LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
Moving from harrowing childhood abuse and agonising self-blame, to clarity and healing, Hope Daniels’ graciously written This Isn’t Love story begins against a backdrop of growing up in a children’s home in the eighties.
At this time, Hope still adored her dad, who was “like a magician, the way he could disappear a whole bottle of whisky”, and dreamed of being rescued by Simon Le Bon “with his great big pile of money and his fancy car”.
A further sense of dreamy hope comes when a former resident of the home visits with a husband in tow — “I was eaten up with longing and possibility. If Tiffany could do it, was there a chink of hope for me too? Was there a fairy tale ending for me?”
Heartbreakingly, Hope’s journey to find her happy-ever-after is characterised by abuse, self-blame and self-doubt, but skip forward to 2016 and, after years of believing she was “a little slag” who’d had an “affair” with a married man at the age of fourteen, Hope has an epiphany at a safeguarding conference. She was not to blame. It was not a relationship. It was child sexual exploitation, and so an enormous weight lifts from Hope’s shoulders.
Hope then moves to recount her experience of growing up in care, including being moved to a secure unit that was anything but safe. Unflinchingly honest as Hope shares how she was abused, how she was made to feel she was to blame, and how some adults turned a blind eye, This Isn’t Love is underpinned by a desire to support fellow victims of abuse through her personal journey of hope and healing.
Joanne Owen
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This Isn't Love Synopsis
An inspirational tale of how Hope Daniels overcame her demons and rebuilt her life, winnng justice after years of childhood abuse
“I wake at 2am drenched in sweat. The nightmare is still a reality – I am in court, one of my abusers is questioning me about what he did to me with the jury laughing out loud at my answers. I try to talk to the jury, try to ask them to stop laughing, but no words come out. And then the judge too starts laughing at me...”
After a life in care, with both good and bad experiences of the system, Hope knows all too well what the risks are for children in care as they approach adolescence.
Lacking any sense of self-worth or belonging, children in care are often dismissed by the authorities as impossible to manage and, worse, perceived as children who have invited sexual abuse by placing themselves in ‘dangerous’ situations. They quickly become invisible to the authorities – too old to be perceived as ‘children’ by the system and yet, far too young to be safe in an adult world.
Hope was brought up in care from the age of nine. Until now, she has never spoken about what happened to her once she left the security of her Highgate children’s home at the age of 13 and moved into a ‘secure unit’. It may have been secure but it was never ‘safe’.
In this new book, she lifts the lid on this untold chapter of her story and the devastating effects she experienced when she reconnected with her past. This isn’t Love is a book that not only casts blame on the men and women who abuse children in care, but also on those who avert their gazes in the belief that these children are ‘asking for it’.
Hope’s story ends on a hopeful note, championing victims of abuse and encouraging others to tell their story.
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About Hope Daniels, Ann Cusack
Jenny Molloy (pen-name Hope Daniels) is the Sunday Times’ bestselling author of Hackney Child which was published in 2014 in the UK and also in France. She has been a Patron of the British Association of Social Workers, is currently a Patron of the women’s charity Trevi and is a highly sought-after motivational speaker.
Jenny has also appeared on television and radio and continues to fight for looked-after kids through her work with local councils including Southampton. Her story as a looked-after kid is told in her pen-name of ‘Hope’ which is how her readers know her.
Bestselling author and journalist, Ann Cusack has ghost-written nine memoirs, all of which have been original material self-sourced and developed. Ann has previously written several bestsellers for Mirror Books including Groomed by a Gang and Abandoned.
Living and working in Manchester, where she was born, she has a long track record of following stories and working with ordinary people who have found themselves thrust into the spotlight by extraordinary events.
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