Lies from the past and a dangerous present collide when, after fifteen years in exile, Michelle Miller returns to her tiny hometown of Lorida, Florida. With her mother in the hospital, she’s forced to reckon with the broken relationships she left behind: with her family, with friends, and with herself.

Bryan Cranston landed his first role at seven, when his father, a struggling actor and director, cast him in a United Way commercial. Soon Bryan was haunting the local movie theater, memorizing and reenacting favorite scenes with his older brother. Acting was clearly the boy's destiny - until one day his father disappeared. Suddenly destiny took a backseat to survival. Seeking something more stable, perhaps subconsciously trying to distance himself from his absent father, Cranston decided on a career in law enforcement.

In this story of perseverance in the face of adversity, Regina Calcaterra recounts her childhood in foster care and on the streets and how she and her savvy crew of homeless siblings managed to survive years of homelessness, abandonment, and abuse. Regina Calcaterra's emotionally powerful memoir reveals how she endured a series of foster homes and intermittent homelessness in the shadow of the Hamptons, and how she rose above her past while fighting to keep her brother and three sisters together.

In the span of four months in 2012, Tig Notaro was hospitalized for a debilitating intestinal disease called C. diff, her mother unexpectedly died, she went through a breakup, and then she was diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer. Hit with this devastating barrage, Tig took her grief onstage. Days after receiving her cancer diagnosis, she broke new comedic ground, opening an unvarnished set with the words, "Good evening. Hello. I have cancer. How are you? Hi, how are you? Is everybody having a good time? I have cancer."

Growing up on welfare, food stamps, and Greyhound buses, Holly Thompson Rehder quit school at fifteen to help take care of her mother and younger sister after a devastating car accident. Getting married and pregnant soon thereafter, Holly decided that the life she had been born into was not what she intended to give her child. Two decades later she was a successful businesswoman. And today, she is a rising political star who serves as an inspiration to young women across the state of Missouri—and indeed, the entire nation—all while never forgetting where she came from.

A memoir from Joe Biden’s younger sister, trusted confidante, and lifelong campaign manager, Growing Up Biden details Valerie’s decades-long professional career in politics, and the central role she played in her brother’s life as an insightful adviser, an ever-loyal advocate, and a best friend. This memoir, full of candor and warmth, brings listeners into the Biden home and shares stories from growing up in Delaware as the only daughter of the close-knit Irish Catholic family.

In April 1992, a young man named Chris McCandless walked into the Alaskan wilderness, where he survived for more than 100 days before perishing in an abandoned bus. For over twenty years his story has captivated millions, and yet only one person knew the truth behind his remarkable journey - until now.

Our prisons and mental hospitals are filled with tragic stories like Tuesday Storm's. Her early childhood was riddled with torturous "games" and violent physical attacks. She was isolated from the rest of her family, locked in an attic with nothing but a bare bed and a bucket for a toilet, and fed just enough to be kept alive. The experts say it's next to impossible to find the soul's light in a dark past like Tuesday's.

Born with cerebral palsy, Geri Jewell inspired a generation of young people when she became the first person with a disability to appear in a recurring role on prime-time television, with her groundbreaking character, Cousin Geri, on the NBC sitcom The Facts of Life. The book's title - I’m Walking As Straight As I Can - has a double meaning, referring to both Jewell's sexuality and her extraordinary struggle growing up with cerebral palsy.

Many know Kimberly Williams-Paisley as the bride in the popular Steve Martin remakes of the Father of the Bride movies, the calculating Peggy Kenter on Nashville, or the wife of country megastar Brad Paisley. But in 2014, Williams-Paisley revealed a tragic secret: Her mother had been diagnosed with a rare form of dementia called primary progressive aphasia at the age of 61.

Fractured Not Broken is a true story of loss, faith, and a rare love that only happens in nonfiction. In a sweeping and heart-wrenching narrative, Kelly exposes the truth about what happened after a drunk driver rendered her a quadriplegic. She shares how she found her way back - through faith and pain, her community, her family, and the love of a man she prayed for.

Kris Jenner executive produces and stars as matriarch on the hit reality show Keeping Up with the Kardashians on E!, now in its fifth smash season. Here, this ambitious businesswoman who has catapulted her family into the public consciousness reveals what it’s like living under the celebrity spotlight and touches on themes of love, loss, marriage, divorce, and motherhood.

A handsome Italian film producer. A beautiful Mexican dancer. A match made on a movie set and a lavish Beverly Hills wedding. The beginning of Camille Franzese's story takes on the shade of an exotic fairy tale. But a closer look at her marriage to mafia capo Michael Franzese exposes more than a decade of anguish endured in the shadows of her husband's crimes. The fear of arrest, the prison sentences, the house raids from federal agents - Camille lived through it all. Discover how Camille's devotion to her marriage and her faith in God's larger plan led to deliverance from devastation.

When Candice Curry was a little girl, she put her hand in her father's back pocket so that she wouldn't get lost in large crowds. Little did she know that as she followed him, he was plying his trade: conning people. Her family drove stolen cars, lived in stolen houses, and shopped with stolen credit cards. Drug use was regular, as were visits from strange people who were trying to track her father down. Though she eventually cut ties with her father, Candice could not ignore the scars that were left from her childhood.

