The fourth title from Sunday Times bestselling author Casey Watson.

 Eight-year-old Spencer takes himself to social services and demands to be taken into care. It's a desperate act, a cry for help, but his parent's reaction - good riddance - speaks volumes. Casey's hackles are immediately up for this poor child.

 Spencer is the middle child of four siblings. His parents claim all their other kids are 'normal' and that Spencer was born 'vicious and evil'. Casey and her family are disgusted - kids aren't born evil, they get damaged. Although when vigilante neighbours start to take action and their landlord threatens eviction, Casey is stretched to the limits, trying desperately to hold on to this boy who causes so much pain and destruction.

 Casey is determined to try and understand what Spencer is going through and help him find the loving home he is so desperately searching for. But it's only when Spencer's mother gets in touch with social services for the first time that gradually everything starts to make sense.

Too Hurt to Stay - The True Story of a Troubled Boy’s Desperate Search for a Loving Home

Let Me Go is the powerful new memoir from foster carer and Sunday Times bestselling author Casey Watson.

 Harley, 13, has been sectioned under the mental health act after attempting suicide. She was spotted climbing the railings on a footbridge that crossed a busy motorway and pulled to safety by a member of the public. After six weeks in hospital, social services are looking for a short-term placement so she can be kept safe while family therapy takes place. Harley has a family - a widowed mother and an older sister, Milly, who left home with her long-term boyfriend just over a year ago. There is no prospect of Harley going home just yet though, as her mum, who has learning difficulties and addictions issues, feels she cannot cope. So she arrives with Casey and Mike under a twenty-eight day care order.

 As Harley tries to hurl herself out of the moving car on the way home, it quickly becomes clear she is in urgent need of help. Three weeks into the placement, after Harley has made various attempts to abscond, it seems like zero progress is being made. Then all of sudden there is an unexpected breakthrough, and light at the end of a long dark tunnel, but only once Harley is finally able to share the truth about the abuse she suffered at the hands of a very dangerous man.

Let Me Go: Part 2 of 3 - Abused and Afraid, She Has Nothing to Live for

Ils sont affamés, extrêmement sales et effrayés : Ashton, 9 ans et Olivia, 6 ans, ne sont plus que des ombres lorsqu'ils sont placés dans la famille de Casey Watson. Casey, qui a pourtant l'habitude de s'occuper d'enfants en situation de grande détresse, est désemparée devant l'état du frère et de la soeur. Avant de pouvoir les aider, elle doit leur apprendre les comportements élémentaires, Ashton et Olivia n'ayant aucun sens du bien et du mal. Et, peu à peu, les deux enfants perdus livrent les secrets de leurs souffrances. Pendant des années, là où ils étaient censés être en sécurité, ils ont vécu l'enfer sous la domination de leur grand-père et d'autres adultes. Lentement, patiemment, Casey va tenter de les aider à reconstruire leurs jeunes vies. L'émouvante histoire vraie de deux enfants emprisonnés dans un monde de souffrance et d'abus.

Nous étions ses petits prisonniers

" Nous avons faim, Justin, trouve-nous quelque chose ", répètent ses frères. Mais il n'y a rien à manger. Justin sent les larmes monter, la colère l'envahir aussi. Qu'est-il donc censé faire ? Justin n'a que cinq ans, ses frères ont deux et trois ans. Leur mère, héroïnomane, les a laissés seuls et affamés. Une fois de plus. La fois de trop : ce jour-là, Justin a mis le feu à la maison. Six ans et vingt foyers d'accueil plus tard, Justin est enfin arrivé dans une famille aimante qu'il a, au départ, tout fait pour rejeter. Jusqu'au moment où il s'est progressivement ouvert et confié. Là, il est devenu évident qu'il avait atrocement souffert, au-delà de l'imaginable et du supportable...

L'enfant que personne n'aimait

It's late on Friday night when Casey's mobile starts to ring. She is expecting it to be her daughter Riley. But it isn't Riley. It's a woman from the Emergency Duty Team. So begins Casey and Mike's latest fostering challenge - a fifteen-year-old girl called Keeley who's run away from her long-term foster home 25 miles away.

 The Jonathan Ross Show has just started when Casey gets the call. She thinks it will be Riley - telling her that her favourite actor is going to be on TV. But it's something far more urgent: a fifteen-year-old girl who has run away from her foster family and accused her foster father of sexual abuse. The family deny in vehemently, but such an allegation can never be taken lightly, so a new home must be found for Keeley.

 Keeley is polite, but she's sharp, and she has all the hallmarks of a child who has been in the system a long time, and knows how to play it. Whether the allegation is true or not, Casey knows there will be no winners here. If it is true, then a young girl's life has been torn asunder. If not, then the heartache for the family will only be surpassed by the bleak outlook for Keeley.

 In the short term, it's a case of providing a safe, supportive home for a vulnerable child. But with the dangerous world of the internet at her disposal, it seems this strong-minded youngster has her own ideas of where that safe place should be.

