An Innocent Child: Can Georgia find the happiness and security she's always wanted?

by Toni Maguire

Georgia's story
An East End story with a colourful backdrop of the grandfather's early association with the Kray Brothers. Her young mother becomes addicted to drugs after taking speed to lose weight and then moves onto other drugs including heroin. The husband sells the house and leaves. The new home becomes a drug den.
The initially happy childhood for the children disappears and they are dirty and neglected. Bouts of remorse and attempts to get clean, fail. Georgia grew up seeing drug abuse, alcohol abuse and violence.
The pattern repeats itself when as a teenager Georgia chooses the wrong man who is very violent and she has three babies before she is twenty. The children are taken away by social services but are then kidnapped by their father. Georgia runs away with him for the safety of her children. He is arrested and sent to prison and the children adopted. On release he grabs Georgia again and beats and rapes her.
Finally she is free of him and at 32, she has been accepted at university to study and become a social worker.
A powerful and complex story with many twists and turns but finally with a good outcome.

Genres: Audiobook

281 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 1, 2024

About the author

“Don’t tell Mummy”, my memoir of my own childhood abuse, became a UK best seller in 2007. Writing about my experiences was hard emotionally, but in retrospect it has helped me deal with my past and realize that there is no shame in being the victim. It is never the child’s fault, whatever the abuser makes them believe at the time. How can it be? I then wrote a sequel, “When Daddy Comes Home”, which deals with the mental trauma of having a father jailed for incest, return to a home where my mother welcomed him back as if nothing had happened and turned her back on me.

My success with my two autobiographies encouraged others who had kept their childhood secrets hidden to approach me and five books depicting their stories followed: Helpless, Nobody Came, Don’t You Love Your Daddy? Can’t Anyone Help Me? All very different, but with one thing in common; the victims all thought they were somehow to blame.

I hope that my books have helped expose and lift the social taboos of acknowledging physical and emotional abuse together mental illness. Whereas children are victims, adults need to be survivors. I not only used my own name in my books, but placed my photograph there as well, making my point that no shame should be attached to having been a victim.

To date I have published over 1.5 million books worldwide. In October last year France published Madeline’s story, “They Stole my Innocence,” which will be available in the UK in August. Before I wrote it, I had started writing my first novel; a mixture of fact and fiction which happily I have now finished, titled “Pretty Maids all in a Row” Set against the capricious, unequal and often cruel landscape of London’s Victorian era, it is the story of Agnes a fisherman’s daughter and Emily a heiress. One travels to London in search for her sister, the other is kidnapped, simply because she is was so beautiful. Both girls are taken to Mary Jefferies, the notorious brothel keeper whose clients were some of the most powerful men in England. Her sponsor was King Leopold, the cousin of Queen Victoria. Against this background the passionate men and women known as the Reformers were striving to get the age of consent. This is a major departure in the style of my writing and I think my previous fan-base and totally new readers of my work will find it enthralling.

Reviews

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review left on good reads.

Began the book on 17/08/24 finished within 2 days - due to being busy but certainly sooner if I wasn’t!

It covers Georgia and her siblings life story and dives into when one person is affected by addiction, it claims not only the person who is addicted but all those around them. It claims more than one life and multiple casualties!

Georgia suffered with not only one parent who had an addiction but two and there are many forms of addiction. What she had to endure in her early childhood is something that no child should have to go through.

Georgia’s story is a powerful instrument that challenges the patterns of addiction, nuture, nature and environmental factors. Georgia and her siblings saw first hand how addictions can tear people apart and cause harm but didn’t mean she to or her siblings had to follow the same pathway.

During adolescence & into young adult hood Georgia was picked first hand and preyed upon for her naivety and age. Her vulnerabilities exposed and left wide open for an evil lurking man to exploit. Would Georgia be able to stop history repeating itself?

I can’t even begin to empathise what Georgia had to face both as a child, in her adolescence and in adulthood. As I shut the book this evening with a lump in my throat, the last words I felt was wow… what a woman and what a story.

Toni Maguire has the most beautiful ability to write so elegantly and intriguingly detailed with the upmost respect and dignity to Georgia and her family. Of course, writing about such deep and profound issues are not easy topics. I can’t begin to imagine the bravery it took to be able to piece together this book for Georgia but I do hope it has been somewhat cathartic for her to relieve this pain and wish her all the best in the future.

[Gail murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read Georgia turner is a strong woman who will always have a broken heart. Social services can be bully's at times

[Kelly Ferrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Innocent Child. by Toni Maguire.
This is the story as told to Toni Maguire by Georgia .. her young childhood as she and her older siblings Sid and Lucy endured … the heartache of what their lives had to endure … then later on as Georgia’s life continued into her progression through her senior years at school and beyond!
Not a life anyone should need to live!

[Rebecca Fowkes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow what another fantastic book from Toni Maguire, I couldn't put it down. I felt so sorry for Georgia, her sister Lucy and her brother Sid for what they had to go through during their childhood especially for Georgia and Lucy.

I had a few tears in places with reading about Georgia's childhood and then when she meets Desmond who she thought would be a lovely partner, she has three children by but ended up in a violent relationship with him who would beat and abuse her.

I'm so pleased to hear that Georgia managed to get out and manage to turn her life around and I was so pleased that Georgia has always had her Nan and Grandad in her life.
I definitely recommend reading this book. Thank you Toni for a fantastic book and Georgia for sharing your story with us.

[Vicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I have said on many occasions I find it difficult to rate someone's life in this instance Georgia. The rating is mainly down to the abundance of grammatical errors and errors within sentences which I would have thought would have been picked up and corrected. Also one of the things that drew me to reading the book was that the writer said how the grandfather was associated with the Krays however this is irrelevant throughout the whole of the book and didn't even need to be added as it had no effect or relevance to any of the events throughout Georgia's life.

[Emily Riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gosh this one was a heavy one! It’s one of those books where you think it can’t get any worse but it does. Or you are genuinely surprised at what happens next in a situation because it’s just so unbelievably awful. I feel terrible for Georgia and wish her life didn’t go this way. I severely and truly hope her boys come back to her one day 💜

[mr paul bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good read

This story based on true love can do easy be beloved as I've known many a Mother stay in that type of relationship & come out of it unbelievablely Alive after all the beatings if. It's not right get out !!!!