Coping with / advice about abuse Books

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Book SynopsisEver since she was a child, Linda Joy Myers felt the power of the past. As the third daughter in her family to be abandoned or estranged by a mother, she observed the consequences of that heritage on the women she loved as well as herself. But thanks to the stories told to her by her great-grandmother, Myers received a gift that proved crucial in her life: the idea that everyone is a walking storybook, and that we all have within us the key to a deeper understanding of life—the secret stories that make themselves known even without words. Song of the Plains is a weaving of family history that starts in the Oklahoma plains and spans over forty years as Myers combs through dusty archives, family stories, and genealogy online. She discovers the secrets that help to explain the fractures in her family, and the ways in which her mother and grandmother found a way not only to survive the great challenges of their eras, but to thrive despite mental illness and abuse. She discovers how decisions made long ago broke her family apart—and she makes it her life's work to change her family story from one of abuse and loss to one of finding and creating a new story of hope, forgiveness, healing, and love.Trade Review2017 USA Best Book Awards Finalist in Women's Issues 2018 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist in Relationships (Non-Fiction) "Linda Joy Myers has written a remarkable, heartbreaking, and hopeful story. Song of the Plains is a memoir of fierce longing and a quest to understand the fragile bonds of family. Myers stitches together her past, finding solace in the landscape of the Great Plains and weaving in elements of story like a poet, detective, artist, therapist, mother, daughter, and historian. The fascinating and fractured women in this memoir will continue to whisper their songs for generations to come." —Melissa Cistaro, Author of Pieces of My Mother “Linda Joy Myers, already an established thought leader in the memoir genre, solidifies her legacy with this meditation on ancestry, place, generational pain, healing, and redemption. The author’s consistently braided themes of memoir as art, craft, and psychological process are enhanced by her longstanding career as a marriage and family therapist. The writing is cohesive and evocative, the research impeccable, and the ultimate triumph over both nature and nurture compelling.” —Kathleen Adams LPC, Director, Center for Journal Therapy, Inc., author of Journal to the Self, and editor of Expressive Writing: Foundations of Practice “Linda Joy Myers’s search for continuity in her family history brings to mind E. M. Forster’s quote, ‘Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted.” Her search for connection deeply resonates in a time when social media makes connections that are broad but shallow. Rooted in place and personal stories, Song of the Plains is an antidote to the superficial and the faux. Myers’s writing plumbs the depths of real experience. This important narrative is crafted to last.” —Sue William Silverman, author of The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew “Intelligent, heartfelt, and tenderly observed, Song of the Plains is a memoir about identity, storytelling, and the healing power of telling the truth. Raised in a family haunted by secrets, Linda Joy Myers set out on a journey to discover what the women in her clan were hiding—and why—as a way to untangle the legacy of inherited-but-hidden trauma. As Myers writes, ‘If we hide or don’t tell our stories, part of who we are goes missing.’ If you’ve ever puzzled over your own missing pieces or questioned who you might be without your own secrets, this beautiful book will help light your way.” —Mark Matousek, author of Sex Death Enlightenment and The Boy He Left Behind “Song of the Plains is an emotional and captivating read. From the very first page, Linda Myers leads the reader on a journey into the inner landscape of a complex family dynamic that invites curiosity and empathy. Myers is a brilliant storyteller, weaving together well-researched details with answers to plaguing life questions that reveal the reality of ‘home’—turning a preconceived definition on its head. This story touches readers in a way that stirs compassion for the complexity of people and their role in a larger framework known as ‘family.’ It makes one wonder about their own sense of home and what they’ve come to believe about it.” —Tina M. Games, author of Journaling by the Moonlight: A Mother’s Path to Self Discovery “The descriptions in Song of the Plains are downright elegiac. I felt I was standing on the red earth in Oklahoma, feeling the wind in my face. This next volume of Myers’s quest for understanding and forgiveness of her foremothers and family will inspire anyone seeking to understand their roots.” —Sharon Lippincott, author of The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing “We all have stories that change our lives. Sometimes we remain silent, but the silence only gives the story more power. In Song of the Plains, memoir expert Linda Joy Myers goes deeply into her own life story and reveals how she transformed it into a new one that helped her move forward with hope and love. Another moving healing journey related to family relationships from Myers, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to explore—and heal—the past.” —Nina Amir, best-selling author of Creative Visualization for Writers, The Author Training Manual, and How to Blog a Book “For years, as I considered the mystery of my childhood, I wondered, ‘Who were these people who molded me?’ Song of the Plains asks that question and explores the decades-long saga of the author’s search for answers. Like an ancestral detective, Myers peers into the evidence and follows historical bread crumbs, attempting to make sense of her family’s earlier lives.” —Jerry Waxler, author of The Memoir Revolution

