True Girl

By the time she was in her teens, Diamond had lived dozens of lives and lies, but as she grew older, love and trust turned to fear and violence, and her family—the only people she had in the world—began to unravel. She started to realize that her life itself might be a big con, and the people she loved, the most dangerous of all. With no way out and her identity burned so often that she had no proof she even existed, all that was left was a girl from nowhere.

Her friends included Van Gogh, Degas, and Renoir. Paris celebrated her as a sought-after model, until she picked up the brush herself, at a time when art schools refused to accept female students. By the time Suzanne Valadon was 15 years old, shed been a horse walker, a milliner, a funeral wreath maker, and a circus acrobat, but that was just the beginning of her adventures. Here is her story, along with Ellie's, a modern woman a century later at a crossroads of her life, who pulls Suzanne from the shadows of the past into the light.

Want to know if that special guy is really crush-worthy? Or how to keep peace on Planet Friendship? The Girls' Life Guide to Growing Up, from the editors of the popular , will fill you in on all the details girls like you need, from parent problems and friendship drama to body image and secret crushes.

Jodie Evelyn can't think of a better place for a fresh start than the exclusive gated community of The Grove. But from the moment she passes through the wrought iron gates, she starts to suspect she's made a mistake. Despite her vow to keep apart from the other residents, Jodie can't help but feel drawn to her unnerving neighbour Norah Williams and terminally ill daughter, Lacey. Jodie knows she should stay away, but something draws her in.When a murder shocks The Grove, Jodie vows to do everything in her power to save Lacey from her mother.

Susan Atkins was one of the more notorious female members of the "Manson Family" headed by Charles Manson. She was part of a gang of serial killers that terrorized Southern California in the summer of 1969. Known as "Sexy Sadie" because of her occupation as a topless dancer, Susan was involved in eight of the nine Manson killings including the gruesome Tate/Labianca Murders. She would be sentenced to death which was later commuted to life in prison. Susan would be denied parole over eighteen times in becoming the longest-incarcerated female inmate in the history of California.

In Cancer, You Picked the Wrong Girl, Shormistha Mukherjee offers a no-holds-barred account of her journey navigating a breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. Through getting a Brazilian wax and deliberating the pros and cons of breast reconstruction to finding a "setting" in the chemo ward, it's laughter that helped keep her fears in check.

In the summer of 1944, Eva Mozes Kor and her family arrived at Auschwitz. Within 30 minutes, they were separated. Her parents and two older sisters were taken to the gas chambers while Eva and her twin, Miriam, were herded into the care of the man who became known as the Angel of Death: Dr Josef Mengele. They were 10 years old. While twins at Auschwitz were granted the 'privileges' of keeping their own clothes and hair, they were also subjected to Mengele's sadistic medical experiments.

Ava Thomas knew leaving was the right decision. Trapped and manipulated in her relationship, and after yet another violent beating whilst she was pregnant, Ava was helped to a women's refuge with her children. Listening to the stories of other women there, Ava began thinking back to where it all started to go wrong. Brought up by a mother who never loved her, Ava sought that missing care and warmth elsewhere. Running away to her father's home as a teenager, she thought she might finally be safe. But after being abused by her own brother, she was thrown out onto the streets.

A woman who was sexually abused by her own father and later gave birth to his daughter is now running a support group which spans 30 countries and has tens of thousands of supporters. Stace Don, now 36, was taken into foster care as a baby after being neglected by her parents. For seven years, she lived an idyllic life, believing her foster parents were her real parents. But a chance encounter with her natural father, Nigel Taylor, shattered her happiness and she was later moved from her foster home, away from the family she loved.

Frances Reilly and her sisters were abandoned by their mother outside Nazareth House Convent - a Belfast orphanage run by nuns. Little did they know the unimaginable cruelty they'd endure within its walls.

