Survivor Biography

In 2003, Carolyn Jessop, a lifelong member of the extremist Mormon sect the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), gathered up her eight children, including her profoundly disabled four-year-old son, and escaped in the middle of the night to freedom. After detailing the shocking conditions of FLDS and her harrowing flight in her memoir, Escape, Carolyn reveled in her newfound identity as a bestselling author, a devoted mom, and a loving companion to the wonderful man in her life. She thought she had put her past firmly behind her.

The story begins as Colleen and Newell Cerak first learn the doubtful, then shocking news that their daughter, buried five weeks earlier, is still alive. Forming a backdrop to the reunion are the faces of the Van Ryn family, strangers to the Ceraks, who are just coming to terms with the harsh reality that the girl whose bedside they have been posted at for five weeks is not their daughter after all - and that their own daughter, Laura, has already been buried under the name of Whitney Cerak.

Billy Wayne Sinclair was only 21 when he heard the Louisiana judge pronounce these words: "I hereby sentence you to death in the electric chair." It was the culmination of a botched holdup committed the year before in which Billy had accidentally shot and killed a man. Billy spent the next 40 years in Angola Prison - one of the country’s worst - six of those years on death row. When in 1972 the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty as arbitrary and capricious, Billy was re-sentenced to life without parole.

Told by a former high-level member of the Peoples Temple and Jonestown survivor, Seductive Poison is the "truly unforgettable" (Kirkus Reviews) story of how one woman was seduced by one of the most notorious cults in recent memory and how she found her way back to sanity.

Al Green has blessed listeners with some of the biggest hits of the past 50 years. "Love and Happiness", "I'm Still in Love with You", "Let's Get Married", and "I'm Tired of Being Alone" are but a sampling of the iconic songs that led a generation to embrace love in perhaps the most tumultuous period in this country's history, an unparalleled body of work that has many calling Green one of the greatest soul singers of all time.

Tom Crean was the farmer’s son from Kerry who sailed on three major expeditions to the unknown Antarctic over a century ago. He served with both Captain Robert Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton, spent longer on the ice than either and outlived them both. But Tom Crean returned to Ireland and never spoke about his exploits, taking his incredible story to the grave - until the publication of An Unsung Hero, which unearthed his story and saw him rightfully placed amongst the annals of the great explorers.

After three years as a killing-field slave, seventeen-year-old Bun Yom escaped from the Khmer Rouge and became a freedom fighter. Using his wisdom, courage, and infinite compassion, Bun rescued thousands of Cambodian people and soon became the Cambodian Freedom Fighters’ greatest soldier. Tomorrow I’m Dead is the only known first-person account of the freedom fighter’s heroic liberation of slaves from the Khmer Rouge killing fields.

Philip Yancey, whose explorations of faith have made him a guide for millions, feels no need to defend the church. Yancey acknowledges that many spiritual seekers find few answers and little solace in the institutional church. How did Yancey manage to survive spiritually despite early encounters with a racist, legalistic church that he now views as almost cultic? In this, his most soul-searching book yet, he probes that very question.

When he first met the man who called himself David Koresh, David Thibodeau was drumming for a rock band that was going nowhere fast. Intrigued and frustrated with a stalled music career, Thibodeau gradually became a follower and moved to the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. He remained there until April 19, 1993, when the compound was stormed and burnt to the ground after a 51-day standoff. In this book, Thibodeau explores why so many people came to believe that Koresh was divinely inspired.

In 2015, Maggie Nichols’s gymnastics career was on fire. Having spent most of her young life training as an elite-level gymnast, Maggie carried the team all-around at the 2015 World Championships, helping to cinch the team gold medal. Next in her sights was the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. She was eagerly looking forward to training for the 2016 Olympic Games along with teammates such as Aly Raisman, Simone Biles, and Laurie Hernandez. But on the verge of achieving her lifelong Olympic dream, her world came crashing down.