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Book SynopsisNo one could have imagined how as a child Beverly Engel could have managed to become who she is today—an internationally known expert on abuse recovery and the best-selling author of twenty-two self-help books. This is the raw, candid story of how she made her way in the world in spite of her mother’s neglect, unreasonable expectations and constant criticism; in spite of being sexually abused, first at four years old and then at nine; and in spite of being raped at twelve. Raising Myself takes readers on a remarkable journey, showing us how Engel, who was basically on her own from the age of four, learned how to cope with a neglectful, narcissistic mother while being surrounded by a cast of characters that included eccentrics and misfits, a religious fanatic, child molesters, rapists, and hoodlums. It is a soul-searching memoir about how she came dangerously close to the edge of becoming a child molester, a criminal, and a suicide, and how she battled her inner demons and struggled to keep her heart open and to “reinvent” herself so she could follow her dream of making something of herself. Powerfully inspiring and unflinchingly honest, Raising Myself is a story of remarkable resilience and insight.Trade Review“A gut-wrenching, cleareyed coming-of-age memoir…clean writing well serves this account of a child’s abuse and survival.” —Kirkus Reviews “Beverly Engel saved my life by showing me, and millions of others, how to recover from the aftermath of abuse. Now, we get to discover the woman behind the recovery movement. Through her personal story, Beverly illuminates how quickly our innocence can be destroyed by the subtle choices those who are supposed to love us make, and more important, teaches us how to have hope for a better future.” —Rhonda Britten, Emmy Award-winner, best-selling author of Fearless Living, founder of Fearless Living.org. "This story of reinvention is a must-read for anyone needing evidence that your past doesn’t define you." —Bookstr “When we write a coming-of-age memoir, we become the witness to the life of the child we once were, someone who did not have the larger perspective of the writer/narrator. Raising Myself asks the reader to join Beverly Engel as an abused and neglected child, to see the world through her eyes. The reader is comforted in knowing that she will survive and heal, and the book gives hope to those who have been lost.” —Linda Joy Myers, President of the National Association of Memoir Writers; author of Don’t Call Me Mother, Song of the Plains, and Power of Memoir “Beverly writes with poignancy and insight about a horrific childhood that could have broken her spirit. Raising Myself is the remarkable journey of a lost child becoming an empowered young woman. We follow Beverly as she journeys from one mishap to another, searching for herself, searching for love, searching for meaning. The fact that she was successful at maneuvering through the minefield of her childhood is a testament to her courage, strength, and resilience. There is brutal honesty here, but there is also a great deal of hope.” —Susan Forward, Ph.D., author of Mothers Who Can’t Love and Toxic Parents “It’s easy enough to tell women to 'say no' but, in reality, there is nothing easy about saying no if you are a woman. Engel’s book doesn’t only shed light on why this remains true, even in the age of #MeToo and #TimesUp, but it provides readers with critical, pragmatic tools and strategies designed to confront and report gender harassment, sexual assault, and childhood abuse effectively.” —Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger

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Book SynopsisA wife and mother of a grown son and two teen daughters, a woman enjoying her career and life, Mary Jo Doig wants nothing more from life than to live out her days embraced by the deep roots of family, friends, and her community. Tightly wrapped in a life-long protective cocoon, she has no idea how wounded she is—until, on one starless night following the death of a relative, she has a flashback that opens a dark passageway back to her childhood and the horrific secrets buried deep inside her psyche. Part mystery and part inspirational memoir, Patchwork is the riveting story of one woman who strived to live a life full of love, only to endure tragedies with two of her children and struggles in her marriages—the consequences of a mysterious life-long behavior unnoticed by her family or teachers. Like a needle stitching together a quilt, the memories Mary Jo recovers following her first flashback show her why her early years were threaded with a need to be invisible, as well as core beliefs that she was stupid, not good enough, and vastly different from her peers. Shattered by these revelations, overcome by depression, hopelessness, and a loss of trust in others, Mary Jo embarks on a healing journey through the underground of her life that ultimately leads to transformation.Trade Review"In Patchwork, Mary Jo Doig explores the nature of memory and consciousness, connecting the threads of the past to weave a beautiful story of healing and transformation." —Linda Joy Myers, president of the National Association of Memoir Writers, author of Song of the Plains

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Book SynopsisOne terrible night in 2011, Brin Miller’s life is upended when she learns that her teenage stepson has been sexually abusing her two daughters. Once this secret is discovered, Brin’s marriage, already crumbling and unable to sustain itself, breaks apart. But against all odds, Brin and her husband, along with their daughters, are gradually able to learn resilience, forgiveness, strength, and courage, and—miraculously—Brin’s marriage begins to heal. Haunting and horrible yet hopeful and beautiful, Buried Saints is a fast and raw memoir of forgiveness and resilience, a revelatory look into a family deeply destroyed by deceit, and a truly astonishing story about the intense, unpredictable love of two parents who have to decide whether to fall or flourish in a tragic situation.

