Publication Date: 15th November 2018
Format: Paperback
I.S.B.N.: 9781730823060
Purchase Link
Blurb
Danielle knew early on that she was not like most children at her school. With a chaotic home life riddled with violence, neglect, abuse and poverty she learned early on how to survive and adapt. Every challenge taught her a valuable lesson about resilience and self-motivation allowing her to develop an unshakeable positive mindset, along with a sense of humour. This book takes the reader on a journey detailing the life-changing events which tested Danielle’s resilience and willpower. She bravely shares the difficult choices she was forced to make in order to safeguard her precious family as long-forgotten secrets are revealed. This uplifting, shocking and empowering book chronicles Danielle’s story and her determination to never let her past define her future. It promises to inspire the reader that change and choice are absolutely possible and that nothing is ever insurmountable.
My Review
Thanks to Anne for organising this blog tour and to the author for a copy of her book.
Danielle has been through the ringer in her life, from parental emotional, physical and sexual abuse and neglect, to legal battles to protect her step-children from their narcissistic birth mother, and viscous abuse and harassment by her half-siblings for finally speaking out about the abuse she was subjected to, including using doctored text messages to convince the police that she’d murdered her father. Despite the abuse and malice, the author takes joy in her children and husband, friends, home and career, supports other abuse victims professionally and thrives. She has learnt to be resilient and look to the future.
Her story is a painful one, but her love and grief for her lost grandmothers. who practically raised her, with her maternal aunt, and did their best to protect her from an abusive father and step-mother, and provide the love she didn’t receive from a completely neglectful and absent mother, shine through. Her anger and pain are equally obvious, as is the shining love she has for her husband and children, all six of them!
Very poignantly written memoir and bound to inspire. The writing is compelling, and easy to read, although the text needs some editing.
Edit to add:
I have received communication from a close maternal family member of the author who denies some of the accusations against the author’s mother. I’m not getting involved in other people’s family arguments. I wrote my review based on the information available to me. If that particular person, who appears to have been very close to events both by their own and the author’s admission, wishes to provide their own review or a link to an external review in the comments, then they can.
It’s not my job to decide who is telling the truth and who is lying, but if I’ve been manipulated by anyone involved I will not be happy. I don’t like people trying to take advantage of me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Danielle lives in Devon with her children and husband.
Her own experiences in overcoming adversity allow her to be a positive role model, inspiring others that thriving after surviving is truly possible.
Website : http://www.danielledowney.co.uk/
Twitter: @crazykids48
Everything Is Better With Dragons 
This is “Arty”
I am saddened that you have found it necessary to vilify your mother in such an unbalanced way. Your book is factually incorrect in a number of places and you are definitely guilty of omission.
When your mother left your father she DID take you with her. You and she stayed at your grandparent’s house until the outcome of the custody hearing at which point you went to live with your father. Your mother never lived far away from you and she had constant contact with you. You were her bridesmaid when you were five. My sister moved to Wales at the end of 1981 when you were eight. By this time your father and step mother had bought a house and moved in together. All of your close family believed that you were a happy healthy child and that you were in a stable household.
Your mother kept in contact with you. If you did not receive some of your birthday cards it was not because she did not send them. Your father tried very hard to turn you against your mother as is common in acrimonious divorces. You spent many summers and school holidays with your mother and your three siblings in Wales. As you grew up your mother asked you on many occasions whether you wanted to come and live with her. You always said no.
In 1987, when you were fourteen, I had a call from your school asking me to go there. You were upset because you had had a confrontation with your stepmother and she had tried to hit you with a coat hanger. I took you home with me and left you with your nan and then I went to see your stepmother. I then spoke to your father and suggested that you stay with me for a few weeks to let things cool off and he agreed. There was no sneaking your things into my house. It was not until the beginning1989 that your father became very difficult about you staying with me. It was my husband who told your father what he could do with his threats of no money.
Your mother paid for your sixteenth birthday party at the local village hall. She also paid for your eighteenth birthday party at the Foresters Pub where your stepmother made you a beautiful cake and your father attended. You stayed with me until your went to train as a midwife.
You had a fairy tale wedding when you were twenty three and your mother worked all hours to pay for this. Your dress, back then, cost £800 and you had six brides maids with a full reception at a hotel. Ninety per cent of your wedding was paid for by your mother and her husband. With your new husband you moved to Dorset/Somerset where you remained for a number of years.
On the birth of your first child it was your mother and sister who rushed down to you and stayed with you for support. Your second child was also born with support from your mother. Your mother also came down to you for your children’s early birthdays. After the breakup of your first marriage you remained in Dorset/Somerset and married your current partner buying a house together. Your mother, father, step mother and step father were all in attendance at the wedding.