In the fall of 1978, teenager Theresa Allore went missing near Sherbrooke, Quebec. She wasn't seen again until the spring thaw revealed her body in a creek only a few kilometers away. Shrugging off her death as a result of 1970s drug culture, police didn't investigate. Patricia Pearson started dating Theresa's brother, John, during the aftermath of Theresa's death. Though the two teens would go their separate ways, the family's grief, obsession with justice, and desire for the truth never left Patricia.

The lone survivor trembled as she pleaded with investigators.... For over 40 years, the events of what happened at Gitchie Manitou the night of November 17, 1973, remained a mystery to all but a few. Then the lone survivor broke her silence. Five teenage friends had driven to the park to spend a few hours around a campfire. By morning, four had been murdered, and only she was still alive. Gitchie Girl Uncovered is a chilling account of the strange twists and bizarre details discovered by an elite team of investigators under intense pressure to catch the killers.

What can drive a young and seemingly innocent child to kill? Murder is horrible enough when perpetrated by adults, and yet the concept takes on a whole new level of chilling morbidity when a murderer is revealed to be a young boy or girl. Is it the result of severe trauma manifesting itself in the most macabre of ways? Is it the progeny of some severe mental disorder? Or were they influenced by the actions of the people they grew up with? Most of the time, the answers to such a question are simple but no less horrific.

On May 31, 2014, in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, Wisconsin, two 12-year-old girls attempted to stab their classmate to death. Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier’s violence was extreme, but what seemed even more frightening was that they committed their crime under the influence of a figure born by the internet: the so-called “Slenderman”. Yet the even more urgent aspect of the story, that the children involved suffered from undiagnosed mental illnesses, often went overlooked in coverage of the case.

Chicago, 1924. There was nothing surprising about men turning up dead in the Second City. Life was cheaper than a quart of illicit gin in the gangland capital of the world. But two murders that spring were special - worthy of celebration. So believed Maurine Watkins, a wanna-be playwright and a "girl reporter" for the Chicago Tribune, the city's "hanging paper".

Captured in the 1930s before the words psychopath and pedophile were part of common vernacular, notorious serial killer Arnold Sodeman murdered four young girls with little thought of remorse. Without guilt, the evil serial killer strangled them to death with their own clothing and left their small bodies alone in the Australian brush, earning himself a chilling position in the annals of Australian crime.

1941. A talented flier, Jessie Lovelace yearns for a career in aviation. When the civilian flight school in her small Texas town begins to clandestinely train British pilots for the RAF, she fights to become an instructor. But the task isn’t without its perils of near-misses and death. Faced with the weight of her responsibilities, she finds solace with a British officer who knows firsthand the heavy price paid in war . . . until he returns to the battles he never truly left behind.

On the evening of April 19, 2013, Samantha and Gianna Rucki disappeared. Two of five children born to David Rucki and Sandra Grazzini-Rucki, the teenage sisters vanished in the midst of their parents divorce. The girls father, David Rucki, worked tirelessly with law enforcement to search day and night for his two missing daughters, following every lead while raising three remaining children at home. Their mother, Sandra Grazzini-Rucki, used her newfound freedom to vacation around the world, abandoning her children.

Relli, a Jewish girl in Poland, was denied a normal childhood. When Relli was just a baby, the Nazis occupied Poland and she, together with her parents, were imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto, a way station before death. Her parents correctly assessed the new situation and decided to act heroically in order to save their only child. They succeeded in smuggling her out of the Ghetto and entrusted her to a Gentile Polish couple who agreed to hide her for the duration of the war under a false identity.

Shattered Justice, bearing the title chosen by Paul Smith (Sheriff of Mayes County, OK, from 1981 to 1985), describes Smith’s squelched efforts to get justice for three little Girl Scouts murdered deep in the woods just outside Locust Grove, OK, on June 13, 1977. Lori Farmer, 8, Doris “Denise” Milner, 10, and Michelle Gusé, 9, were bludgeoned and strangled while sharing a tent during their first night of summer camp.