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Book SynopsisIn spite of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, many women are still afraid to say no to unwanted sexual advances and reluctant to report sexual violations. Far too many college students are being raped and are afraid to report it. Women are subjected to sexual harassment, sexual bullying, and sexual pressure every day on the street, at work, and at home but are unable to speak truth to power or to report these sexual offenses. I’m Saying No! is written specifically for these women—women who are still afraid to speak up for themselves, women who need to learn how to do so, and women whose personal history of child sexual abuse or sexual assault as an adult has wounded them so much that they have lost their voice. Here, Beverly Engel—an internationally recognized psychotherapist and acclaimed advocate for victims of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse—offers a ground-breaking program to help all the women who have been silenced by past trauma, women who were raised to believe they didn’t have a right to say no, and women who have spoken out in the past only to go unheard. Bold and timely, I’m Saying No! offers women the encouragement, support, and guidelines they need in order to become the powerful women they are—women who believe in themselves and stand up for themselves.Trade Review"In light of the #MeToo movement, psy­chologist Engel provides women with hope, comfort, and a num­ber of preventative strategies in reacting to and recovering from sexual assault....This comprehensive book supplies women and interested general readers with everything they need to know, from healing after childhood abuse to ending sexual harassment. Essential for all women." —Library Journal, STARRED Review “Beverly Engel knows how hard it can be to speak your truth when it comes to assaults on women, and in her new self-help book, she aims to help women who have fallen victim to these crimes. I’m Saying No! provides a guide for those who are too afraid to speak up and get the justice they deserve.” —Parade, "10 Life-Changing Self-Help Books Every Woman Should Read in 2019" “I’m Saying No! serves as an empowering guide for women as they learn how to own their ‘No!” Beverly empowers readers to stand up against sexual assault, sexual harassment, and sexual pressure, while equipping them with practical tools to do so. The author pulls from her three decades of experience as a licensed psychotherapist and advocate for victims to help women both build their courage and find their voice. Through well-researched explanations, real-life stories from clients, and helpful guides, Engel builds on the momentum of #MeToo and #TimesUp by encouraging readers to speak out." —Fupping.com, "8 Definitive Books on Feminism and Its Struggle" "Engel’s tone is chatty and empowering as she reminds victims that they can move past an assault, and encourages all women to become comfortable at expressing anger . . . The book does a good job of presenting strategies to develop self-awareness, recognize potential threats, and get out of problematic situations. A useful guide to combating sexual violence and raising women’s self-esteem." —Kirkus Reviews “Beverly provides much-needed strategies, information, and support for every woman who has or is still being traumatized by any kind of sexual misconduct, whether it is in the workplace or elsewhere. I strongly recommend it for all women no matter their age or circumstances.” —Gretchen Carlson, television journalist, best-selling author of Be Fierce and empowerment advocate “This book is an excellent resource that helps women who have experienced sexual assault, sexual harassment, and sexual pressure to use their voice to speak truth and take a stand. An empowering book that I highly recommend.” —Raychelle Cassada Lohmann, author of The Sexual Trauma Workbook for Teen Girls “In her latest book, Engel provides readers with useful guidance for saying no to would-be sexual abusers and encourages readers to practice what it feels like to use those two simple but imperfect letters—N-O!—a skill that benefits people of all ages." —Holly Kearl, founder of Stop Street Harassment “It’s easy enough to tell women to 'say no' but, in reality, there is nothing easy about saying no if you are a woman. Engel’s book doesn’t only shed light on why this remains true, even in the age of MeToo and TimesUp, but it provides readers with critical, pragmatic tools and strategies designed to confront and report gender harassment, sexual assault, and childhood abuse effectively.” —Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger

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Book SynopsisIrene Sardanis was born into a Greek family in the Bronx in the 1940s in which fear and peril hovered. Her mother had come to New York for an arranged marriage. Her father drank, gambled, and enjoyed other women—and then, when Irene was eleven, abandoned her family altogether. Faced with their mother’s violent outbursts in the wake of this betrayal, Irene’s older siblings found a way out, but Irene was trapped, hostage to her mother’s rage and despair. When she finally escaped her mother as a young adult, she married a neighbor, also Greek, who controlled and dominated her just like her mother always had. But Irene wasn’t ready to let her story end there. With therapy, she eventually found the courage to leave her husband and pursue her own dreams. Out of the Bronx is her story of coming to terms with the mother and past that terrified and paralyzed her for far too long—and of how she went on to create a new life free of those fears.Trade Review2021 Firebird Book Awards First Place Winner in Inspiration2020 New York City Big Book Awards Winner in Inspiration2020 Independent Press Awards Winner in Inspirational“Out of the Bronx is the brave story of a young woman who wants to stay connected with her Greek roots while she tries to escape them. The reader will enjoy the lively prose and energy of Irene Sardanis as she brings alive her childhood and her family, and you’ll cheer her on as she discovers the life she wants to live.”—Linda Joy Myers, founder of the National Association of Memoir Writers, author of Don’t Call Me Mother, Song of the Plains and The Power of Memoir“Out of the Bronx is the story of a young woman's struggle to escape and heal from the generational struggle of Greek immigrant parents. As an adult psychologist, she comes to understand her mother's story and to celebrate her own Greek culture. At the close of a beautifully detailed description of a Greek feast, she writes, 'I have filled my empty.' Her story is an important aid to readers who want to better understand the complicated difficulties faced by immigrants.”—Pat Schneider, founder, Amherst Writers & Artists, author of Writing Alone and With Others and How the Light Gets In“Are you from the Bronx? Have you visited? Neither? Regardless, you’re in luck, because Irene Sardanis transports you to this infamous New-York borough in an entirely engaging, revealing, and personal way. The daughter of two Greek-immigrant parents, Sardanis proclaims, 'My mother’s village was her extended family. At the (Greek) Festival, the Greeks are mine.' It is there that she 'fills her empty,' which is vast yet hidden until the publication of this deeply moving and painfully relatable memoir, Out of the Bronx.”—Valerie Haynes Perry, author of Write the Book You Want—Be Your Own Coach“Irene Sardanis writes with compulsion, ferocity, and immediacy of a wrongly imprisoned person, unexpectedly and surprisingly set free—which, of course, she is: a prisoner of time, place, family, gender, culture, religion and self.”—Mark Greenside, author of I Saw a Man Hit His Wife and I'll Never Be French (no matter what I do)“Out of the Bronx is a spellbinding tale of how to survive the worst kind of childhood and thrive in later life. Author Irene Sardanis, the daughter of Greek immigrants, takes readers on her healing journey, one that began with a violent mother and often absent, alcoholic father. Richly compassionate, Ms. Sardanis eventually built a career as a therapist and found the love of her life. Along the way, she discovered a hard-won surprise, compassion for her mother and father. The memoir is a haunting reminder of the era when few persons thought of intervening when a young person was abused, and before anyone heard of child protective services. Whether one's parents arrived from another place recently or long ago, Out of the Bronx, offers considerable inspiration for all readers.”—Kristine Mietzner, Contributor, Your Life is a Trip“Irene Sardanis's writing is as spunky as she is, and we cheer for her as she negotiates her way from being an abused child to a teenager who tries to outwit her mother to an adult who survived two abusive marriages, got her doctorate in psychology, worked as a therapist, and found love. Her insight, understanding, and humor are there in her memoir for the reader to experience. This book could be depressing. Instead, it's an inspiration.”—Karen Lee Pliskin, PhD, anthropologist, author of Silent Boundaries“Irene Sardanis’s coming of age story is filled with drama, resilience, and hope. She follows the arc from her hardscrabble childhood in a Bronx tenement to breaking away from her difficult family to finding her own voice and becoming a therapist and writer. Her memoir, told with grace, honesty and wit, will encourage and inspire others.”—Elizabeth Fishel, author of Getting to 30“How we come through our childhood is a mystery. Even with dynamics laid out plainly as Irene Sardanis does in her memoir, her voice is so utterly clear you can see her world. She says, 'I knew I could never tell anyone.' Yet she bravely tells us her story. Read Out of the Bronx and you may be honored with a glimpse of the mystery.”—Clive Matson, author of Hello, Paradise. Paradise, Goodbye. and Let the Crazy Child Write“The memoir, Out of the Bronx tells with Immediacy and grace, how Irene Sardanis not only survived her family of birth, she successfully navigated the choppy waters that followed to grow into a self-assured writer.”—Audrey Ward, author of Hidden Biscuits“Out of the Bronx is a powerful, emotional recounting of Sardanis’s journey, and the unvarnished truth of her experience—which is at once so familiar and yet so uniquely her own—is moving.”—The National Herald

