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True Story Books

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True Story Books have some most inspirational tales of love, survival and success throughout history— the type of tales that can stop you in your tracks and make you reevaluate life. Our range of true-life books has everything from celebrity stories to some of the most fascinating stories you've never heard of. To find the perfect one for you, just use the filters below.

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Discover the fullest possible account of the crimes of the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, including those he was not charged with and has never previously been connected to… The police believed Sutcliffe was operating only in the Greater Manchester Police, South Yorkshire Police and West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police force areas, using his car. In fact, Sutcliffe was operating nationally and internationally, using his employer’s lorry to commit attacks. Authors Chris Clark and Tim Hicks have meticulously researched Sutcliffe’s crimes and reveal many of his previously unknown victims for the first time.  The police failed to deliver justice for the victims’ families, and the media has failed to hold the police to account for this failure – both in the original investigation and in subsequent cold-case investigations.    By bringing more of the facts of the case into the public domain and by telling the victims’ stories, this book helps to bring closure for friends and relatives of victims of the Yorkshire Ripper. Product Information:  • ISBN: 9781802472042 • Author: Chris Clark & Tim Hicks • Publisher: Ad Lib Publishers Ltd • Format: Paperback • Pages: 240 • Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.1 x 1.5 cm

3.9 ({1})
£3.00 RRP £9.99 Save £6.99 (70% Off RRP)

January, 1945. 14-year-old Moshe Kessler steps off the train at Buchenwald concentration camp. Having endured the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau, lost touch with his entire family, and survived the death march in the freezing European winter, he has seen more than his share of tragedy. Moshe knows only one thing about Buchenwald. Everyone knows it. If you want to survive, you have to get to Block 66. The Germans are cruel and determined - but they are not prepared for Buchenwald's secret resistance, which rises up with one mission only: to protect the camp's children from harm. This is the incredible true story of Moshe Kessler and Block 66 - the children's block that was at the forefront of one of the most shocking and inspiring stories of Holocaust survival. Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781802472509 • Author:  Limor Regev • Publisher:  Ad Lib Publishers Ltd • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  244 • Dimensions: 19.7 x 12.8 x 1.8 cm

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£2.50

Otto Rosenberg is 9 and living in Berlin, poor but happy, when his family are first detained. All around them, Sinti and Roma families are being torn from their homes by Nazis , leaving behind schools, jobs, friends, and businesses to live in forced encampments outside the city. One by one, families are broken up, adults and children disappear or are 'sent East'. Otto arrives in Auschwitz aged 15 and is later transferred to Buechenwald and Bergen-Belsen. He works, scrounges food whenever he can, witnesses and suffers horrific violence and is driven close to death by illness more than once. Unbelievably, he also joins an armed revolt of prisoners who, facing the SS and certain death, refuse to back down. Somehow, through luck, sheer human will to live, or both, he survives. The stories of Sinti and Roma suffering in Nazi Germany are all too often lost or untold. In this haunting account, Otto shares his story with a remarkable simplicity. Deeply moving, A Gypsy in Auschwitz is the incredible story of how a young Sinti boy miraculously survived the unimaginable darkness of the Holocaust. Product Information: • ISBN: 9781800961128 • Author: Otto Rosenberg • Publisher: Monoray • Format: Paperback • Pages: 240 • Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.6 x 2.2cm

3.5 ({1})
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"My life will always be in danger. My beautiful sister Banaz Mahmod was murdered in an ‘honour killing’ ordered by our father and uncle. If those evil men find me, they will kill me too." Bekhal Mahmod was one of six siblings from a Sunni Muslim family in Iraqi Kurdistan who sought a new life as asylum seekers and arrived in London in 1998. When Bekhal's father tried to force her into an arranged marriage at 15, she ran away. This caused her father to ‘lose respect’ within the Kurdish community and Bekhal became the target of an honour killing and her younger sisters Banaz and Payzee were quickly married off to restore the family's reputation. When Banaz left her husband, claiming he'd beaten and raped her, Mahmod decided this 'shame' to the family meant Banaz must die. Within weeks, she had vanished. Her body was finally discovered, crammed into a suitcase and buried in a garden in Birmingham. Banaz, age 20, had been raped and killed in a sickening plot orchestrated by her father and uncle. Still fearing for her own life, Bekhal bravely faced her father and uncle in court - making her the first female in British legal history to give evidence against family members in an honour killing trial - and won justice for her beloved sister Banaz. Bekhal now has a new identity after entering the police witness protection programme. She lives in terror of her father’s release from jail. This is her story. Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781913543051 • Author:  Bekhal Mahmod  • Publisher:  Ad Lib Publishers Ltd • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  240 • Dimensions: 12.7 x 2.03 x 19.69 cm

