Behre Kenna, K. - Jett Jamison and the Secret Storm

Kimberly Behre Kenna is a childhood sexual abuse (CSA) survivor and author of “Jett Jamison and the Secret Storm”, the second in her Brave Girls Collection. The book is written specifically for middle grade students who are experiencing or have experienced sexual abuse.  It invites victims to speak up about the difficult issue of CSA, something there are few if any books about. Kimberly has written her book in a gentle, loving way. It is something she wished she could’ve had as a kid. It blends honesty with hope, shows suffering kids they aren’t alone, and encourages speaking up as a stepping stone toward healing.

Browning, L. - To Lose the Madness

In this career-defining work that eventually went on to become a TEDx Talk at Yale University, Browning explores the breaking point every mind has after finding her own limit during a gauntlet of traumatic events. Pulled out of this blast-crater moment in her life by a friend, she is brought away from the insanity and deep into the snowy Sangre de Cristo Mountains where, standing in front of a herd of wild buffalo, she comes face to face with the terms we all must come to surrounding the loss we face in this life. Offering no answers and seeking no pity, Browning lays herself bare in this radically authentic offering. She carries restricted subjects such as miscarriage, mental illness, and suicide out of the silence by offering her own private journey as an example of the power of transcendence.

 Carey, M. - A Small Boy Smiling

As a small boy Matt Carey loved to ride his bike, play football with friends and to laugh. He loved life and was always smiling. When he was just eight years old, he was targeted by a group of predatory paedophiles who subjected him to 18-months of horrific sexual abuse. He was too ashamed and scared to tell anyone what had happened...not his parents, friends or family. In his new book, A Small Boy Smiling, Matt tells a remarkable story of survival and overcoming the trauma, guilt and shame of childhood sexual abuse, teenage alcoholism, and post traumatic stress disorder. His lifelong search for peace, love and healing culminates in personal spiritual awakening and a desire to help other survivors of sexual abuse to discover their own healing. https://www.mattcareybooks.com/

Castelli, Dee - From Darkness Into Light: Poetry Collection of Empowered Growth

This collection of poetry by Dee Castelli captures her transformation journey from darkness into light. Flow through the experience of utter brokenness, pain, awakening, desire, emergence, discovering gentle power and empowerment. This collection is about transformation, metamorphosis, discovering strength within and emerging. From Darkness Into Light is an invitation to travel your journey, find your inner voice, heal internal wounding and trauma and let your light shine ever more brightly with each passing day. You will feel comforted and inspired into confidence to fully own your life, find your voice and transform. Dee also has three lovely coloring books inspired by nature and designed to release stress and bring calm and peace to your soul.

Crawford, C. - Mommy Dearest

When Christina Crawford’s harrowing chronicle of child abuse was first published in 1978, it brought global attention to the previously closeted subject. It also shed light on the guarded world of Hollywood and stripped away the façade of Christina’s relentless, alcoholic abuser: her adoptive mother, movie star Joan Crawford. Christina was a young girl shown off to the world as a fortunate little princess. But at home, her lonely, controlling, even ruthless mother made her life a nightmare. A fierce battle of wills, their relationship could be characterized as an ultimately successful, for Christina, struggle for independence. She endured and survived, becoming the voice of so many other victims who suffered in silence, and giving them the courage to forge a productive life out of chaos.

Foo, S. What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

In this deeply personal and thoroughly researched account, Foo interviews scientists and psychologists and tries a variety of innovative therapies. She returns to her hometown of San Jose, California, to investigate the effects of immigrant trauma on the community, and she uncovers family secrets in the country of her birth, Malaysia, to learn how trauma can be inherited through generations. Ultimately, she discovers that you don’t move on from trauma—but you can learn to move with it. Powerful, enlightening, and hopeful, What My Bones Know is a brave narrative that reckons with the hold of the past over the present, the mind over the body—and examines one woman’s ability to reclaim agency from her trauma.

Ford. A. - Somebody's Daughter

Through poverty, adolescence, and a fraught relationship with her mother, Ashley C. Ford wishes she could turn to her father for hope and encouragement. There are just a few problems: he’s in prison, and she doesn’t know what he did to end up there. She doesn’t know how to deal with the incessant worries that keep her up at night, or how to handle the changes in her body that draw unwanted attention from men. In her search for unconditional love, Ashley begins dating a boy her mother hates. When the relationship turns sour, he assaults her. Still reeling from the rape, which she keeps secret from her family, Ashley desperately searches for meaning in the chaos. Then, her grandmother reveals the truth about her father’s incarceration . . . and Ashley’s entire world is turned upside down. Somebody’s Daughter steps into the world of growing up a poor Black girl in Indiana with a family fragmented by incarceration, exploring how isolating and complex such a childhood can be. As Ashley battles her body and her environment, she embarks on a powerful journey to find the threads between who she is and what she was born into, and the complicated familial love that often binds them.

