Showing results by narrator "Melanie Crawley" in All Categories

Named after the lager that christened her at birth, Stella's life is characterised instability and neglect. Her teenage mother abandons her in the first few weeks of her life, and left in the 'care' of her father, she ends up lying deserted in a house with no food, no water, no clothes and no warmth. She eventually lands in the care of foster carer Louise, who is determined to change her life for the better.

The next book in Louise Allen's Thrown Away Children series.

Michelle and Andy are thrilled to be fast-tracked into fostering and are quickly paired with 7-year-old Milo – whom they hope will complete their family, making a ‘pigeon pair’ with their older daughter, Grace. But Milo tears through their home like a raging tornado, destroying a beautiful interior – and their lives.

Emma is so happy to have moved from the city to her husband’s small hometown. James was strangely reluctant at first – but she convinced him their little cottage is the perfect place to settle down. The perfect place to give their six-year-old son a new life. But then a woman at the school gates asks Emma if she is really married to ‘that man’. ‘Which man?’ Emma asks. The woman replies…

Eve is clearing her father’s house when she finds an old cassette player and a box of tapes. Though grieving, she smiles at the spark of nostalgia. One tape is labelled ‘Eve’–in her mother, Angela’s, scrawled handwriting. She disappeared for good more than ten years ago. The tape whirrs. A voice crackles. ‘My name is Angela’. Tears fill Eve’s eyes at the familiar voice–at the thought her mother recorded this message just for her. But the next words make her heart pound.

Kate is living the dream with her gorgeous boyfriend, Alessandro, in his native city, but the reality is sometimes a little less romantic than she’d hoped. Every day in her new home is a fight against leaking pipes, her cantankerous landlord and her less-than-perfect grasp of the Italian lingo. All around her there is talk of weddings, but when a secret from her past is thrust out into the open, Kate must fight to prove to Alessandro’s formidable family that she truly is Italian marriage material.

A woman who was sexually abused by her own father and later gave birth to his daughter is now running a support group which spans 30 countries and has tens of thousands of supporters. Stace Don, now 36, was taken into foster care as a baby after being neglected by her parents. For seven years, she lived an idyllic life, believing her foster parents were her real parents. But a chance encounter with her natural father, Nigel Taylor, shattered her happiness and she was later moved from her foster home, away from the family she loved.

Parents Angelina and Ben exist in enviable luxury: not just wealth, success and a gorgeous home, but a loving relationship and beautiful twin babies to complete the perfect family. But having it all means that you have the most to lose. And when cracks begin to appear things fall apart at a shocking pace; and it's twins Max and Mia who suffer the most. Money isn't enough to paper over the problems in this extraordinary and heartbreaking story. It is a foster-caring experience like no other, and one which tests Louise's emotional strength to the core.

A young girl's life is shadowed by secrets and lies. When Willow arrives in the Allen household, curious things begin to happen. Who is the strange child dressed in outlandish clothes who refuses a mobile phone? What are the mysterious allegations that have been made about her?

Growing up, Joanne suffered at the hands of a violent boyfriend and controlling relatives, as her mother lapsed into a downward spiral following the break-up of her marriage. But the consequences of her mother's lifestyle turned out to be worse than Joanne could ever have imagined. She already knew about the baby buried in a shallow makeshift grave next to the family plot. But when Joanne came across a red plastic bin in her mother's wardrobe in 2009, she realised that the family home held an even more sinister secret.

Penetrate the polite veneer of the people, learn about their customs and traditions, become acquainted with their values and attitudes, and your experience of this green and pleasant land will be greatly enriched.

Will her new home turn into a nightmare? As I stare out the window of my beautiful apartment, I hope that I’ve made the right decision to move back to the city that holds so many memories. I’ve chosen my home on the top-floor and in a quiet area because feeling safe and secure is important to me. But on my first day, I’m involved in a heart-stopping accident on the leafy-green street. A stranger comes to my rescue – if it wasn’t for his actions, I wouldn’t be alive. I’m shaken but grateful, so I invite him in. And that’s the moment that everything changes. I shouldn’t have trusted him.

Louise has trouble on her hands from the first moment that 5-year-old Billy Blackthorn comes to stay. He is one of more than 20 children taken into care from a single family, and erupts into the Allen household with a volatility that is frightening and disturbing in equal measure. It is only as Louise begins to uncover the secrets of Billy's dark past that she begins to understand what made his family 'untouchable'.

Ashley is a young single mum raising her daughter, Eden, and working hard to do the very best job she can - until one night she can't find a babysitter and makes the decision to leave Eden home alone for a couple of hours, asleep inside a wardrobe. It is an action that begins a terrible downward spiral for both of them. When Eden arrives at experienced foster carer Louise Allen's home, she has entered the care system because her mother is in prison. Eden is five years old and will not speak to any human.

Take a trip to a terrifying carnival and uncover the secrets within, solve a mysterious puzzle box and await your reward, join a travelling circus and witness the strangest ventriloquist act you've ever seen. In this follow-up to the bestselling Cursed: An Anthology, you'll unearth curses old and new. From a very different take on Snow White, to a new interpretation of The Red Shoes, the best in fantasy spin straw into gold, and invite you into the labyrinth.

Burnt out and in need of retreat, Jenn Ashworth emerged from lockdown with a compulsive need to walk—and to walk away. Armed with little more than the knowledge imparted by a two-day orienteering course and a set of maps, she embarked on the most epic of English walks: Wainwright's Coast to Coast. Guided not just by Wainwright's writing but also by daily letters from her friend Clive—facing an epic journey of his own—Jenn's pilgrimage soon becomes more than just walking: a chance to reconnect and excavate, to re-engage with the act of caring for others and for oneself.

Abby's Story is the second book in the Thrown Away Children series by author and foster mum Louise Allen. She doesn't want this baby. She can't look after this baby. She will never be able to love this baby. Little Abby's life begins badly, then just gets worse. Now foster mum Louise and her family must help her deal with the truth of her past to give her the chance of a future.

When Sky and her older sister Avril were taken into care, the social workers knew this was a case like no other. Raised by unhinged parents who hoarded compulsively, creating horrific conditions no child should live in, the two girls arrived at foster carer Louise's home, neglected, malnourished and indoctrinated. Louise had to draw on all of her experience as one of Britain's leading foster carers to rehabilitate and change the course of their lives.

Legend has it that when Caesar’s general arrived on Portuguese soil in the first century CE, he claimed to have discovered a country blessed with a mild climate and a beautiful coastline, but whose inhabitants were ungoverned and ungovernable. Today, the Portuguese are still impulsive, set in their ways, and resistant to change, yet they are ever charming, romantic, and nostalgic, with an unshakable loyalty toward family and friends.

Louise gets a frantic call to take in a damaged and destructive young girl. Separated from her siblings, Sparkle is hostile and angry. A short while after settling in, Sparkle begins to identify as pansexual. A revolution is underway in the Allen household, with Sparkle's transition motivating all of the young people to explore what becoming an adult means for them.