The true story of a Romany childhood...Gypsy Princess is a searingly honest account of what life is really like for travelling communities, for girls in particular, and captures a way of life that is slowly fading away. If you enjoyed the memoirs of Mikey Walsh and Jess Smith, you'll be enthralled by Violet Cannon's biography.'A fascinating and enjoyable insight into Gypsy life' - CloserA true blooded Gypsy, Violet...

Born in 1979, Roxy Freeman grew up travelling around Ireland and England in a traditional horse-drawn wagon with her mother and father and six siblings. Life was harsh but it was a childhood of freedom spent in harmony with nature. Roxy didn't know her times-tables but she could milk a goat, ride a horse and cook dinner for the whole family on an open fire before she was ten. Early life was idyllic but when her father brought the family to England, they faced prejudice and hostility and Ro...

This is the incredible story of a boy who escaped from a secret world.Mikey is a Romany Gypsy and grew up living in a caravan on sites across the UK. He adored his family and the rich and vibrant Romany culture he'd inherited. Eventually though he was forced to make a heartbreaking decision - to stay and keep secrets, or escape and find somewhere to finally belong.But Mikey quickly discovers that life in the outside world isn't all he expected. After learning his father had...

Auna Raunea was just two years old when her father threatened to stuff her in a potato sack and throw it in the river. It was only the beginning of what would be a twenty-one year journey through hellat the hands of a man she should have been able to trust implicitly. The Innocent and the Merciless is the true story of how a little girl lost not only her purity, but also her childhood, to a father intent on sexually abusing and emotionally torturing his own blood. Forced to sleep on a bare...

A life lived on the road and a heart that will always belong thereImagine being born into a world where communities are constantly on the move, but freedom is not a birthright. Rosie grew up travelling all over England and Ireland in her family's caravan. She had an idyllic childhood roaming fields and meadows with her younger brothers and sisters - free from the trappings of modern life, but restricted by the expectations of her culture.When Rosie was 14, the family's happ...

Born on a Somerset pea-field in 1941, the second of eight children in a Romani family, Maggie Smith-Bendell has lived through the years of greatest change in the travelling community's long history. As a child, Maggie rode and slept in a horse-drawn wagon, picked hops and flowers, and sat beside her father's campfire on ancient verges, poor but free to roam. As the twentieth century progressed, common land was fenced off and the traditional ways disappeared. Eventually Maggie married a hou...

Born into a Romany gypsy family in 1939, Eva Petulengro’s childhood seemed to her to be idyllic in every way. She would travel the country with her family in their painted caravan and spend evenings by the fire as they sang and told stories of their past. She didn’t go to school or visit a doctor when she was unwell. Instead her family would gather wild herbs to make traditional remedies, hunt game and rabbits, and while the men tended horses to make a living, the young girls would join th...

**SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH**'It was a revelation. Moving, terrifying, funny and brilliant. I shall never forget it - an amazing achievement' STEPHEN FRY'Brash and frightening and funny' NEW YORK TIMES* * * * * *The Sunday Times bestselling Gypsy Boy was the first commercial memoir written by someone on...

In the 1950s the Romani people lived on the brink of great change. In their bright wooden wagons they journeyed between horse-fairs and traditional stopping places - stoic, humorous and wild, often poverty-stricken but protective of their freedom - on the fringes of a society that was soon to close around them. Dominic Reeve describes his life among the Gypsies: the feuds and fairs, the joyful muddy squalor of an outdoor existence. He evokes an unforgettable cast of fireside characters - b...

With the reputation as the hardest and most dangerous female criminal in Britain, Gypsy Jane Lee was feared and respected throughout London's criminal underworld. This is her true story. During a terrifying journey that began as a 14-year-old armed robber, she has been shot four times, tasered three times by police and served three jail terms. Convicted for armed robbery she was released from prison only to go out and attempt to murder four people. Gypsy Jane has led a life packed with cri...

As soon as they'd saved up for the three 'S's' - shoes, suitcase and a suit - they left rural Ireland. It might have been the London of the 1950s where 'No Blacks, No Irish No Dogs' was the welcome put out for immigrants, but for the big family that was Anna May Mangan's, it was still better than the poverty they'd hailed from; 'Don't waste today worrying because tomorrow will be even worse' was their motto. But Ireland came with them in the dance halls, holy water and gossip and there was...

A new memoir from Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author Cathy Glass.When Cathy receives a call about a terminally ill widower terrified of leaving his son all alone in the world, she is wracked with sadness and indecision. Can she risk exposing her own young children to a little boy on the brink of bereavement?Eight year old Michael is part of a family of two, but with his beloved father given only months to live and his mother having died when he was a toddler...