Women Survival Stories

Some bridges are built for crossing. Others are built for burning. She grew up in a house where love was a transaction, silence was a weapon, and survival meant learning how to disappear. Every smile had conditions. Every hug had an expiration date. And every mistake was proof she’d never be enough. But even in the quietest corners, a spark survived. Burning the Bridge I Was Born On is the unflinching story of a daughter who refused to inherit the wounds that raised her. Told with the pace of a novel and the punch of truth, it takes you from the sharp edges of a childhood spent under ...

A Thousand Miles to Freedom is a gripping, deeply human true story of one young Afghan girl’s impossible journey across mountains, borders, sea and war zones in pursuit of the freedom she was told she could never have. She was born into a world shaped by conflict, tradition, and the constant threat of violence, she grew up determined to carve a path beyond the limits placed on Afghan girls. From surviving abusive cultural norms to becoming a nurse through sheer resilience, her life is marked by extraordinary courage. But when she is forced into an intolerable arranged marriage, she makes ...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The incredible true story of survival and salvation that is the basis for two major motion pictures: Unbroken and Unbroken: Path to Redemption. “Extraordinarily moving . . . a powerfully drawn survival epic.”—The Wall Street Journal Hailed as the top...

A devastating earthquake. A fractured heartland. A family torn apart. Cassidy Mason laughs with her classmates on a Kentucky school bus, twisting through backcountry roads. In an instant, the pavement cracks like glass, and the bus tumbles into a ravine. Buried in twisted steel and screams, she claws through agony and fear, forcing herself to emerge into an unknown disaster where safety might not exist. Will Mason grips the wheel of his Ohio River tugboat, calling orders to his crew as another routine shift begins. But when the water heaves like a beast awakened, the river churns into chaos...

A 2026 Audie Awards finalist for Best Nonfiction Narrator! Moving and powerful, this is a vivid portrait of the women who came together to form an orchestra in order to survive the horrors of Auschwitz. New York Times bestselling author of Les Parisiennes and That Woman: A Life of Wallis Simpson...

A True Story of Resilience Survival and Unbroken Spirit A Civilian Dutch Woman in Europe During World War II Treasures of Sadness is the story of Corrie's unbroken spirit. If you love historical fiction, don't miss reading this real life memoir and page-turner: Treasures of Sadness Treasures of Sadness is a real life account of a woman’s journey that began during World War II. Corrie grew up in an affluent neighborhood in Amersfoort, Holland in the 1940’s. From there she fell in love with a German soldier, rubbed elbows with royalty in Vienna, Austria and ended up in a coal mining town ...

"The way Jonas built up the atmosphere of menace to an all-encompassing evil is frightening and shocking. The magnitude, the scale of badness, blew me away." —Liz Nugent, author of Strange Sally Diamond. Nothing escapes. Not even time... Something is wrong in the deep woods of Oregon. Horribly, unnaturally wrong. For decades, people have vanished without a trace—tourists, locals, even law enforcement. The few bodies recovered are unrecognizable: aged decades in days. The government sealed the area with barbed wire and silence. No answers. No access. But when four strangers miss their ...

A widowed mountain girl copes with running her farm, getting another husband, and having children. Above all she strives to protect her mountain from land speculators. His hat was pulled low over his black hair and his shirt sleeves were rolled up almost to his elbows. His hands appeared strong and in control as he held the reins of his high stepping horse. He looked a little thinner than he used to be and a lot more tired. “What’s wrong?” he asked me fast. “You’ve got to go back to Banners Elk,” I told him, forgetting about supper. His eyes widened with concern. “Should you ...

I'd spent thirty-one years playing it safe, and I was suffocating in my own cowardice. Never taking risks. Never doing anything that might go wrong. Just existing in a comfortable, boring life I was desperate to escape. Elysian Meadows terrified me. Lactation induction, pregnancy, and a transformation I couldn't control. Everything I'd spent my life avoiding. That's exactly why I signed the contract. Under Mr. Smith’s steady guidance, I'm discovering that courage isn't the absence of fear. It's doing things despite being afraid. Each challenge I face, each change I accept, proves I'm ...

A mountain girl in the early 1900’s copes with a marriage arranged by her dad. Her story is titled from an old saying “I own my land, heaven-high and hell-deep.” “Your pa gave his consent for us to marry,” he said the words as though it was a simple matter. It wasn’t a romantic proposal of love and devotion. It wasn’t a proposal at all. I opened my mouth but nothing came out. I tried again. “I don’t know your name,” I managed to say as I felt my chest constrict. There was a pain in me that started at my toes and went to the roots of my hair. Dad had come up with a ...

