Child Abuse

Author of the NY Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestseller "Why Me"


I am a survivor of horrific physical and mental abuse inflicted on me by the one person in my life that was supposed to love and protect me and teach me right from wrong. I am a fighter because I did not allow my past to dictate my future and I fought for years to successfully overcome the demons left over from my childhood.

I spent my entire life punishing myself for the acts of my mother. I spent years trying desperately to figure out why she was the way she was and what I could have done so wrong to make her hate me so much. My journey to overcome my childhood demons was difficult and painful; but in the end, I realized that my past is what it is and it was up to me to decide my future.

What is it that makes one person's life interesting to another? Could it be the reader's perceived shared experiences with the writer? A profound thankfulness for not having shared such experiences? A desire to know about a life not personally lived? A well-crafted, mesmerizing and professionally written read? A story that evokes reader emotion - whether it be relief, anger, fear, sadness or joy? A desire to see a situation through to the end? Our shared universal desire for entropy, balance, peace and happy endings?

Author Marlayna Glynn Brown has crafted an extraordinary tale of survival and resilience in spare and convincing prose. Written from a child's point of view from ages 4 to 17, this tale describes the precarious childhood of Marlayna in 1970s Las Vegas.

The desert perimeter serves as a hot, dry and dangerous barrier that shuts out the rest of the vibrant world and bleaches away any sense of the joy that colors childhoods. Born into an ongoing cycle of alcoholism, addiction and abandonment amidst fallen adults, Marlayna develops a powerful sense of self-preservation in contrast to the people entrusted with her care. Her story explores the personalities of the bizarre characters who populate her life as she moves from home to home, parent to parent, family to family and ultimately to homelessness at the age of fourteen. Out of the resources of her remarkable childhood emerges an inner strength that will charm and captivate readers and remain in their consciousness long after the last page of her story has been turned.

"The language of gambling makes an interesting and recurrent motif throughout this memoir, asserting that it is only by chance that any one of us could have traveled this very same road. Decks are shuffled, hands are played. An ultimately uplifting, beautifully written, and inspiring memoir." - Fiona Edmonds

Dave Pelzer's story is the story of a child brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother: a mother who played tortuous, unpredictable games - games that left one of her three sons nearly dead. Dave had to learn how to play his mother's games in order to survive because she no longer considered him a son, but a slave; and no longer a boy but an 'it'. His bed was an old army cot in the basement, his clothes were torn and smelly and when he was allowed the luxury of food it was scraps from the dogs' bowl. The outside world knew nothing of the nightmare played out behind closed doors. But throughout Dave kept alive dreams of finding a family to love him, care for him, call him their son. It took many years of struggle, deprivation and despair to find his dream and then to make something of himself in the world. This book covers the early years of his life and is an affecting and inspirational look at the horrors of child abuse and the steadfast determination of one child to survive despite the odds.

THE GIRL NOBODY WANTS' IS A TRAGIC & MOVING BOOK TO READ! BUT A WARNING! THE CONTENT IS VERY GRAPHIC & SHOCKING, AND THERE IS OFFICIAL DOCUMENTATION TO SUPPORT THIS TRUE STORY, THANK YOU.
It's my 40th birthday today and I'm trying to smile, but as I look in the mirror all I can see is an empty shell, someone waiting to die... You could never tell that anything was wrong with me by just looking at me, as I dress clean and I keep myself tidy, and I have a smile on my face that hides my emotions and over the years I've become an expert at hiding behind it" This is the shocking true story of an innocent girl abused by the very people who said they would take good care of her. Lily's family began the path to her destruction - they used her and abused her - but they never ever wanted or loved her. The little girl was also sexually physically and emotionally abused by many people around her who were able to hide behind the security of Ireland's Catholic Church-run institutions. She also suffered at the hands of other people around them who they called their friends. You only get one chance to live your life as a child, but Lilly was never given that chance - her childhood was taken from her before it ever begun. From the age of four, when she was first sexually abused, her life changed forever and when she walked through the institution's doors in Ireland, her life continued along the same path that has destroyed her soul. Her emotional pain is as strong today as it was the day it began and will never leave her alone. "When I go to sleep it's in my head and when I wake up I can see it in the mirror and I am only waiting to die." A child abuse story that will stay with you forever and one that you will talk about for many years to come, The Girl Nobody Wants is a harrowing true story that will appeal to fans of biographies.