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A story of astonishing resilience and compassion... In 1943, the Dutch champion boxer, Leen Sanders, was sent to Auschwitz. His wife and children were put to death while he was sent 'to the left' with the others who were fit enough for labour. Recognised by an SS officer, he was earmarked for a 'privileged' post in the kitchens in exchange for weekly boxing matches for the entertainment of the Nazi guards. From there, he enacted his resistance to their limitless cruelty. With great risk and danger to his own life, Leen stole, concealed and smuggled food and clothing from SS nursing units for years to alleviate the unbearable suffering of the prisoners in need. He also regularly supplied extra food to the Dutch women in Dr. Mengele's experiment, Block 10. To his fellow Jews in the camp, he acted as a rescuer, leader and role model, defending them even on their bitter death march to Dachau towards the end of the war.  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781788404303 • Author:  Erik Brouwer  • Publisher:  Cassell • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  336 • Dimensions:  12.7 x 1.91 x 20.32 cm

5 ({1})
£2.50 Was £3.00 RRP £8.99 Save £6.49 (72% Off RRP)

I was unwanted, beaten, sold, swapped, photographed, filmed, left for dead, corrupted, blamed, betrayed, ignored and orphaned. But I was also born with a fire inside me. I call it my Phoenix Fire. I am no victim – that word only describes what happened to me. Nor am I a survivor because that implies I am over it. I am a Phoenix – a work in progress. This is my story…” Product Information: • ISBN: 9781914451003 • Author: Shy Keenan • Publisher: Mardle Books • Format: Paperback • Pages: 311 • Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.9 cm

4.7 ({1})
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From the crime scene to the courtroom, When the Dogs Don't Bark is the remarkable story of a life spent searching for the truth... Never before has criminal justice rested so heavily on scientific evidence. With ever-more sophisticated and powerful techniques at their disposal, forensic scientists have an unprecedented ability to help solve even the most complex cases. Angela Gallop has been a forensic scientist for over 40 years. After joining the Forensic Science Service, the first crime scene she attended was for a case involving the Yorkshire Ripper. As well as working on a wide range of cases in many countries around the world, she is now the most sought-after forensic scientist in the UK, where she has helped solve numerous high-profile cases, including the investigation that finally absolved the Cardiff Three the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path murders, and the killings of Stephen Lawrence, Damilola Taylor, Rachel Nickell and Roberto Calvi. Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781473678859 • Author:  Angela Gallop • Publisher:  Hodder Paperbacks • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  368 • Dimensions: 12.8 x 2.6 x 19.6 cm

4.7 ({1})
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When they are little girls, Cibi, Magda and Livia make a promise to their father - that they will stay together, no matter what. Years later, at just 15, Livia is ordered to Auschwitz by the Nazis. Cibi, only 19 herself, remembers their promise and follows Livia, determined to protect her sister, or die with her. Together, they fight to survive through unimaginable cruelty and hardship. Magda, only 17, stays with her mother and grandfather, hiding out in a neighbour's attic or in the forest when the Nazi militia come to round up friends, neighbours and family. She escapes for a time, but eventually she too is captured and transported to the death camp. In Auschwitz-Birkenau the three sisters are reunited and, remembering their father, they make a new promise, this time to each other: That they will survive. Product Information: • ISBN: 9781838774592 • Author: Heather Morris • Publisher: Zaffre • Format: Paperback • Pages: 400 • Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.8 x 2.54 cm

