This is the first book in a trilogy which tells the story of a young South African woman who is abused both physically and mentally through two marriages and the threat of losing her children in a court of law. The story begins with her first encounter with sexual abuse as a child in coercion into a marriage to a man that she does not love. The abuses in this union are described in detail, and the readers are provided with a chilling portrait of male brutality and innocence betrayed, and also of a family's protracted denial. Damaged both emotionally and physically and standing at the very gates of hell, she finally finds the courage to extricate herself. Her escape reads like the pages of a thriller, and the relief is palpable. She has burnt her bridges and has no choice but to move forward. Take her or leave her, accept her suffering or hate her, but do not be her judge. She is no less a woman for her ordeals and the way she responded to them. Sometimes it takes the worst kind of pain to bring out the strongest desire of self-determination.