Gay, R. - Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture

In this valuable and revealing anthology, cultural critic and bestselling author Roxane Gay collects original and previously published pieces that address what it means to live in a world where women have to measure the harassment, violence, and aggression they face, and where they are “routinely second-guessed, blown off, discredited, denigrated, besmirched, belittled, patronized, mocked, shamed, gaslit, insulted, bullied” for speaking out. Contributions include essays from established and up-and-coming writers, performers, and critics, including actors Ally Sheedy and Gabrielle Union and writers Amy Jo Burns, Booker Prize-nominated Brandon Taylor, and Lyz Lenz. Covering a wide range of topics and experiences, from an exploration of the rape epidemic embedded in the refugee crisis to first-person accounts of child molestation, this collection is often deeply personal and is always unflinchingly honest. Like Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me, Not That Bad will resonate with every reader, saying “something in totality that we cannot say alone.” Searing and heartbreakingly candid, this provocative collection both reflects the world we live in and offers a call to arms insisting that “not that bad” must no longer be good enough.

Hart, L. & R. - Operation Lighthouse: Reflections on our Family's Devastating Story of Coercive Control and Domestic Homicide

On 19 July 2016, Claire and Charlotte Hart were murdered in broad daylight, by the family’s father using a sawn-off shotgun. He then committed suicide.Luke and Ryan Hart, the two surviving sons, open up about their experiences growing up and the circumstances surrounding the murders. They hope to highlight the patterns of behaviour in coercive control and its deadly consequences, improving public awareness and leading to informed discussion on domestic abuse.

Jacobson, M. - The Wrong Calamity: A Memoir

In this memoir Marsha Jacobson gives readers an intimate look into dealing with domestic violence and coercive control as an adult survivor of relational trauma. Her domestic trauma starts when she meets a man at college, marries him and moves to Japan, where she gets a job at Mattel Toys. The more successful she becomes, the more abusive her husband becomes. They return to America, where she escapes from him with their two toddlers. Somehow she earns an MBA and builds a successful career while raising her children as a single parent, all the while dealing with an abusive and vengeful ex-husband. She marries a former colleague, and they have a good marriage until his buried past reveals itself and shatters their marriage, her career, and many close relationships. This book is about resilience and overcoming trauma to enjoy a healthy and positive life despite the many adversities Marsha and her family endured.

Jameson, S. - Why don't you just leave him?: A true story of domestic violence

This honest and open autobiography is the true story of a young woman trapped in a relationship that was violent and abusive. Coercive control drove her to the depths of despair. Stacey Jameson had a lack of self-esteem derived from her early childhood. Growing up and dealing with her parents’ divorce, she felt nothing more than an inconvenience to her depressive mother. With severe feelings of inadequacy, she was desperate to be loved and feel that she belonged. When she was a teenager, she met Leon, and fell in love. She had never felt so happy. They had one common denominator; they were both brought up in volatile homes. This was the foundation for a turbulent and destructive relationship. Stacey was welcomed with open arms into the bosom of Leon’s twisted family; naive and impressionable, she finally felt secure and loved.

Stacey’s childhood had made her timid and compliant. Leon’s childhood had made him controlling and narcissistic. Gradually Stacey found herself in an unhappy relationship where her partner thrived on being abusive, yet she still loved him. She was coercively controlled into doing things that just were not part of her character. She was so manipulated; she believed she did not deserve any better. So often people look on with judgement at others who are in an abusive relationship and say, “Why don’t they just leave?”. Stacey’s story, just one of millions, describes her journey and why it’s just not so simple to do for people who find themselves caught up in a destructive relationship that they just cannot escape from.

Johnson, J. - Disaster Island, The Goat Driver and The Puzzled

The Bullies & Allies series of three books is about how trauma changes us. In the series, various characters are exposed to similar traumas, but each has a different reaction to it. In most cases those who have healthy support networks from family or friends handle their post-trauma lives much better than those who felt utterly alone with the trauma.  The series aims to shine a light on how we can support each other in life, and how we can establish ourselves as allies to people who were trained to believe the whole world hates them. 

Kinchen, L. - Light in Bandaged Places: Healing in the Wake of Young Betrayal

After she is seduced into a sexual “romance” by her 8th-grade teacher, it takes years for Liz Kinchen to understand–and even identify–her abuse, and seek healing for the emotional isolation that underpins her adult relationships. Now Kinchen debuts a candid, moving memoir about reckoning with and healing from childhood trauma, in hopes of helping others along their own paths of rediscovery and repair. “I cannot rewrite my inner child’s history, but I can provide the care, attention, parenting, love, and safety net she didn’t have back then. Because she lives in me still, my adult self can offer her all those things, so she no longer has to run my life out of her fear and isolation.”

