Bøger af Valarie Anthony

Family Secrets: The Turbulent Years is Book 2 of the Family of Secrets and Lies series. Valarie experiences the turbulent teen years as she prepares to go away to college and learns valuable lessons and skills on becoming an independent young woman. During vacations from school, she resides in numerous foster homes and foster group homes while experiencing abuse and neglect within the foster care system. As a college student she is confronted with many challenges, but she is determined not to allow them to get in the way of her accomplishing her education and career goals. As her twenty-first birthday approaches, she begins focusing on her housing and career goals and preparing for living independently upon her emancipation from the foster care system.

Dirty Little Secrets: As Seen Through The Eyes of a Foster Child tells the true story of a young girl who is placed in a foster home when she is three years old. She is later thrust into the chaos of the New York City foster care system, which would become a long-term situation for the little girl. She would eventually reside in over 12 foster homes during a painful and scary childhood and 2 foster group homes during a difficult adolescence and young adulthood. Dirty Little Secrets also shows how foster care workers were so overwhelmed that they failed to detect the continuing incidents of abuse and neglect involving children in their care, even when the evidence was staring them in the face. At the age of 21, the young girl is cast into the world of the unknown, without anyone or anywhere to call home. She goes forth with only hope and determination to guide her. As an adult, discovery of her true self enables her to confront and overcome emotionally damaging realities from her childhood, which can no longer stay buried deep within her memory. This is the true story of her difficult life battle, but more importantly, her ultimate victory, which is her healing.

One Child's View is Book 1 of the Family of Secrets and Lies series. It is a 50,484-word nonfiction book that tells the true story of a little girl who is placed lovingly in a temporary, informal foster home at the age of three years old, immediately following a major family crisis. She is later thrust into the chaos of the New York City foster care system, which becomes a long-term situation for her. One Child's View also shows how caseworkers and supervisors are so overwhelmed that they fail to detect the continuing incidents of physical, sexual and emotional abuse of children in their care, even when the evidence is staring them in the face. As she grows and develops into early adolescence, the young girl is introduced to indepedent living skills and she begins to contemplate a variety of career options and envisions a future of living independently.