Showing titles in Dysfunctional Families

Set against a backdrop of East End London, Georgia experienced a childhood few of us could imagine. Though brought up in a loving family, she watched her family break apart through deceit and her mother descend into heroin addiction. Escaping into what she felt was a loving sanctuary, Georgia ended up trapped in a violent relationship with a man who would beat and abuse her. After having her three children by him, she knew she had to escape to finally find safety.

'Soaring with compassion, intelligence and hard-won wisdom. Ireland's most important contemporary voice.' LOUISE KENNEDY, author of Trespasses 'Amazing. I couldn't put it down.' ELAINE FEENEY, author of As You Were 'Every woman needs to read this book. Every man needs to read this book.' EDEL...

The Parenting Map is a practical fail-safe, whole-family programme designed to help both adults and children heal and thrive. We parents are plagued with doubt. In an ever-changing world our children must adapt constantly to the demands of the modern world - and we as parents do too. From social...

Suzanne suffered five heart attacks and made it through open heart surgery. But even that pales in comparison to the horrors she faced as a young girl. Her childhood became the ‘stuff of nightmares’ after her father passed away and her mother, unable to get a job in Ireland, had to seek work in London. So ‘Mammy’ was forced into the heart-breaking decision to put Suzanne and her five siblings into church-run orphanages in Dublin while she worked away. It was just meant to be temporary.

Million-copy bestselling author Cathy Glass tells the story of Dawn, a sweet and seemingly well-balanced girl whose outward appearance masks a traumatic childhood of suffering at the hands of the very people who should have cared for her. Dawn was the first girl Cathy Glass ever fostered. Sweet...

On a hot August night on Cape Cod, when Adrienne was 14, her mother, Malabar, woke her at midnight with five simple words that would set the course of both of their lives for years to come: Ben Souther just kissed me. Adrienne instantly became her mother’s confidante and helpmate, blossoming in the sudden light of her attention; from then on, Malabar came to rely on her daughter to help orchestrate what would become an epic affair with her husband’s closest friend. The affair would have calamitous consequences for everyone involved.

When Marc was a small child, his father committed suicide. When his mother remarried, Marc thought his life was going to be OK but he could never have imagined just what was going to happen... Unloved is Marc's powerful story of sinking into the depths of addiction and despair and then finding the inner strength to rise above it. Marc is now at peace with his past and leads a happy and productive life.

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.

The moving true story of a little girl with Asperger syndrome, controlled and abused by the one person she called her friend. Taylor had always struggled to make friends – she felt ‘different’. Taylor never knew her father and her mother wasn’t around much. She just didn’t understand...

People can buy your silence, but not your loyalty… Macy Taylor was born in the shadow of Tavistock Square, at the heart of her Manchester estate. It’s got a reputation as a place where bad things happen. But it’s kept her secrets and she’s kept its code of silence. If you need something...

Read by the author, Sandra Brown. ‘Completely gripping . . . Sandra Brown found evil in the person of her own father; and she confronted it as few could have done . . . Everyone will want to read this amazing story’ – Andrew O’Hagan, author of Caledonian Road Sandra Brown was eight when...

Casey Watson is back, doing the job she does best - rolling up her sleeves and fostering the children who, on first meeting, seem like hopeless cases. But when she meets Miller and discovers the truth about his disturbing childhood, even Casey begins to doubt if this child will ever be able to accept love. Found naked and alone on a railway track, Miller was just five when he was first admitted into the care system. 

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.

Are you afraid to feel good? Do you see everyone else pursuing their right to happiness yet feel held back? Do you feel alone, strange or that there’s something wrong with you? Here’s the good news: None of these feelings are true! This is how people feel after a childhood as the scapegoat to a narcissistic parent. These parents require this child to feel bad so that they don’t have to. Scapegoat children learn it is psychologically dangerous to feel good about who they are. This book lays out three steps to finally make it safe to feel good about yourself.

Stephen Smith is the boy who did not exist. Born out of wedlock in the early 1960s, Steve's parents - both devout Catholics - had felt so 'shamed' by their son's illegitimate birth that they hid him away from the world by locking him in the cellar...for 13 years. Apart from a few admissions to hospital as a result of his 'imprisonment', Steve remained in the coal cellar of the family home where he was deprived of daylight, his childhood, school and human contact until he'd reached his teenage years.

What possesses a mum to kidnap her own child? That's what Maggie asks herself when she's asked to foster 13-year-old Saskia, the subject of a bitter custody battle between her parents. When Saskia's mum Rosa fears the courts are going to favour her ex-husband, James, she takes matters into her own hands. With Rosa facing criminal charges, and Saskia refusing to live with her dad, her future looks uncertain. Will Maggie be able to step in and discover the bombshell that will tear this family apart?

Bestselling author and foster carer Casey Watson shares the shocking true story of Tyler, an abused eleven-year-old who, after stabbing his step-mother, had nowhere else to go. Knowing a little of Tyler’s past – his biological mother, a heroin addict, died of an overdose when he was three...

Imagine a life where the critical voice in your head grows quiet, replaced by compassion and trust. Where joy, creativity, and peace return—the parts of you that felt alive before life’s hurts dimmed your light. This audiobook offers a compassionate, practical roadmap to heal your inner child, release the weight of your past, and step into a future where you feel grounded, worthy, and truly alive.

Can I Let You Go? is the true story of Faye, a wonderful young woman who may never be able to parent her unborn child. Faye is 24, pregnant, and has learning difficulties as a result of her mother’s alcoholism. Faye is gentle, childlike and vulnerable, and normally lives with her grandparents...

Narcissism in the family of origin isn't often discussed. Many emotionally abusive behaviours from parent to child have become socially acceptable; because they're so prolific, they're normalised, and humans repeat relational patterns, passing the baton of trauma from generation to generation, until someone decides to change it. You're Not the Problem shows you how to recognise these behaviours and realise the profound impact they have had, and still have, and to see the patterns they form in our relationships with parents, partners, friends, and colleagues.