By Hook or by Crook: A Tale of Adventure Surviving Child Abuse

This true-adventure story is based on five years of the author's and her sister's childhood. Veronica, a seven-year-old worry wart, and Suzanne, her ten-year-old rambunctious sister, are cast upon kin, then into boarding school in wild and soul-stirring lands. They are set on this stormy course by their newly-widowed father, after he marries a woman who does not want to raise the young girls. When the father's and stepmother's castaway plan fails, a series of harsh and sometimes comical confrontations ensue between the children and parents. Away in West Africa, these girls who are without allies have to contend with a gaslight routine of abuse. They cope by using their childish resourcefulness as a means of defense.