Misty Griffin's story ─ Surviving child abuse, parental betrayal, sexual assault, and Amish cruelty A true crime memoir: When Misty was six years old her family started to live and dress like the Amish. Misty and her sister were kept as slaves on a mountain ranch where they were subjected to almost complete isolation, sexual abuse and extreme physical violence. Their step-father kept a loaded rifle by the door at all times to make sure the young girls were too terrified to try to escape. They also knew that no rescue would ever come because only a couple of people even knew they existed and did not know them well enough to care. Amish Sexual abuse: When Misty reached her teens, her parents feared she and her sister would escape and took them to an Amish community where they were adopted and became baptized members. Misty was devastated to once again find herself in a world of fear, animal cruelty and sexual abuse. Going to the police was severely frowned upon. A few years later, Misty was sexually assaulted by the bishop. As Misty recalls, "Amish sexual abusers are only shunned by the church for six weeks, a punishment that never seems to work. After I was assaulted by the bishop I knew I had to get help and one freezing morning in early March I made a dash for a tiny police station in rural Minnesota. After reporting the bishop I left the Amish and found myself plummeted into the strange modern world with only a second-grade education and no ID or social security card. To all abuse survivors out there, please be encouraged, the cycle of abuse can be broken. Today, I am a nursing student working towards my master's degree and a child abuse awareness activist. This is my story." If you have read Scared Selfless, A Child Called It, The Sound of Gravel, or Etched In Sand, then Tears of the Silenced is a must read.

I'm not crazy. My parents had me tested. And much to their disappointment, my diagnosis set me free from under their oppressive thumb. Travelling across the world to attend Santa Catalina University with my best - only - friend brings me freedom and happiness...To a point. What I don't expect is a mountain of a man to bring silence and calm to my otherwise chaotic brain. Or the love-hate attraction with him and his two best friends. I certainly don't expect one of my professors to become obsessed with me. I find myself wrapped up in a dangerous mystery, when girls on campus are dying and my life is in danger because I'm - apparently - not who I thought I was. Suddenly, I have to rely on these four strangers for protection and answers. I came to SCU to find my voice, but instead I find myself silenced. Possibly, for good.

Kian always gets what he wants...and now his focus is on Archer.I lost my boyfriend on the night I had planned to propose.It was a horrific accident that was all my fault.I gave up and resigned myself into a life of obscurity.Until I got a call that my sister, Sara, needed me.It gave me purpose and I ran to her rescue.Because that's what I've done our whole lives.That's how I ended up in Brigs Ferry Bay.But when I showed up, things were so much worse than I thought.She was sullen, fragile, and sinking into a depression I didn't know how I'd get her out of.Together, we were drowning.Until I met Kian.He's everything I'm not.Bouncy, bubbly, full of life, and an innate ability to make everything better.He makes me believe I can be happy again.Now the unthinkable has happened and Sara is on the verge of losing her life.Once again, it's all my fault.Kian had clouded my vision with promises of hope and forever.I was so stupid to believe I could be happy again.I try push him away.To shove him out of the darkness that follows me.I don't want him to suffer the future fate had secured me to.But Kian's focus is on meAnd he's used to getting what he wants.*Brigs Ferry Bay is a steamy MM romance series. While each book can be read as a standalone, to get the full experience, they're best read in order. Enemies to lovers, friends to lovers, hurt comfort, age-gap romance, and so much more. Fall in love with the charming small town gay romances of Brigs Ferry Bay...

A heartbreaking yet inspiring true story. In this memoir the author writes in detail about the horrors she sustained at the hands of her mother, step-father and the hands of the Amish church. After her mother meets up with her step-father when she is at the young age of four, she and her younger sister are whisked away from their father to begin a life of solitude and sorrow. Here they are succumbed to severe physical and mental torture, sexual abuse and isolation from the rest of the world. Day by day Misty and her sister are brainwashed into believing that dressing and living like the Amish is the only way to get into heaven. Fourteen years later after unspeakable torture and constant threats against their lives Misty and her sister are taken to an Amish community in rural Minnesota. Here they learn German, are made to change their names and eventualy become baptized members. Eighteen year old Misty breathes a sigh of relief no longer having to fear her step-father will kill her. This is short lived however when she finds herself refusing to be silenced. This ancient tradition in wich Amish sex abuse victims are made to forgive their attackers and continue to live life as normal. If the victim refuses to be quiet about the incident they are paid a visit by the ministers in which they are harshly reprimanded and if they still refuse to be silenced they are shunned until they comply. After Misty is attacked by the Bishop of her church she refuses to be silenced and involves the local law enforment. When she refuses to recant her police report she is then shunned by the Amish church. This sends her reeling out into the modern world without any ID or social security number and only a second grade education. However Misty meets these setbacks head on as she prepares to embrace her life long dream of becomeing a medical missionary. In the last few chapters you will follow Misty as she gets her GED, deals with severe PTSD and nightmares, tries to get her sister out of the Amish and is met by the local ministers as they try and intimidate her into recanting her police statement. Misty writes in detail about the sting of being shunned and having everyone that you held dear turn their backs to you. But also she is determined to stand up for the silenced victims no matter the cost.

Resorting to life narratives as a comprehensive umbrella term and embracing hemispheric American studies paradigms, this edited volume explores the interrelations between life narratives, the social world, creativity, and different forms of media to narrate and (re)present the self to see in which way these expressions offer (new) means of (self-) representation within cultural productions from the Americas. Creativity in the context of life narratives nourishes the act of narrating and propels among others the desire to link individual life stories with larger stories of social embeddedness, conditioning, and transformation thus pushing new forms of historiography and other forms of nonfictional writing. Accordingly, the creative impulse fuses individual and collective experience with a larger understanding of the social including the latter’s local and global embeddedness. The contributions in this volume analyze the ways in which the dynamics, tensions, and reciprocities between narrative, creativity, and the social world unfold in life narratives from the Americas. In particular, this volume addresses scholars and students of life writing, cultural and literary studies, gender, disability and postcolonial studies with new insights into life narratives from the Americas.

I wrote this book to all the lovers who struggle with stereotypes and social pressure while managing their relationships. The book describes the times I had desired and cherished love. Read these words, bask in my joy, wallow my pain, and let my feelings connect with your own. Allow these poems to reach into your heart, to dive into your soul, and bring out the same hidden desires and feelings that I express through my words. Let my imagery and words be able to create the pictures of my experiences in your mind, of my encounters with love.

Having staked his claim as a master of epic fantasy with The Ring of Five Dragons, Eric Van Lustbader now returns to his world of Kundala to unearth new riches of wonder and excitement in this second volume of The Pearl saga. With the help of her friends, Riane, the prophesied redeemer known as the Dar Sala-at, saved Kundala from annihilation, preserving natives and V'ornn invaders alike. Together, the companions avenged terrible crimes and secured the Ring of Five Dragons, but their struggles have only just begun. The Ring averted doomsday, yet it did not open the magical Storehouse Door as expected. That sorcerous treasury remains sealed because of the spell cast by Giyan and her sister. A spell to migrate Annon Ashera's male V'ornn psyche into Riane's dying Kundalan female body. By combining them into a single being, it saved them both and fulfilled the prophecy that the Dar Sala-at would be "born at both ends of the cosmos." But the spell also breached the Abyss, releasing daemons who could wreak havoc on Kundala. The daemons were imprisoned there aeons ago by the Goddess Miina. Now the fiends must be vanquished, not only so the quest for the Pearl can continue, but to save Giyan, who has been possessed by the archdaemon Horolaggia. Their only hope is the fabled Veil of A Thousand Tears. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.