Betty Ford: First Lady, Women’s Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer is the inspiring story of an ordinary Midwestern girl thrust onto the world stage and into the White House under extraordinary circumstances. Setting a precedent as first lady, Betty Ford refused to be silenced by her critics as she publicly championed equal rights for women and spoke out about issues that had previously been taboo - breast cancer, depression, abortion, and sexuality.

Consent is the story of one precocious young girl’s stolen adolescence. Devastating in its honesty, Vanessa’s painstakingly memoir lays bare the cultural attitudes and circumstances that made it possible for a 13-year-old girl to become involved with a 50-year-old man who happened to be a notable writer. As she recalls the events of her childhood and her seduction by one of her country’s most notable writers, Vanessa reflects on the ways in which this disturbing relationship changed and affected her as she grew older.

Seeing every challenge as an opportunity for growth, Dr. Ichak Adizes moved beyond a childhood marked by imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp and immigration to an unfamiliar country to discover the benefits of opening his heart. Rejecting isolation and fear, he became a renowned thought leader who advises companies and governments worldwide on structuring thriving organizations around a culture of trust and respect. Dr. Adizes’s personal story is more than a string of external events that propelled him through adversity after adversity to become the compassionate person he is today.

In March 2015, Denise Huskins and her boyfriend Aaron Quinn awoke from a sound sleep into a nightmare. Armed men bound and drugged them, then abducted Denise. Warned not to call the police or Denise would be killed, Aaron agonized about what to do. Finally he put his trust in law enforcement and dialed 911. But instead of searching for Denise, the police accused Aaron of her murder. His story, they told him, was just unbelievable. When Denise was released alive, the police turned their fire on her, dubbing her the “real-life ‘Gone Girl’” who had faked her own kidnapping.

Assigned to the 504th Bombardment Group in the Pacific Theater, Hanley became a flight engineer on a B-29 bomber squad. On his seventh mission, he and his crew were shot down over Japan. In Accused War Criminal, Hanley shares his experiences from his training and commissioning to his deployment on a failed mission that led to his capture. He recounts how he managed to survive as a prisoner of war until his eventual rescue and recovery. With candid honesty and telling details, this is a humbling and harrowing tale of one man's bravery under unimaginable circumstances.

Wondering if science could explain how he survived his 40-year avalanche of drugs and alcohol, Ozzy Osbourne became one of a handful of people in the world to have his entire DNA mapped in 2010. It was a highly complex, $65,000 process, but the results were conclusive: Ozzy is a genetic anomaly. The "Full Ozzy Genome" contained variants that scientists had never before encountered and the findings were presented at the prestigious TEDMED Conference in San Diego - making headlines around the world.

When Brother Nathan was a child in Egypt, he witnessed the unthinkable - his own father's murder at the hands of terrorists. At first he struggled with his powerful urge to seek revenge against his father's assassins. Today he ministers in the very village where his father was killed as well as in countless other cities and villages across Egypt and throughout the Middle East.

Through the lens of the natural world around her, the young cancer survivor reveals the intensely private and deeply emotional aspects of fighting for her life. Sometimes with a pinch of humor but always with raw honesty, she holds on to bright hope that warmly invites you to share in her journey.

Erika Krouse has one of those faces. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” people say, spilling confessions. In fall 2002, Erika accepts a new contract job investigating lawsuits as a private investigator. The role seems perfect for her, but she quickly realizes she has no idea what she’s doing. Then a lawyer named Grayson assigns her to investigate a sexual assault, a college student who was attacked by football players and recruits at a party a year earlier. Erika knows she should turn the assignment down.

Laura Johnston Kohl was born in Washington, D.C. She actively fought for civil rights and free speech, and against the Vietnam War throughout the 1960s. After trying to effect change single-handedly, she found she needed more hands. She joined Peoples Temple in 1970, living and working in the progressive religious movement in both California and Guyana. A fluke saved her from the mass murders and suicides on November 18, 1978, when 913 of her beloved friends died in Jonestown.