In 2006 you made the decision to move from Dorset/Somerset back to the Midlands less than three miles from your abusive father and cruel stepmother. If you were “safe guarding” your by now six children, why would you do this? You moved fifteen miles away in 2010 after spending four years close to your father. Your father still visited you after you moved.
Your account of my mother dying is inaccurate. You and I arrived at the hospital together where we were told by the nursing staff that she was dying and that I should notify anyone who needed to be with her. We were also told that she had had a stroke and was unable to speak so she did not greet you when we arrived. I rang my sister and my daughter and they arrived some three/four hours later. I did not leave the hospital; why would I? My mother could have died at any time. You did not go in a room with a doctor, the only doctor we saw was after your mother arrived and she and I spoke to him. You did sing to your nan and you were lovely with her. My sister sat with my mother holding her hand and you and she stayed with her when the hospital Chaplin came in to pray with her. My sister and mother did have a fractious relationship but your mother was very caring at her dying mother’s bedside.
There is no explanation in your book as to why “Anne” denied telling you of her abuse so soon after her revelation. There is also no reason given for your three siblings on your mother’s side not speaking to you. It was not your mother who referred to you as “prickly and difficult to be around”. It was your mother’s other daughter, your sister.
I do not know why you have chosen to change history but it is unkind, cruel and thoughtless to have publicly used your mother to sensationalise your story. It appears that you have used this account of your life as a vehicle to enhance your business interests. I am so disappointed that someone as capable as you has chosen to do this.
Thank you so much for your Blog Tour support Rosemarie x
Here is my open thoughts to Danielle Downey about her book and subsequent behaviours.
Danielle who I’m ashamed to say is my cousin, has peddle pushed this story and I’m a victim far enough. You will note that she is constantly banging on about her truth is her truth, well that’s all very well but recorded irrefutable facts are facts and absolute truth, not what you have decided is your truth! The so called quibble about dates, again are statements of fact that can not be disputed and call into question the validity of your claims. What you also seem to dismiss is that this so called life of yours that you are writing about does not just have one character in it, all be it with your narcissism you have very much made it the Dannie show. You have chosen to write about facts and events that involve other people, and yet your arrogance makes you think that the people you have written about should not question, challenge or correct what you have said about them or others because you say it’s your story!! Well your story does not match that of the many other people who were around you all through your life, and your story also cannot deny cold hard facts. Even after writing this appalling book, you are still trying to play the victim by saying that you are being bullied; what because people dare to stand up and call you out. If challenging what you have written in your book is bullying, then you are the biggest bully of all, with all the mud slinging and hurtful things you have said in there. Please tell me how you can say what you like about anyone and that’s perfectly fine, but the moment someone says something you don’t like its bullying??? What my mother wrote was just the tip of the iceberg of the inaccuracies of your book, but she would of had to of written a novel herself to correct every bit of fabrication you have put down in words. Personally I don’t believe anything you say, as for one there are facts that can not be changed to meet your stories agenda and two I grew up with you as well as spending a lot of our adult time together when you lived down south, and I have to say you had the most pedestrian boring life of anyone I know. I assume this is the reason you decided to make up this whole new past, unfortunately in doing so you have public altered other people’s past and not to benefit them as you have yourself. Now I’m sure you are going to kick off and tell everyone that I’m bullying you and how dare I says these things about you, well I’m just going to quote you in saying this is my truth and my perception, so how is this any different from you saying what you like about people in your book. If what I write about you is bullying then shame on you for all the people you bullied in your book. You have said how you hid away and were shaking and upset etc when the haters started. Well how do you think the people you wrote about felt when you publicly hated on them in your book. You are just as much as a bully and a hater as you are calling other people out to be, and the victims in your book may have felt so upset and wanted to hide away because of your hate campaign. See it works both ways round being the victim and the bully. I can tell you now that my Nan who you talk about and recount falsely of her last hours in hospital would be turning in her grave and be utterly disgusted by what you have done. I know that if nanny were alive now she would disown you to, just like the rest of your family. Oh one last thing what sort of person writes all those hateful things about their mother, and while they are doing so makes no mention of this to the mother they are meeting and pretending to reconnect with; looking her in the eye chatting away, with no mention of the vile hatred that you were poring out on to pages of a book that you were soon to pay thousands to have published. What sort of person does that??? I would say the cold and calculating Danielle, that is the real you and not this made up persona that you present on social media and in your business networking. But you tell me !!
Two things:
1. I don’t think Danielle will be reading your comments as THIS ISN’T HER BLOG AND I DON’T KNOW HER;
2. Could you please keep your family feud between yourselves, rather than dragging bookbloggers into it.
If you want to take my comment off please do. We are just sick of Danielle promoting her lies and duping peolple in to thinking she is some kind of victim and vilifying our family. It is not to drag other people into it, just to try and stop this one sided promotion of something that has very little truth to it.