When Jade Kelly met her new foster mother, she thought her prayers had been answered. Kindly Carol Docherty was everything her violent, drug-addicted mother was not. Loving and nurturing, she fed and clothed 10-year-old Jade and offered a life free of fear from near constant abuse. Or so Jade thought. As soon as social workers in Lancashire stopped their regular checks on Jade’s progress, Carol turned. Over the next six years Jade and three other girls were effectively kept prisoner in a bedroom she called the ‘bad room’ and subjected to unrelenting physical and mental abuse. 

I was born and broken in Birkenhead, abused from infancy by a network of every kind of pervert from ‘thinks it’s love’ to ‘show it hurts’. I was unwanted, beaten, sold, swapped, photographed, filmed, left for dead, corrupted, blamed, betrayed, ignored and orphaned. But I was also born with a fire inside me. I call it my Phoenix Fire. I am no victim—that word only describes what happened to me. Nor am I a survivor because that implies I am over it. I am a Phoenix—a work in progress. This is my story....

Emily has always felt like an outsider, so when a family friend takes her under his wing she is delighted. But soon it becomes clear that his motives are not all they seem. At the age of 11, Emily is groomed into being a ‘county lines’ drug trafficker. It is the beginning of a vicious cycle that sees her become prey to one abuser after another, involving a huge child-sex-trafficking gang. The scale of the abuse—at the hands of hundreds of men—is sickening, and at times it feels like there will never be an escape. But then, in the darkest of moments, a ray of light shines.... 

When Misty was six years old, her family started to live and dress like the Amish. Misty and her sister were kept as slaves on a mountain ranch where they were subjected to almost complete isolation, sexual abuse, and extreme physical violence. When Misty reached her teens, her parents feared she and her sister would escape and took them to an Amish community where they were adopted and became baptized members. Misty was devastated to once again find herself in a world of fear, animal cruelty, and sexual abuse. 

Growing up in a deeply troubled family, 15-year-old Anna felt lost and alone in the world. So when a friendly taxi driver befriended her, Anna welcomed the attention, and agreed to go home with him to meet his family. She wouldn't escape for over a decade. Held captive by a sadistic pedophile, Anna was subjected to despicable levels of sexual abuse and torture. The unrelenting violence and degradation resulted in numerous miscarriages, and the birth of four babies.... each one stolen away from Anna at birth.

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 1960s 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.

At eight years old, Tuesday Storm's childhood is forever lost when the death of her older sister Audrey sends her family spiraling out of control into the darkest of dysfunction. In the wake of the tragedy, Tuesday's mother, distraught and looking for a scapegoat, singles Tuesday out from her siblings to take on the blame for Audrey's death, and then targets her for unspeakable abuse.

Thrown Away Child is a memoir covering Louise Allen’s abusive childhood in a foster home, how she survived - using her love of art as a sanctuary - and how she hopes to right old wrongs now by fostering children herself and campaigning for the improvement of foster care services. It is a compelling and inspirational story. This book gives a voice to the many children who grew up unhappily in care.  

Our prisons and mental hospitals are filled with tragic stories like Tuesday Storm's. Her early childhood was riddled with torturous "games" and violent physical attacks. She was isolated from the rest of her family, locked in an attic with nothing but a bare bed and a bucket for a toilet, and fed just enough to be kept alive. The experts say it's next to impossible to find the soul's light in a dark past like Tuesday's.

Lara was seven when her birth mother died from a drug overdose. With no extended family to look after her, she was put into foster care. The care system failed Lara and now she is failing her son. Lara and her one-year-old son, Arthur, are brought to experienced foster carer, Cathy Glass, by their social worker. Lara has fled an abusive relationship and Arthur has suspected non-accidental injuries. Cathy must monitor Lara whenever she is with her son, day and night. She cannot let them out of her sight for a minute.

Named after the lager that christened her at birth, Stella's life is characterised instability and neglect. Her teenage mother abandons her in the first few weeks of her life, and left in the 'care' of her father, she ends up lying deserted in a house with no food, no water, no clothes and no warmth. She eventually lands in the care of foster carer Louise, who is determined to change her life for the better. 

In this much-publicised third volume, Kat recounts her early-mid teen years; no longer a small child, but a girl on the cusp of adolescence. Still traumatized by her early experiences, but not entirely without that sense of vague hope that is the inalienable property of youth. Now at Duncroft Approved School for “emotionally disturbed girls”, her life had come to resemble that of a prisoner; a good day was a bad one and a bad day was horrific.

Growing up, Joanne suffered at the hands of a violent boyfriend and controlling relatives, as her mother lapsed into a downward spiral following the break-up of her marriage. But the consequences of her mother's lifestyle turned out to be worse than Joanne could ever have imagined. She already knew about the baby buried in a shallow makeshift grave next to the family plot. But when Joanne came across a red plastic bin in her mother's wardrobe in 2009, she realised that the family home held an even more sinister secret.

Despite leaving the courtroom with her reputation intact, Kat's inner life was in turmoil, and it was only due to the loyal support and steadfast encouragement of her ever-increasing fan-base that she managed to complete the sixth volume so soon. Following on from the fifth book, in which she lost her identity but somehow found herself a husband, Karin now finds herself in the precarious position of having to move in with her partner's family - a move known to strain even the tightest of marital bonds.

Being a teenager isn't easy. Even kids who grow up in happy, loving households encounter all manner of problems during adolescence. But children who were abused, raped, bullied, mistreated or neglected during their earliest years, face the transition at an even greater disadvantage. For they not only come completely ill-prepared, but also badly scarred, and often still licking the wounds from their childhoods.