Dear Millie is the true and remarkable story of Millie Previero, a seven-year-old girl who was diagnosed with cancer in the shape of a rare and malignant brain tumour. 

Written by her father, Marco, it’s a heart-wrenching descent into every parent’s worst nightmare and their desperate fight to save their daughter. 9781784622022Gripping, and beautifully written, it begins on 5 April 2013, when Millie wakes up complaining of fuzziness in her ‘beautiful brown eyes’, which soon turns into a loss of vision in her right eye and near-blindness in her left.

A quick diagnosis sees her checked into Great Ormond Street Hospital, where she undergoes a terrifying eight-hour craniotomy, or brain operation. This, however, is just the start of a terrifying ordeal; the book follows Millie as she undergoes further gruelling treatment, including two further brain operations, aggressive chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which ultimately takes the family 4,000 miles from home.

Swiftly realising there will be no ‘easy choices,’ Marco and his wife Vanessa face many harrowing decisions - the most heart-breaking being whether to give Millie treatment which may permanently damage her.

Marco laments at one stage, “The Millie we have known for seven years is dead… a new one may come back but how close to the original?”

It is hard not to be moved when Marco describes how Millie brightens at the sound of her mother’s voice after an intense operation, or asks to be carried down to the operating theatre by her father. Profound, gritty and at times even funny, this book - penned primarily as an account for Millie to read later, should she survive - touches on the rollercoaster of life: sacrifice, hardship, hope and love.

Most importantly, it is a tale of survival and about how terrible things in life can make us stronger.

Marco captures this sentiment perfectly. “While I would not wish it on anyone, Millie’s cancer was, in a sense, a gift,” he says. “It revealed a side to human nature we seldom encounter…. On those rare occasions when we are forced to interact… with people we don’t know, we are often surprised by the kindness and generosity.”

Unequivocally raw and honest, Dear Millie is a wonderful account of how you can fall into a bleak abyss, survive and – ultimately – be uplifted and renewed by the experience,

Dear Millie is proud to support Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity. Dear Millie: Diary of a Seven Year Old With Cancer by Marco Previero (ISBN: 9781784622022) is published by Matador on 28 March 2015.