In this piercing memoir, award-winning novelist Connie May Fowler tells the remarkable story of the abusive relationships she has endured, and the unexpected gifts of love that helped her survive. Connie May Fowler's passage to adulthood was marked by emotional suffering and physical abuse. Her mother was manipulative and needy, unable to give her daughter the love and comfort every child has a right to expect. Then, as a young woman, Fowler found herself involved with a man whose behaviour disturbingly echoed her mother's. But the unconditional love she longed for finally came - in the shape of an adoring cross-breed puppy. With Katie at her side, Fowler managed to create a small refuge amid the horrors that surrounded her, and to open her life to a new, gentle man, whose love and understanding helped to transform her.