Showing results for "Stories" in Women

Sold is a terrifying, gripping and true story about a young Russian girl who dreams of a better life, but instead falls victim to trafficking. Seventeen-year-old Natasja is attracted by an offer to work as a nanny in Sweden. Her ticket to freedom turns out to be a worse nightmare than she ever could have imagined. Time and time again, she is sold to different men. But even though she is slowly falling apart, Natasja refuses to give up and silently starts to plan her escape. In Sold, she talks about how she managed to get free against all odds.

They say that revenge is a dish best served cold - but how cold does it have to be? ?And should it be chopped, sliced or diced? What dish is best suited to a man who at one point had an ex-wife, a wife, a pregnant girlfriend and a new girlfriend - all at the same time? I was an independent, clever, blonde and slightly wild 31-year old Swedish girl when I in 1998 met the man of my dreams.

In every life, there are moments that shimmer just beneath the surface of memory—encounters, decisions, and turning points that, at the time, felt ordinary but would come to shape the very fabric of who we are. This audiobook is a journey into such moments: the recollections of a daughter navigating the joys and sorrows of family, the unpredictability of change, and the search for belonging across places and decades.

On a sunny spring day, in an ordinary kitchen, Rosemary answers an unexpected phone call. A car has hit her husband, Hugh. Rosemary arrives at the hospital just in time to see him before he's rushed into surgery. Thinking of their twin daughters, Rosemary pleads with her unconscious husband as he lies on a gurney. "Don't you leave me Hugh Rawlins. Anna and Mary need you. I love you." Overwhelmed, but determined to bring Hugh back home, Rosemary leans on family and friends as Hugh endures two emergency brain surgeries, a coma, and a confused awakening.

At the age of 16, Flo Wadlow left her family to begin what would become a distinguished life "in service." Starting as a kitchen maid in London, she soon rose through the ranks and worked at many of England's great houses, including Woodhall in Hilgay, where she met scullery maid Mollie Moran, author of Aprons and Silver Spoons; and Hatfield House and Blicking Hall. By her early 20s, Flo was in charge of the kitchen and cooked for prime ministers and royalty. Over a Hot Stove is a must-listen for fans of Downton Abbey.

‘Each time my mother laid a finger on me… it was another step into the jaws of hell. Her abuse, more so than any other, destroyed me. It was the ultimate betrayal.’ Abused from the age of eight by her older brother and then her step-father, Maureen Wood quickly became numb to the constant...

A rousing tale of espionage and unsung valor, this is the captivating true story of Vera Atkins, Great Britain's spymistress from the age of 25. With her fierce intelligence, blunt manner, personal courage, and exceptional informants, Vera ran countless missions throughout the 1930s. After rising to the leadership echelon in the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a covert intelligence agency formed by Winston Churchill, she became head of a clandestine army in World War II.

In Episodes, lifelong best friends Kat and Mara take listeners on an unfiltered journey through friendship, mental illness, and survival. Kat, a successful professional, is preparing for marriage and motherhood. On her fourth round of IVF, it happened—a frantic call to Mara. Mara comes over to find Kat, her friend of 25 years—the one who'd always been levelheaded, hilarious, and over-the-top thoughtful—trying to jump through a window.

When Sandra Leigh was seven years old, she fell into the role of protector of her mother and three younger siblings. One winter night, she ushered her mother out of the house during one of her father’s tirades, and then snuck her back into the dark home through a window. Sandra was used to events like these; what she wasn’t used to were the mountains and nature surrounding her new home in West Virginia.

Fifteen million Americans a year are plagued with alcoholism. Five million of them are women. Many of them, like Caroline Knapp, started in their early teens and began to use alcohol as "liquid armor", a way to protect themselves against the difficult realities of life. In this extraordinarily candid and revealing memoir, Knapp offers important insights not only about alcoholism, but about life itself and how we learn to cope with it.

In Before I Was Born, She Did This, Alia lays everything bare. From birth, she lived under a false identity and endured cruelty at the hands of her mother. She was starved, bitten, neglected. Left alone in a freezing room, soaked in urine, with no bedding. She was on the child protection register, but no one came.

Sarah Forsyth has spent most of her life in fear. After overcoming the hurt and heartbreak of a horrific childhood, Sarah managed to build a new life for herself as a nursery nurse. Then, one day, she spotted a newspaper advert for a job in a crèche in Amsterdam. Excited by the prospect of a...

Read by the author, Robert Hardman. An intimate, authoritative, richly entertaining new portrait of Elizabeth II in her centenary year from the Sunday Times number 1 bestselling author of Charles III. Biographer and royal commentator Robert Hardman has had unique access to the world of the late...

Queen of Thieves is the gritty, fast-paced story of Fredericka "Marm" Mandelbaum, a poor Jewish woman who rose to the top of her profession in organized crime during the Gilded Age in New York City. During her more than twenty-five-year reign as the country’s top receiver of stolen goods, she accumulated great wealth and power inconceivable for women engaged in business, legitimate or otherwise.

The author of How Was It for You? is a sex worker. Let’s call her Eve. Eve is someone’s daughter. Someone’s partner. Eve has worked across the sex industry for twenty years: in a brothel, as an escort, in a strip club, online and as a dominatrix. In this candid memoir she reveals all: the...

The shocking first true account from one of the young girls who lived through and survived the Rotherham sex abuse scandal. In the summer of 2014, the Rotherham sex abuse scandal sent shockwaves through the nation. A report revealed that, since the 1990s, up to 1,400 young girls in the town had...

Real-life stories of mothers and daughters – of what we inherit, what we bury and what we, finally, find the courage to say – by the award-winning New Yorker staff writer. You Won’t Get Free of It tells the stories of mothers and daughters searching for each other and for themselves. Aviv...

Growing up in poverty, and neglected and abused by her own mother and stepfather, Jaz Ampaw-Farr was destined to become a statistic. Her story was changed, however, by five teachers who made a point of putting human connection first, despite the challenges of the education system. Because of these people, Jaz went on to become a teacher, writer and award-winning international speaker who, through celebration and provocation, engages educators and galvanises them into embracing the difference that they can make when they, too, put being a human first.

Kathleen Richards was just 17 when she and her sister Deirdre found themselves on the doorstep of 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, seeking lodgings from a seemingly friendly local couple: Fred and Rose West. While growing up in poverty-stricken Dublin in the 1960s, Kathleen was abused from a...

'A remarkable achievement' LOUISE KENNEDY 'A deeply moving memoir, raw with loss, yet luminous with love' SARAH WATERS 'What a kind, honest book. What a gift of love' DAVID MITCHELL 'Essential reading from an all-time great' SARA COLLINS Ghost Stories is Siri Hustvedt's most personal work yet, a...