Groomed - Danger lies closer than you think

A neuf ans, Sam est un petit garçon autiste ayant de graves problèmes de comportement. Violent avec lui-même et avec les autres, il hurle tel un animal et n'a aucune notion du bien et du mal. Au point que même son frère et sa soeur ont peur de lui. Sam a été retiré de sa famille biologique, sa mère ayant été jugée inapte à s'en occuper à cause de ses propres problèmes mentaux. Lorsque Casey Watson accepte d'accueillir ce petit garçon dans sa famille, elle est loin d'imaginer qu'elle va devoir faire face au cas le plus difficile de sa carrière de mère d'accueil. Peu à peu, Sam livre les secrets de sa souffrance. Et quand il demande à être enfermé dans une cage, Casey comprend que pendant des années, le petit garçon a vécu un enfer de maltraitance et de sévices. Progressivement, elle va tenter de l'aider à surmonter un sombre secret et à reconstruire sa vie... La terrible histoire vraie d'un petit garçon traumatisé par les adultes.

Un sombre secret

From the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a true story of two deeply troubled boys both in need of a loving home.

 This is the sixth title in the series.

 The Watsons are astonished when they answer their front door to find their case worker with a small boy on the doorstep. Jenson is just nine years old. He was removed from his home thirty minutes earlier when it was discovered his mother had left him at home while she went on holiday with her boyfriend.

 A couple of weeks later Casey is in for a second shock when she is asked to take a second nine-year-old boy, Georgie. Georgie is autistic and has been in a children's home since he was a toddler. The home is closing and social services need somewhere temporary for him to stay. With her own grown up son, Kieron, having Asperger's (a mild form of autism), Casey knows this is one child she cannot say no to.

 The relationship between Jenson and Georgie is difficult from the outset. Jenson is rebellious and full of attitude and he kicks off at anything, constantly winding Georgie up. Georgie doesn't cope well with change and is soon in a permanent state of stress. Despite Casey's best efforts, her innate love for the children is being tested and she begins to question if she can handle Jenson's cruelty.

 But over time it becomes clear that the boys have formed an unlikely bond. Could this be the solution to all of their troubles?

Breaking the Silence - Two little boys, lost and unloved. One foster carer determined to make a difference.

Let Me Go - Abused and Afraid, She Has Nothing to Live for

Let Me Go: Part 1 of 3 - Abused and Afraid, She Has Nothing to Live for

Groomed: Part 2 of 3 - Danger lies closer than you think

Fourteen-year-old Adrianna arrives on Casey's doorstep with no possessions, no English, and no explanation. It will be a few weeks before Casey starts getting the shocking answers to her questions..

 Brought to Casey as a short-term emergency placement, fourteen-year-old Adrianna arrives with nothing but her gratitude. Having 'turned herself in' to a social services office some hundred miles away, she has no possessions, no English and, apparently, no history - not that she's willing to share, anyway. She is a beautiful young Polish girl, with the bearing of a ballerina, but is terrified, malnourished and unwell. And, having slept rough for some time (the little they do know about her) she spends much of her first days with Watsons asleep in bed.

 Growing concerned about Adrianna's wellbeing, and her persistent high temperature, Casey decides to call in the GP. But, to her surprise, Adrianna becomes almost hysterical about being examined and, given her refusal to talk - even via the interpreter they've brought in for her - Casey's fostering antennae begin twitching. Where has she come from? And why is she so terrified to be touched? What has happened to make her so ill and scared?

 It will be a few weeks before Casey starts getting answers to these questions. Shocking answers; ones that throw up a whole host of new questions and the beginnings of a journey to find justice for Adrianna, and, more importantly, a future, and a home.

Runaway Girl: Part 2 of 3 - A beautiful girl. Trafficked for sex. Is there nowhere to hide?

Skin Deep can either be read as a full-length eBook or in 3 serialised eBook-only parts.

 This is PART 1 of 3.

 You can read Part 1 two weeks ahead of release of the full-length eBook and paperback.

 Rejected by her mother and excluded by her school, Flip is a little girl desperate to be loved.

 'Am I ugly, Mummy?' are the first words that little Phillipa says to Mike and Casey as she stomps into their lives on a hot August afternoon. She has a Barbie doll in one hand and a pink vanity case in the other and the bemused Watsons can only stare in amazement at this tiny eight year old girl who is being guided into the room by her social worker.

 Phillipa, known as Flip has Foetal Alcohol Syndrome and life with her single mother has come to an abrupt end after a fire burned the house down. When Casey meets Flip, the child seems remarkably unfazed by what has happened and the thing that seems to worry her is that Casey might find her ugly. Casey has come across children with FAS in her previous job in a high school behaviour unit, but is now realising that fostering Flip is going to be full of challenges which will test her and Mike's skills to the limit.

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