abuse Archives

Darling Girls

Chosen Sisters Author: Sally Hepworth Some families are biological. Some families are found. Some are created by trauma. The latter is true for Jessica, Norah, and Alicia. Each of them underwent a horrific experience at Wild Meadows where their unpredictable foster mother, Miss Fairchild, oscillated between cloying dependence and ruthless revenge. When Miss Fairchild directed her vitriol towards a new toddler, the girls decided to risk losing each other and report her. They thought it ended there. They were taken from Wild Meadows, raised separately, yet somehow able to keep their connections with one another. They presumed the toddler had been [...]

Frances Carden2024-09-14T21:47:58-07:00September 14th, 2024|Tags: abuse, botm, character study, foster care, mystery, thriller|

Underwater Daughter

A Lyrical Memoir of Abuse Author: Antonia Deignan As a child, Tuni didn’t know that her father was sexually abusing her. She thought it was love. A special bond, a secret kind of affection. The fact that her mother knew and was present only galvanized this normalcy, or so she thought. But as an adult, she reflects on the abuse in Underwater Daughter, on the way its wrongness colored her entire life, from the gradual realizations growing up, to the body dysmorphia and solace sought in alcohol and drugs, and finally to her own approach to motherhood and finally caring for [...]

Frances Carden2024-05-31T19:47:47-07:00May 31st, 2024|Tags: abuse, book review, memoir, read, reading|

Wednesday’s Child

Community Secrets and Unlikable Characters Authors: Deborah and Joel Shlian Leigh Novak has left the stress of a city emergency room and the fallout of her husband’s suicide behind, moving herself and her struggling young son, Jeremy, to a small town in northern California. Leigh is taking over from the current town doctor, sliding into what she presumes will be a low stress, easy life. When she shows up on her first day to find the old doctor in a coma, however, things go from bad to worse. After loosing her first patient, a young child that she should have been [...]

Frances Carden2023-01-29T12:04:16-07:00January 29th, 2023|Tags: 80s, abuse, book review, horror, read, reading|