For more than two years, BBC Radio 4's The Archers ran a disturbing storyline centred on Helen Tichener's abuse at the hands of her husband Rob. Not the kind of abuse that leaves a bruise, but the sort of coercive control that breaks your spirit and makes it almost impossible to walk away. As she listened to the unfolding story, Helen Walmsley-Johnson was forced to confront her own agonising past. Helen's first husband controlled her life, from the people she saw to what was in her bank account.

Evan Stark, founder of one of America's first battered women's shelters, shows how "domestic violence" is neither primarily domestic nor necessarily violent, but a pattern of controlling behaviors more akin to terrorism and hostage-taking. Drawing on court records, interviews, and FBI statistics, Stark details coercive strategies that men use to deny women their very personhood, from "beeper games" to food logs to micromanaging dress, speech, sexual activity, and work. 

Children of Coercive Control extends Evan Stark's path-breaking analysis of interpersonal violence to children, showing that coercive control is the most important cause and context of child abuse and child homicide outside a war zone, as well as of the sexual abuse, denigration, exploitation, isolation, and subordination of children. The book provides a working model of the coercive control of children and illustrates its dynamics and consequences with dramatic cases drawn from the headlines and Dr. Stark's forensic practice.

At first, Linda Bergstrom's marriage to her husband James was idyllic. They were young and in love; he was about to enter the Navy and she was eager to start a family. But it wasn't long before the dream exploded. James became abusive and violent, prone to sudden bursts of anger, long silences, and unexplained disappearances. But Linda vowed to hold on, despite the pain and fear...and her disturbing suspicions about her husband's secret life.

Coercive control is a form of domestic violence experienced by millions of children. It involves a perpetrator using a range of tactics to intimidate, humiliate, degrade, exploit, isolate, and control a partner or family member. Some coercive control perpetrators use violence, others do not. Drawing on interviews with children and mothers who have experienced coercive control-based domestic violence, this book sheds light on the impacts of coercive control on children, how it is perpetrators who must be held accountable for those impacts, and how resistance by children and mothers occurs.

As little girls, we dream of one day becoming a ballerina, a doctor; or a lawyer. We dream of having it all - a wonderful husband, beautiful children, a dog, the perfect house with a picket white fence. You know, the classic fairy-tale that most little girls fantasize about with their friends. This might not be your story, but is definitely mine. Maybe you can relate to some things or none at all. The end result of this story is an unhealthy, unhappy relationship that mutates into abuse.

One Australian woman is hospitalised every three hours and two more lose their lives each week as a result of family violence. But for some women there is a punishment far more enduring than injury or their own death. Look What You Made Me Do is a timely exploration of the evil inflicted by vengeful fathers who have killed their own children simply to punish partners for ending unrewarding, often abusive relationships.

 The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist: Finding Healing After Hidden Emotional and Psychological Abuse is the most comprehensive and helpful audiobook on the topic of covert narcissism. This type of narcissism is one of the most damaging forms because the abuse is so hidden and so insidious. You can be in a relationship that can last for decades and not realize you are being psychologically and emotionally controlled, manipulated, and abused.  

Indigenous Australians are the most incarcerated people on the planet. Indigenous men are fifteen times more likely to be locked up than their non-Indigenous counterparts; Indigenous women are twenty-one times more likely. Featuring vivid case studies and drawing on a deep sense of history, Black Lives, White Law explores Australia's extraordinary record of locking up First Nations people.

Part feminist manifesto, part call to arms, Feminism for Women is a radical, new exploration of feminism. A frontline activist in the campaign to end male violence for the last four decades, Julie Bindel is a leading voice in the feminist movement. In her fight for women's rights, she has been up against innumerable barricades, fought the enemy, hailed great successes, witnessed pivotal moments and created groundbreaking feminist theory and practice. 

Emily has always felt like an outsider, so when a family friend takes her under his wing she is delighted. But soon it becomes clear that his motives are not all they seem. At the age of 11, Emily is groomed into being a ‘county lines’ drug trafficker. It is the beginning of a vicious cycle that sees her become prey to one abuser after another, involving a huge child-sex-trafficking gang. The scale of the abuse—at the hands of hundreds of men—is sickening, and at times it feels like there will never be an escape. But then, in the darkest of moments, a ray of light shines.... 

A devastating story of coercive control and domestic homicide. Why would an 'ordinary' father murder his family? On 19 July 2016, Claire and Charlotte Hart were murdered in broad daylight, by the family's father, using a sawed-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. 

In this fully expanded and updated third edition of the best-selling classic, you learn why verbal abuse is more widespread than ever, and how you can deal with it. You'll get more of the answers you need to recognize abuse when it happens, respond to abusers safely and appropriately, and most important, lead a happier, healthier life. In two all-new chapters, Evans reveals the outside stresses driving the rise in verbal abuse - and shows you how you can mitigate the devastating effects on your relationships.

Teacher and former rugby league player Chris Dawson appeared to have it all - a loving family and a beautiful home in Sydney's Northern Beaches. But in the summer of 1982 his wife Lynette disappeared and not long afterwards Dawson married a much younger woman, a former student. Less than a decade later this young woman escaped the marriage and went to the police to record her suspicions that Dawson had been involved in Lynette's disappearance. A homicide investigation followed but got nowhere until 1998, when Detective Sergeant Damian Loone was handed Lynette's file.

Lurking beneath the progressive activism and sex positivity in the 1970 to '80s, a dark undercurrent of violence rippled across the American landscape. With reported cases of sexual assault and homicide on the rise, the FBI created a specialized team - the “Mindhunters”, better known as the Behavioral Science Unit - to track down the country's most dangerous criminals. And yet narrowing down a seemingly infinite list of potential suspects seemed daunting at best and impossible at worst - until Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess stepped on the scene.