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Book SynopsisIn September 2007, Christine Ristaino was attacked in a store parking lot while her three- and five-year-old children watched. In All the Silent Spaces, Ristaino shares what it felt like to be an ordinary person confronted with an extraordinary event—a woman trying to deal with acute trauma even as she went on with her everyday life, working at a university and parenting two children with her husband. She not only narrates how this event changed her but also tells how looking at the event through both the reactions of her community and her own sensibility allowed her to finally face two other violent episodes she had previously experienced. As new memories surfaced after the attack, it took everything in Ristaino’s power to not let catastrophe unravel the precarious threads holding everything together. Moving between the greater issues associated with violence and the personal voyage of overcoming grief, All the Silent Spaces is about letting go of what you think you know in order to rebuild.Trade Review2020 Readers’ Favorite Book Awards: Finalist in Non-Fiction – Social Issues 2020 Readers’ Favorite Book Awards Finalist: Non-Fiction: Social Issues 2020 Living Now Book Awards Gold Winner in Inspirational Memoir (Female) 2020 International Book Awards, Finalist in Social Change 2020 IndieReader Discovery Awards Winner in Women's Issues 2019 Best Book Awards Finalist in Social Change 2019 Best Book Awards Finalist in Women's Issues “ . . . a swirling examination of many of the elements that can factor into violence in America, but it’s also a portrait of one woman’s experiences with such violence, and how she managed to find a way to avoid being destroyed by it . . . An insightful, openhearted memoir about brutality in many forms.” —Kirkus Reviews “All the Silent Spaces: A Memoir, by Christine Ristaino, is a deep and lyrical memoir about how a vicious assault affected all aspects of the author’s life, and how she found strength to not just endure tragedy but transcend it. This book touches on dynamics one might expect–fear, survival, mistrust, recovery—but also on themes one might not—like race, religion, poverty, and politics.” —IndieReader

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Book SynopsisAfter growing up in abject poverty in a dysfunctional alcoholic environment and being terrorized by a boarder who lived in the root cellar, Athena Demetrios repressed her traumatic memories—thrusting her into a downward spiral of melancholy and despair. But when, as an adult, she had a powerful spiritual experience that opened doors into other dimensions, she began an odyssey in which truth became stranger than fiction—a journey through hypnotic regression that led her to transcendence and healing. Demetrios’s story of courage, mystical insight, and otherworldly guidance will open your heart and challenge your perception of the borders of our minds and the boundaries of our world. This is a tale of past-life visions, spiritual guides, and communication beyond death—and emergence into the radiant light of self-discovery, knowing, and being at peace with all that is.

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Book SynopsisA schoolteacher escapes an abusive marriage and finds love on a blind date. Mary Jane’s new man, sure that riding a Harley will restore her confidence, ends up following the white lines with her through fifteen years of marriage. Traveling together, they learn to be partners, both on and off the road, until Dwayne is diagnosed with cancer. After losing her husband, Mary Jane once again must learn to live on her own—but she’ll never be the same again.

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Book SynopsisNumerous women in our culture have experienced shame, degradation, and despair as a result of having been sexually traumatized early in life. Some of these women end up in unhappy marriages or abusive relationships; some fall prey to a variety of addictions, silently or publicly; and some find themselves working in the sex industry. And for many survivors, their situations—and the situations that have brought them there—are secrets that have no voice. In Singing with the Sirens, experts Ellyn Bell and Stacey Bell address the long term complex trauma that results from the sexual abuse and exploitation of girls and young women, drawing on their personal and professional experiences to explore the link between the sexual abuse of children, issues of attachment and safety, and the commercial exploitation of young people. But this is not strictly a scholarly book or a memoir of personal experience; rather, the authors address this problem from a perspective of self-realization and transformation, taking the reader on a journey through mythological tales toward finding healing from within. Poetic, hopeful, and powerful, Singing with the Sirens is a call for wounded women everywhere to reclaim their own truth, spirit, and to sing with their authentic voice.Trade Review“Reading this book makes me feel as if my heart is being held by hidden hands. It is an exquisitely crafted guide that carries you through a dark truth, encouraging you to risk your significance and make a difference in the world.” —Dawna Markova, PhD, author of I Will Not Die An Unlived Life.

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