"Though the title, "Why Me?" suggests self-pity, the book is not a cry for pity but more about the author's success in spite of her traumatic childhood." ~ Indiereader.com

Now a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestseller!


In the blink of an eye, Mom ran up behind me and pushed me into the fence. 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?" I found my answers while writing my book.  This 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.

Stacey Danson, lived through and beyond horrific child abuse.

This book tells of her brutal beginnings, the streets of Sydney at the age of eleven were preferable to the hell she endured at home. She ran, and those streets became her home for five years.

She was alone, ill, and afraid.

Stacey also had an unshakeable belief that she would do more than just survive her life.

She would not allow her future to be determined by the horrors of her childhood.

She reached out for something different; there had to be more to life; if she could only find it.

She had a dream of a life where pain and humiliation had no place.

She was determined to find that life.

Empty Chairs is the beginning of the journey.

Now she is living the dream.

(SEVERAL REVIEWERS OF THIS BOOK WERE SO RIVETED BY IT THAT THEY FELT IT WAS FAR TOO SHORT AT 228 PAGES. GOOD NEWS! THE SEQUEL - 'FAINT ECHOES OF LAUGHTER' - WILL BE RELEASED BY NIGHT PUBLISHING IN NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2011)

From the outside, there was no reason to suspect the family life of young schoolchild Keri was anything but unremarkable. Two loving parents, a backdrop of 1960’s Britain; life had provided for her, at least with the riches of modesty.

Keri herself however, would often confound teachers with her erratic behaviour, which was at best sullen and withdrawn; at worst violently disruptive. When challenged, she would only exacerbate her growing reputation as a fantasist; weaving terrible tales about the “abuse” she was suffering at the hands of her very creators.

But it was the much-celebrated age of innocence; the childhood of our modern culture. Big brother had not yet been born and Nanny was only looking out for her dearest, as opposed to the entire State. Who would take the word of child on such matters? After all, she was just a bad egg… wasn’t she?

Well, no. She wasn’t. She was indeed, for over a decade, the victim of an abuse so staggering that merely to read about it is enough to freeze even the thickest of blood. “Keri” is the story of what happens when truth is imprisoned in a little glass jar and buried deep within the Earth, condemned to a sentence of eternal silence. For truth may be repressed, but never supressed. It will always find light eventually. And, in this gut-wrenching account of her early life, author Kat Ward takes the reader through every shade of darkness, whilst never allowing the candle of hope to fully extinguish, so as that truth may indeed find its rightful freedom.

A five year old little girl is brutally murdered by her mother’s boyfriend. His true identity is questioned and questionable from the very beginning. Her mother, a social worker, is found culpable but is not the primary killer. The people responsible for her protection have ultimately failed the little girl… and not just once. The story makes national headlines and is covered on every major news station in the local area. The media doesn't have the whole story, but someone else does. She is looking, “From the Outside In.”

.... the shocking and spirited sequel to the much-praised ?Empty Chairs?. Life on the streets of Sydney was preferable to the nightmare Stacey Danson had survived in the hell that was home. She hit the streets running at the age of eleven, and armed with a flick-knife and a fierce determination to live a different life, she began the journey from the 1960s to today. For those that came to know ?Sassy girl? in 'Empty Chairs', and for those caring people that asked how her life worked out from there, 'Faint Echoes of Laughter' continues the story. For those that haven?t met her yet, this book stands alone as a tribute to the kindness of strangers, the loyalty of true friendships and the way things really are on the streets of any town .... anytime.