There is perhaps no crime more disturbing than the abuse of a child—and no court cases as upsetting as those in which juveniles who have faced abuse are tried for fighting back. In this gripping memoir Sara Kruzan, a survivor of childhood abuse and sex trafficking, tells the honest, disturbing, and ultimately empowering story of her journey from abuse to incarceration without parole for killing her abuser to finally gaining her liberation.

What can you do when your well-laid plans fall apart and life takes an unexpected turn? Brenda Warner is best known as the outspoken wife of NFL superstar and Dancing with the Stars alum Kurt Warner. But years earlier, she found herself living through any woman’s nightmare: a healthy baby tragically injured in the bathtub; a sudden end to a career she loved; betrayal and divorce; poverty; public humiliation; a deadly natural disaster that destroyed her foundation and shook her to her core. One shattering phone call at a time, Brenda Warner’s life came to resemble little of her dream.

Our preteen years, ages nine to 13, can present some of the most difficult times in our young lives, a period of tremendous physical and emotional change. We're eager to leave the "kid" stage, yet we're uncertain about what adolescence will bring; we start hearing the familiar refrain "wait until you're older" far too often. Chicken Soup for the Preteen Soul is a companion guide for these transitional years.

Days after Alex Cooper told her parents she was gay, they drove Alex from their home in Southern California to Utah, where they signed over guardianship to fellow Mormons who promised to save Alex from her homosexuality. For eight harrowing months, Alex was held captive in an unlicensed "residential treatment program" modeled on the many "therapeutic" boot camps scattered across Utah.

The Last Rescue is an unforgettable tale of brokenness and healing, going deep into the firing line of modern warfare, through the agony of broken marriages, and onto a path of redemption and love. With a clear-eyed view of the inevitability of heartache and the power of God's faithfulness, Howard and Debbie remind us that no matter what our circumstances, we should never, ever, give up hope.

Marcia Brady, eldest daughter on television's The Brady Bunch, had it all. But what viewers didn't know about the always sunny, perfect Marcia was that offscreen, her real-life counterpart, Maureen McCormick was living a very different - and not so wonderful - life. Maureen tells the shocking and inspirational true story of the beloved teen and the woman she became.

A fierce memoir of a mother's murder, a daughter's coming-of-age in the wake of immense loss, and her ultimate mission to know the woman who gave her life.

After waking from a coma following a car crash, Beverly Thornton's once sweet and gentle disposition had been replaced by violent mood swings, profanity-laced tirades, and uncontrollable fits of rage. Inside the Thornton house, floors and countertops were piled high with dirty laundry and garbage because Bev was unable to move well enough to clean. Dinners were a Russian roulette of half-cooked meat, spoiled milk, and foods well past their expiration dates.

Army Wives goes beyond the sound bites and photo ops of military life to bring listeners into the hearts and homes of today's military wives. Biank tells the story of four typical Army wives who, in a flash, find themselves in extraordinary circumstances that ultimately force them to redefine who they are as women and wives.

At the beginning of his physical transition from female to male, then-17-year-old Skylar Kergil posted his first video on YouTube. In the months and years that followed, he recorded weekly update videos about the physical and emotional changes he experienced. Skylar’s openness and positivity attracted thousands of viewers, who followed along as his voice deepened and his body changed shape. Through surgeries and recovery, highs and lows, from high school to college to the real world, Skylar welcomed others on his journey.

When Edward M. Hallowell was 11, a voice out of nowhere told him he should become a psychiatrist. A mental health professional of the time would have called this psychosis. But young Edward (Ned) took it in stride, despite not quite knowing what "psychiatrist" meant. With a psychotic father, an alcoholic mother, an abusive stepfather, and two so-called learning disabilities of his own, Ned was accustomed to unpredictable behaviour from those around him and to a mind he felt he couldn't always control.

Born with cerebral palsy, Geri Jewell inspired a generation of young people when she became the first person with a disability to appear in a recurring role on prime-time television, with her groundbreaking character, Cousin Geri, on the NBC sitcom The Facts of Life. The book's title - I’m Walking As Straight As I Can - has a double meaning, referring to both Jewell's sexuality and her extraordinary struggle growing up with cerebral palsy.

Luisa "Lu" Brant is the newly elected - and first female - state's attorney of Howard County, Maryland, a job in which her widower father famously served. Fiercely intelligent and ambitious, she sees an opportunity to make her name by trying a mentally disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death in her home. It's not the kind of case that makes headlines, but peaceful Howard County doesn't see many homicides.

Diane Guerrero, the television actress from the megahit Orange Is the New Black and Jane the Virgin, was just 14 years old on the day her parents were detained and deported while she was at school. Born in the US, Guerrero was able to remain in the country and continue her education, depending on the kindness of family friends who took her in and helped her build a life and a successful acting career for herself, without the support system of her family.

When Kim Goldman was just 22, her older brother, Ron, was brutally killed by O. J. Simpson. Ron and Kim were very close, and her devastation was compounded by the shocking not guilty verdict that allowed a smirking Simpson to leave as a free man.

At the age of 20, Chris Gardner arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. However, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm, Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him part of the city's working homeless with his toddler son.