Books by Torey Hayden

From Torey Hayden, the number one Sunday Times bestselling author of One Child comes The Invisible Girl, a deeply moving true account of a young teen with a troubling obsession and an extraordinary educational psychologist's sympathy and determination to help.Eloise is a vibrant and charming young teen with a deeply caring nature, but she also struggles with a worrying delusion. She's been moved from home to home, and her social workers have difficulty dealing with her habit of running away. After experiencing violence, neglect and sexual abuse from people she should have been able to trust, Eloise has developed complex behavioural needs. She struggles to separate fact from fiction, leading to confusion for the social workers trying to help her.After Torey learns of Eloise's background she hopes that some gentle care and attention can help Eloise gain some sense of security in her life. Can Torey and the other social workers provide the loving attention that has so far been missing in Eloise's life, or will she run away from them too?

From the million-copy bestselling author comes the true story of a neglected little girl whose cries for attention have been met in all the wrong ways, until now.

From the author of the phenomenal Sunday Times bestsellers 'One Child' and 'Ghost Girl', comes a startling and poignant memoir of three people's victimisation and abuse - and their heartbreaking but ultimately successful steps to recovery, with the help of Torey Hayden, an extraordinary teacher.Two children trapped in a prison of silence and a woman suffering in the twilight of her years - these are the cases that would test the extraordinary courage, compassion and skill of Torey Hayden and ultimately reaffirm her faith in the indomitable strength of the human spirit.While working in the children's psychiatric ward of a large hospital, Torey was introduced to seven-year-old Cassandra, a child who had been kidnapped by her father and was found dirty, starving and picking though rubbish bins to survive. She refused to speak, so Torey could only imagine what she'd been through. Drake, by contrast, was a charismatic four-year-old who managed to participate fully in his pre-school class without uttering a single word. Then, there was Gerda, eighty-two, who had suffered a massive stroke and was unwilling to engage in conversation with anyone. Although Torey had never worked with adults, she agreed to help when all other efforts had failed.

This beautiful and deeply moving tale recounts educational psychologist Torey Hayden's battle to unlock the emotions of a troubled and sexually abused child who, with the help of Hayden, was finally able to overcome her dark past and realise her full potential. Six-year-old Sheila was abandoned by her mother on a highway when she was four. A survivor of horrific abuse, she never spoke, never cried, and was placed in a class for severely retarded children after committing an atrocious act of violence against another child. Everyone thought Sheila was beyond salvation - except her teacher, Torey Hayden. With patience, skill, and abiding love, she fought long and hard to release a haunted little girl from her secret nightmare - and nurture the spark of genius she recognised trapped within Sheila's silence. This is the remarkable story of their journey together - an odyssey of hope, courage, and inspiring devotion that opened the heart and mind of one lost child to a new world of discovery and joy.