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Louise gets a frantic call to take in a damaged and destructive young girl. Separated from her siblings, Sparkle is hostile and angry. A short while after settling in, Sparkle begins to identify as pansexual. A revolution is underway in the Allen household, with Sparkle’s transition motivating all of the young people to explore what becoming an adult means for them. But it’s Sparkle’s escalating behaviour that causes concern. Discovering a dark fact about Sparkle’s birth and the shocking events that the children in her house were part of, Louise is desperate for more help – and not just for the child in her care. As Sparkle’s erratic and violent behaviour increases, Louise finds herself and her homelife under serious threat. Product Information:  • ISBN: 9781915306555 • Author: Louise Allen • Publisher: Mirror Books • Format: Paperback • Pages: 288 • Dimensions: 19.9 x 2.4 x 12.9 cm

4.9 ({1})
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Check out this terrifying True Crime Stories book by Al Cimino! Learn more about the world's most monstrous murderers...  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781398827769 • Author:  Al Cimino • Publisher:  Arcturus Publishing Ltd • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  96 • Dimensions:  23.4  x 1.6 x 15.3 cm

3.9 ({1})
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My mother once said to me, ‘I wish you could feel the way I do for eighteen seconds. Just eighteen seconds, so you’d know how awful it is.’ I thought about it. Realised we could all learn from being in another person’s head for eighteen seconds. Eighteen seconds inside Grandma Roberts’ head as she sat alone with her evening cup of tea, us girls upstairs in bed. Eighteen seconds inside one-year-old Colin’s head when he woke up in a foster home without his family. Eighteen seconds inside the head of a girl waiting for her bedroom door to open. Writer, Louise Beech, looks back on the events that led to the day her mother wrote down her last words, then jumped off the Humber Bridge. She missed witnessing the horror herself by minutes. Louise recounts the pain and trauma of her childhood alongside her love for her siblings with a delicious dark humour and a profound voice of hope for the future. Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781837700202 • Author:  Louise Beech  • Publisher:  Mardle Book • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  240 • Dimensions: 12.7 x 2.03 x 19.69 cm

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Investigate 27 horrifying cases in the recent history of true crime… This book presents some of the most disturbing cases of the past hundred and fifty years, and the people who solved them. Each compelling case combines an account of what happened with contemporary photos that help set the scene. Cases include: Jack the Ripper and his reign of terror, Fred and Rosemary West’s House of Horrors, John Wayne Gacy, the Killer Clown and Alexander Pichushkin, the Chessboard Killer. Why did they kill and why did they initially avoid detection? Investigate the theories surrounding the case, media commentary and follow the trials. Look at forensic evidence and find out how the case was solved… Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781802420616 • Author:  Leo Moynihan • Publisher:  New Burlington • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  176 • Dimensions:  23 x 17 x 1.5cm

3.9 ({1})
£5.00 RRP £12.99 Save £7.99 (62% Off RRP)

US President John F. Kennedy's killing in Dallas, Texas, in November 1963, sent a shockwave around the world. The charismatic young Democrat was seen as a beacon of hope in the West, but his liberal reforming policies had made him many powerful enemies at home. For sixty years, numerous theories have swirled around this key event in American - and world - history. Yet whatever the conclusions of the official Warren Report - that the President had been assassinated by a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald - many people doubt that to be true. Indeed, President Nixon later admitted on tape that the report was 'a hoax committed on the American people.' John Hughes-Wilson, a former colonel in British Intelligence, has sifted through the millions of words and thousands of pieces of evidence, to put together an intelligence assessment of what really happened that dreadful high noon in Dallas in 1963. Reading this astounding book, no one can be in any doubt that JFK's death was not at the hands of a lone deranged gunman, but a deadly plot to remove a President who threatened vested interests at home and abroad.  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781789467376 • Author:  John Hughes-Wilson • Publisher:  John Blake • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  368 • Dimensions: 12.9 x 2.1 x 19.8 cm   