Ya'll, let me tell you my story!Glad you could find your way here, and I welcome you to the Sellers Plantation here in the deep south of Mobile, Alabama. I'm anxious to get started with my story tellin,' so, I'm sharin' a little bout the story that I be tellin' to ya'll down below. When I wuz born, I be given the name Gertrude Ida Rollins, but as I be growin' folks just be callin' me Ms. Gertie. I wuz born in Mobile, Alabama in the year eighteen and eighty-eight. Yes, that be a long time ago for most of ya'll, but I thinks it be good to be learnin' bout the history that be comin' before you...

Survival. Justice. Hope. She was only thirteen when her nightmare began. Ripped from the arms of her murdered mother, Jayme Closs was taken by a man who had fantasized for years about kidnapping a young girl—any girl—and making her his own. For eighty-eight days, Jayme lived in fear and isolation, hidden beneath a bed, trapped in a remote cabin in the woods. But she never gave up hope. When the moment came, she ran—and changed everything. 88 Days: The Abduction of Jayme Closs is a powerful true crime story of unimaginable horror, unbreakable courage, and the pursuit of justice. ...

My Mother's War is a gripping memoir about one woman's unflinching courage and cunning in the face of horrific evil. This compelling true story follows author and Holocaust survivor Michael Fryd's larger-than-life mother who outsmarted the Nazis and saved her family. Michael Fryd was only three years old when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, triggering World War II and one of humanity’s darkest chapters. Forced to leave their home and everything they knew, Fryd's mother went to near impossible lengths to keep her family safe from Hitler’s clutches, including crafting clever lies, dealing in...

The American West was never just a man’s world. In The Forgotten Frontier, bestselling author Richard Fleischman uncovers the extraordinary lives of women who braved the harsh realities of the 19th-century American frontier. Through vivid, deeply researched storytelling, this powerful volume gives voice to the women who crossed mountains, deserts, and boundaries—both physical and social. From midwives who delivered babies on dirt floors to widows who defended their homes with rifles in hand, these women lived at the intersection of grit, grief, resilience, and resolve. Some followed ...

On the morning of November 14, 1992, Annette Herfkens, a top Dutch banker, packed her luggage for a romantic getaway with her longtime fiancé, Willem. At 6:25 that morning, Annette and Willem boarded a plane out of Ho Chi Minh City, with 23 other passengers and six crew members, excited to finally have a vacation together. Six minutes before landing, flying at speed of 300 miles per hour, the plane lost altitude and crashed along a mountain ridge in the jungle of Vietnam.

Why Women Grow is a much-needed exploration of why women turn to the earth, as gardeners, growers and custodians. This book emerged from a deeply rooted desire to share the stories of women who are silenced and overlooked. In doing so, Alice fosters connections with gardeners that unfurl into a tender exploration of women's lives, their gardens and what the ground has offered them, with conversations spanning creation and loss, celebration and grief, power, protest, identity and renaissance.

Myra says, "This is a book about how to overcome life's worst tragedies and your own dumb-ass decisions." It was the scandal that rocked the world of music and destroyed a career. In 1958, rock-and-roll sensation Jerry Lee Lewis stepped off a plane in London to be greeted by a frenzy of fans. His entourage followed, including a teenaged girl. When a reporter asked how she knew the performer, she innocently gave an honest answer. “I’m his wife.” Within hours, headlines erupted with the shocking news that Jerry Lee had secretly married his thirteen-year-old cousin, Myra. The scandal ...

Electroshock therapy, child abuse, and modern-day slavery... just another day in Christine's life. Take a heart-wrenching yet inspiring ride through one woman's incredible journey that is so compelling that you are simultaneously trying to look away and unable to stop yourself from listening on. Christine's father is a wealthy, tyrannical man renowned in the diamond business. At the age of just five, little Christine is cast aside into a boarding school where she is ridiculed for two embarrassing problems. She grows up in a never-ending circle of traumatic experiences.

She was 17 years old on a Christmas Eve flight 40 years ago to join her father for Christmas when the unimaginable happened. The Lockheed L-188A Electra, on the way from Lima to Pucallpa, flew directly into a thunderstorm. A strike of lightning left the plane incinerated and Juliane Diller (Koepcke) still strapped to her plane seat falling through the night air two miles above the Earth. Her survival is unexplainable and considered a modern-day miracle. Her mother was among the 91 dead and Juliane the sole survivor.

In September 1921, four young men and Ada Blackjack, a diminutive 25-year-old Eskimo woman, ventured deep into the Arctic in a secret attempt to colonize desolate Wrangel Island for Great Britain. Two years later, Ada Blackjack emerged as the sole survivor of this ambitious polar expedition. This young, unskilled woman - who had headed to the Arctic in search of money and a husband - conquered the seemingly unconquerable north and survived all alone after her male companions had perished.