Sophie lives in constant fear of her father, who beats her on a regular basis, until the day the beating is so severe it sends her to the hospital.

Tommy has come home to the family cottage by the sea for the summer, bringing his unstable, sexual powder keg of an entourage-- and the distant echoes of his family's tumultuous past-- with him. When one of Nathan's troubled students begins visiting the house, the slow fuse is lit on a highly combustible mix.

Ten-year-old Ada has never left her family's one-room apartment. Her bitter mother is too humiliated by Ada's twisted foot to let her outside. But when her little brother, Jamie is going to be shipped out of London to escape World War II, Ada doesn't waste a minute: she sneaks out to join him. So begins a new adventure for Ada, and for Susan Smith, the woman who is forced to take in two kids. As Ada teaches herself to ride a pony, learns to read,...

Best friends Luke and Toby are looking forward to leaving their small dead-end town at the end of their senior year of high school. Then one action changes everything--and now Luke writes letters to Toby from death row reflecting on where things went wrong.

That was the day I met Gus, the day I grew a family as if from magic beans, the day she died. That's the point, see? It was the very same day…

Jessie Constable has learned the hard way to always keep herself safe. But meeting Gus King changes everything. Before she knows it, Jessie is sleeping at Gus's house, babysitting his kids, becoming a part of his family. And yet, she can't ignore the unsettling questions. Who does

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"A powerful memoir about the traumas of a perilous childhood, a shattering murder-suicide, and a healing journey from escape to survival to recovery. Growing up, Lisa Nikolidakis tried to make sense of her childhood, which was scarred by abuse, violence, and psychological terrors so extreme that her relationship with her father was cleaved beyond repair. Having finally been able to leave that relationship behind, surviving meant forgetting. For years,...

The three of them-a twelve-year-old boy, his older brother, their father-have won the war: the fathers term for his bitter divorce and custody battle. They leave their Kansas home and drive through the night to Albuquerque, eager to begin again, united by the thrilling possibility of carving out a new life together. The boys go to school, join basketball teams, make friends. Meanwhile their father works from home, smoking cheap cigars to hide another...

After the murder of their mother by their father, Lulu and Merry grow up living tenuous lives where Lulu denies he ever existed and Merry dutifully visits him in prison, only to find their lives on the brink of collapse when they learn that their unrepentant and manipulative father is about to be paroled