4.7 ({1})
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Letters from Serial Killers is a unique study of the criminal mind based on the author's extensive correspondence with convicted serial murderers.  Such a collection is extremely rare, and among the killers whose correspondence is examined are: Arthur John Shawcross, aka 'The Genesee River Killer'; Phillip Carl Jablonski, aka 'The Death Row Teddy'; Melanie Lyn McGuire, aka 'The Ice Queen'; Harvey 'The Hammer' Louis Carignan, aka 'The Want-ad Killer'; Ian Stewart Brady, aka 'The Moors Murderer'; Hal Karen and Ronald 'Butch' Joseph DeFeo Jr, aka 'The Amityville Horror'; Gary Ray Bowles, aka 'The I-95 Killer';John 'J.R.' Edward Robinson, aka 'The Slavemaster' Letters from Serial Killers is Christopher Berry-Dee at his steeliest best - exploring the downright creepy correspondence with murderers, serial killers and psychopaths behind bars, with exclusive scans of letters and eerily decorated envelopes. A must-have for fans of the series, based on a collection that will eventually be bequeathed to the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit at its headquarters at Quantico, Virginia.  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781789466584 • Author:  Christopher Berry-Dee • Publisher:  John Blake • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  336 • Dimensions:   33.5 x 19.9 x 3.6 cm

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£4.00

In 1930, at the age of twenty-seven, Liesl Herbst was the Austrian National Tennis Champion, a celebrity in Vienna. Liesl, her husband David and their daughter Dorli came to Britain after escaping the Nazis. In London, though initially stripped of their Austrian passports and rendered stateless aliens, both Liesl and her daughter Dorli competed at Wimbledon. They remain the only mother and daughter ever to have played doubles together at Wimbledon. This moving story of escape and survival is told by Liesl’s grand-daughter, Dorli’s daughter. Some of the story, the author heard first-hand from her grandmother; the rest, she has meticulously researched over many years in four countries.  It is as much a search for the author’s own identity as for her own children and grandchildren to ensure that their remarkable family history is never lost again.  Illustrated throughout with family photographs and original documents, this is a story of survival against terrible odds, an inspiring tale of resilience and hope.     Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781802471199 • Author:  Felice Hardy • Publisher:  Ad Lib Publishers • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  286 • Dimensions: 12.7 x 2.03 x 19.69 cm

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Discover the true story of Victorian Scotland's trial of the century. It was a case that rocked Victorian society. Emile L'Angelier was a working-class immigrant from the Channel Islands who began a clandestine affair with prominent Glasgow socialite Madeleine Smith. Six weeks after Emile threatened to show Madeleine's father their passionate letters, on 23 March 1857, he was found dead from arsenic poisoning. The evidence against Madeleine seemed overwhelming as she went to trial for murdering her lover. Douglas MacGowan's vivid account reads by turns like a thriller, a love story and a courtroom drama. He quotes extensively from contemporary sources, notably the pathology reports, the trial testimony and the infamous correspondence between Madeleine and Emile, whose explicit content so shocked Victorian sensibilities. Ultimately it is up to the reader to judge Madeleine's guilt or innocence.  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781846975806 • Author:  Douglas MacGowan • Publisher:  Polygon  • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  256 • Dimensions: 12.7 x 1.91 x 20.32 cm

3.3 ({1})
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How does it feel to be betrayed by your closest friend? A close friend who turns out to be the most prolific grifter in New York City... This is the true story of Anna Delvey (real name Anna Sorokin), the fake heiress whose dizzying deceit and elaborate con-artistry deceived the Soho hipster scene before her ruse was finally and dramatically exposed. After meeting through mutual friends, the 'Russian heiress' Anna Delvey and Rachel DeLoache Williams soon became inseparable. Theirs was an intoxicating world of endless excess: high dining, personal trainer sessions, a luxury holiday... and Anna footed almost every bill. But after Anna's debit card was declined in a Moroccan medina whilst on holiday in a five-star luxury resort, Rachel began to suspect that her increasingly mysterious friend was not all she seemed. This is the incredible story of how Anna Sorokin conned the high-rollers of the NYC social scene and convinced her close friend of an entirely concocted fantasy, the product of falsified bank documents, bad cheques and carefully edited online photos. Written by Rachel DeLoache Williams, the Vanity Fair photography editor who believed Anna's lies before helping the police to track her down (fittingly, deciphering Anna's location using Instagram), this is Catch Me If You Can with Instagram filters. Between Anna, Fyre Festival's Billy McFarland (Anna even tried to scam Billy) and Elizabeth Holmes, whose start-up app duped the high and mighty of Silicon Valley, this is the year of the scammer.  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781787478305 • Author:  Rachel DeLoache Williams  • Publisher:  Quercus • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  304 • Dimensions: 19.2 x 2 x 12.8 cm

