Sharon Stinson is the author of A Child’s Hell & Torment, a powerful memoir documenting the devastating abuse suffered by a child failed by every system meant to protect her. Through unflinching testimony, Stinson exposes the hidden horrors of familial abuse, adoption trauma, and institutional betrayal. Her writing amplifies survivors’ voices and demands accountability for those who knew and did nothing.
Sharon Stinson writes from a place of profound survival and testimony. Through A Child’s Hell & Torment, she gives voice to the voiceless, documenting the unthinkable abuse endured by Sara Marie at the hands of those who should have protected her. Stinson’s work emerges from the tradition of survivor literature—not as sensationalism, but as a fierce act of bearing witness to the systemic failures that allow child abuse to persist across generations and institutions.
Her writing carries the weight of lived experience, revealing how alcoholism, family dysfunction, and misplaced religious piety can create environments where abuse flourishes. Stinson demonstrates the devastating psychology of victimhood—the self-blame, the desperate seeking of love from those who withhold it, and the survival instinct that ultimately drives escape. Her commitment to telling Sara’s truth, even when it implicates family members and authority figures, speaks to her courage as an author and her belief that only through acknowledgment can healing begin. She writes to ensure that no child’s suffering remains invisible.
Sharon Stinson
A Child’s Hell & Torment by Sharon Stinson is a harrowing memoir documenting the childhood abuse suffered by Sara Marie from birth through age fifteen. Adopted by her great aunt and uncle after her biological mother’s alcoholism led to her removal, Sara endures systematic physical, emotional, and sexual abuse within a family that “all knew no one would help.” The narrative follows Sara from her birth in 1954 through her eventual escape. Jack, her adoptive father and a police officer, savagely beats her while Aileen, her adoptive mother, orchestrates punishments out of jealousy and rejection. The abuse escalates from daily brutality to incest when Sara reaches adolescence. Extended family members—uncles, cousins, and even biological relatives—perpetrate additional sexual assaults.
Stinson writes with stark, unflinching detail that gives testimony to the profound failures of family, church, education, and legal systems to protect one vulnerable child. This deeply disturbing yet important work documents the reality of familial abuse and one survivor’s ultimate determination to survive.
The book contains a detailed chronicle of Sara Marie’s abusive childhood from 1954 to 1969. The book traces her journey from birth to biological parents Dale and Karen, through adoption by Jack and Aileen, to her eventual escape at age fifteen. Inside these pages, readers will find accounts of unimaginable cruelty: physical beatings with belts that left Sara covered in bruises, emotional manipulation by Aileen, who resented Sara’s very existence, and sexual abuse perpetrated by Jack and multiple extended family members. The narrative also documents moments of rare tenderness—Sara’s beloved raccoons Missy and Lucky, her bond with her coonhound Buster, and her cherished relationship with cousin Ben.
The book explores family dysfunction across generations: alcoholism, neglect, domestic violence, and systemic failures. Sara’s story reveals how abuse permeates families, how perpetrators protect one another, and how survivors carry shame that is never theirs to bear. It is ultimately a testament to survival against overwhelming odds.
Each of these two books show the profound damage exacted on women and children caused when domestic violence lays its brutal and dark hand on them. Take heed!
Fear raced through her–every intuitive sense within her shouted. The silk she wore stuck to her skin, as sweat trickled between her breasts…she had made a fateful error…yet again. Cara looked into the cold blue eyes of her husband of three months–her fourth husband. She saw now that he had planned it all! It showed clearly in the callously smug look on his face, an expression he made no attempt to conceal. The coldness that lay in the depths of his blue eyes, eyes he made no effort to avert. How could this be happening? One tragic experience after another. Her thoughts raced through all the minute signs, the innuendos of warning. The subtle nuances of danger. She had disregarded them all. The fancy cars; the lavish spending, the trips to Europe… all a ruse. The pressure to marry him…his words echoed in her mind: I can’t do this much longer, make up your mind. She hadn’t even asked him what that meant, she only assumed him to be consumed by love and passion…that is what he had said. She had been battered and abused beyond her imagination.
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