thousand feet up the mountain in Idaho, situated in Pleasant Valley right alongside Indian Lake, home to both Camp Blood -- site of a massacre fifty years ago --and, as of this summer, Terra Nova, a second-home celebrity Camelot being...

In 1950s Quebec, French and English tolerate each other with precarious civility--much like Maggie Hughes' parents. Maggie's English-speaking father has ambitions for his daughter that don't include marriage to the poor French boy the next farm over. But Maggie's heart is captured by Gabriel Phénix. When she becomes pregnant at fifteen, her parents send the baby Elodie to an orphanage where she receives horrible treatment. Seventeen years later,...

"You've been held captive in one room, mentally and physically abused every day, since you were sixteen years old. Then, one night, you realize your captor has left the door to your cell unlocked. For the first time in eight years, you're free. This is about what happens next ... Lily knows that she must bring the man who nearly ruined her life to justice. But she never imagined that reconnecting with her family would be just as difficult. Reclaiming...

Follows thirteen-year-old neurodivergent Maudie during an eventful summer in California with her father, where she struggles with whether to share a terrible secret about life with her mom and stepdad.

"A woman navigating a difficult separation accompanies a traumatized teen along the horse-show circuit to help the latter reconnect with a beloved mare and come to terms with violent memories." -- No longer tolerating her husband's borderline abuse, Faith escapes to her parents' California beach house to plan her next move. She befriends Sarah, a fourteen-year-old on the run from her father and reeling from her mother's sudden and suspicious death....

"In the follow-up to her #1 bestselling memoir, A Stolen Life, Jaycee Dugard tells the story of her first experiences after years in captivity: the joys that accompanied her newfound freedom and the challenges of adjusting to life on her own. When Jaycee Dugard was eleven years old, she was abducted from a school bus stop within sight of her home in South Lake Tahoe, California. She was missing for more than eighteen years, held captive by Philip...

"To their family, neighbors, and online friends, Louise and David Turpin presented a picture of domestic bliss: dressing their thirteen children in matching outfits and buying them expensive gifts. But what police discovered when they entered the Turpin family home would eclipse the most shocking child abuse cases in history. For years, David and Louise had kept their children in increasing isolation, trapping them in a sinister world of torture,...