5 ({1})
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The story of the unsung heroines who flew the newest, fastest, aeroplanes in World War II – mostly in southern England where the RAF was desperately short of pilots. Why would the well-bred daughter of a New England factory-owner brave the U-boat blockades of the North Atlantic in the bitter winter of 1941? What made a South African diamond heiress give up her life of house parties and London balls to spend the war in a freezing barracks on the Solent? And why did young Margaret Frost start lying to her father during the Battle of Britain? They – and scores of other women – weren't allowed to fly in combat, but what they did was nearly as dangerous. Unarmed and without instruments or radios, they delivered planes for the Air Transport Auxiliary to the RAF bases from which male pilots flew into battle. At the mercy of the weather and any long-range enemy aircraft that pounced on them, fifteen of these women died, among them Amy Johnson, Britain's most famous flyer. But the survivors shared four unrepeatable years of life, adrenaline and love. The story of this 'tough bunch of babes' (in the words of one of them) has never been told properly before. The author has travelled to four continents to interview all the surviving women pilots, who came not just from the shires of England, but also from the U.S.A, Chile, Australia, Poland and Argentina. Paid £ 6 a week, they flew up to 16 hours a day in 140 different types of aircraft, though most of them liked Spitfires the best. Product Information: • ISBN:  9780008490607 • Author:  Giles Whittell • Publisher:  Harper Press • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  304 • Dimensions:  12.9 x 2.2 x 19.8 cm

4.3 ({1})
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The Boy Who Drew Auschwitz presents a rare living testimony through the eyes of a child who had the unique ability to observe and remember every detail around him and chose to document it all. Thomas Geve was just 15 years old when he was liberated from Buchenwald concentration camp on 11 April 1945. It was the third concentration camp he had survived. Upon arrival at Auschwitz- Birkenau, Thomas was separated from his mother and left to fend for himself in the men’s camp of Auschwitz I, at the age of 13. During the 22 months he was imprisoned, he was subjected to, and forced to observe first-hand, the inhumane world of Nazi concentration camps. On his eventual release Thomas felt compelled to capture daily life in the death camps in more than eighty profoundly moving drawings. Infamous scenarios synonymous with this dark period of history were portrayed in poignant but simplistic detail with extraordinary accuracy. Despite the unspeakable events he experienced, Thomas decided to become an active witness and tell the truth about life in the camps. He has spoken to audiences from around the world and continues to raise awareness about the Holocaust.  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9780008406394 • Author:  Thomas Geve • Publisher:  HarperCollins • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  352 • Dimensions: 12.9 x 2.7 x 19.8 cm

4.3 ({1})
£5.00 RRP £8.99 Save £3.99 (44% Off RRP)

A leading journalist's intense, riveting and personal investigation into the worlds and minds of cults. At a new age festival in Byron Bay, Australia, German journalist Anke Richter is finding her spiritual awakening when she meets a woman – a survivor of the Centrepoint cult – who will change the course of her life and career. Over the next ten years, Anke pursued a labyrinthine investigation into how and why cults attract, entrap and destroy otherwise ordinary people, asking what the line is between tribe and cult, participant and perpetrator, seduction and sexual abuse.  From the emotional and criminal carnage of Centrepoint in Auckland, New Zealand, to an anti-cult conference in Manchester, the infamous Osho’s ashram in India, the tantric Agama Yoga school in remote Thailand and culminating in a visit to Gloriavale on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island, Anke uncovers a disturbing pattern of violence and suffering.  Cult Trip is a powerful exploration of what really goes on inside the groups we call cults, and how to reckon with their aftermath. Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781802471762 • Author:  Anke Richter  • Publisher:  Ad Lib Publishers Ltd • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  352 • Dimensions: 20.5 x 2.5 x 12.8 cm

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£2.50