Lane, P. - Redeemed: A Memoir of a Stolen Childhood (Available June 2024)

A rise-from-the-ashes hero’s story of overcoming abuse, trauma, and unbearable odds, of being waylaid by both family and religion’s promise of love, and harnessing the resilience to find the way home, Redeemed offers a rare window into Eastern European immigrant culture and reads like a page-turning thriller. Especially relevant today—a time when marginalized people are increasingly finding a voice—this memoir will serve as an inspiration to women everywhere, encouraging them to overcome their obstacles and go after their dreams.

Mailot, T. - Heart Berries

Heart Berries is a powerful, poetic memoir of a woman's coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest. Having survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II disorder; Terese Marie Mailhot is given a notebook and begins to write her way out of trauma. The triumphant result is Heart Berries, a memorial for Mailhot's mother, a social worker and activist who had a thing for prisoners; a story of reconciliation with her father―an abusive drunk and a brilliant artist―who was murdered under mysterious circumstances; and an elegy on how difficult it is to love someone while dragging the long shadows of shame.

Miller, C. - Know My Name

She was known to the world as Emily Doe when she stunned millions with a letter. Brock Turner had been sentenced to just six months in county jail after he was found sexually assaulting her on Stanford's campus. Her victim impact statement was posted on BuzzFeed, where it instantly went viral--viewed by eleven million people within four days, it was translated globally and read on the floor of Congress; it inspired changes in California law and the recall of the judge in the case. Thousands wrote to say that she had given them the courage to share their own experiences of assault for the first time. Know My Name will forever transform the way we think about sexual assault, challenging our beliefs about what is acceptable and speaking truth to the tumultuous reality of healing. It also introduces readers to an extraordinary writer, one whose words have already changed our world. Entwining pain, resilience, and humor, this memoir will stand as a modern classic. Chosen as a BEST BOOK OF 2019 by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, TIME, Elle, Glamour, Parade, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, BookRiot

Nietfield, E. - Acceptance: A Memoir

“Acceptance” traces Nietfeld’s childhood at the mercy of flawed systems and flawed people. It is a detailed critique of the American fantasy that poverty, illness or any other adversity can be conquered through sheer grit and bootstrapping ingenuity; and of how and to whom our society apportions help. While Nietfeld manages to pull off the impossible — she acknowledges being pretty and white was a determining factor in her success — the effort leaves her feeling nauseated and compromised. Her Ivy League education was the result of her performance of the right kinds of skill, and as the right kind of victim: A history in foster care is appealing to scholarship committees, she discovered. Psychiatric wards and sexual abuse are not.

Rayn, O. My Mother The Psychopath: Growing Up in the Shadow of a Monster

What do you do when the person you’re meant to trust the most in the world is the one trying to destroy you? ‘When people met her they thought how lovely she was, this attractive woman with a beautiful laugh. But she was one person in public and another behind closed doors. Who would she be today? The loving mother? The trusted teacher? The monster destroying my life?’ Olivia has been afraid ever since she can remember. Out of sight, she was subjected to cruelty and humiliation at the hands of the one person who should have loved and protected her at all times – her mother, Josephine. While appearing completely normal to the outside world, Josephine displayed all the signs of being a psychopath – unbeknown to her daughter until adulthood – and Olivia grew up feeling scared, worthless and exploited. Even when she found the courage to cut ties, her mother found new ways to manipulate and deceive, attempting to destroy her life with a vicious campaign of abuse. Now Olivia has come to terms with her past and gives a fascinating, harrowing and deeply unsettling insight into what it’s like growing up with a psychopathic parent.

Southwest Writers - Holes in Our Hearts: An Anthology of New Mexican Military Related Stories and Poetry (May 2023)

One of our OOTS members belongs to the Southwest Writers and was involved in this book project to publish an anthology of stories and poetry about military life. While it is not focused specifically on relational trauma, it does include contributions by serving members, veterans and family members that offer a unique look at US military life, some of which are involve trauma. Congratulations to Harper O'Connor for being chosen from a large number of submissions by members of the Southwest Writers. (Note: We are not including Harper's forum name to ensure continued privacy at OOTS, but did want to mark this accomplishment and share the book here.)

Wilson, J. Wise Little One: Learning to Love and Listen to My Inner Child (July 2023)

A victim of childhood abuse and trauma, Jana Wilson could have wound up another statistic. As a young girl, Jana endured unimaginable hardships that left lasting scars on her psyche. But throughout the years, a resilient voice within her, her "Wise Little One," whispered words of encouragement and guided her towards a path of self-love and empowerment. Through introspection, therapy, and the exploration of various healing modalities, Jana learned to listen to this inner voice, her inner child. In "Wise Little One: Learning to Love and Listen to My Inner Child," Jana Wilson takes us on a deeply personal journey of self-discovery, healing, and transformation to overcome her childhood trauma. Jana Wilson's story will resonate deeply with anyone who has experienced trauma, offering a guiding light towards reclaiming joy, authenticity, and the capacity to manifest an inspiring and love-filled life.