The Boy in the Cellar
Stephen Smith is the boy who did not exist.
Born out of wedlock in the early 1960s, Steve's parents hid him away from the world by locking him in the cellar...for thirteen years.
Starved and beaten, the little boy's world was a darkened room that measured just eight feet by ten with a single makeshift bed, bare light bulb, and a solitary table. Steve would spend his days conjuring up an imaginary world full of monsters he would draw to try and block out the physical and mental torture inflicted on him by his brutal father. Apart from a few admissions to hospital as a result of his 'imprisonment', Steve remained in the coal cellar of the family home where he was deprived of daylight, his childhood, school, and human contact until he'd reached his teenage years.
Eventually, he escaped only to fall prey to the instigators of two of the worst cases of institutional abuse in the UK at Aston Hall hospital and St. William's Catholic School.
The Boy in the Cellar is a horrifying true story of torture and cruelty, that reveals a human's full capacity to fight for survival and search out happiness and hope.
BEST DEALS
About the Author
Veronica Clark is a triple Sunday Times, and an Irish Times bestselling author.
Veronica has been a journalist for 35 years, writing real-life features for both national newspapers and magazines. She has been a ghost writer for twelve years. During this time she has written fifteen published books. Three of her books, Enslaved, The Hospital and The Baby Snatchers were all Sunday Times bestsellers. The Baby Snatchers was also an Irish Times bestseller.
In 2021, Veronica appeared as a panellist at the prestigious Hay Literary Festival to discuss the book, Enslaved, and modern slavery in this country.
Book fourteen, Deep Deception, published by Ebury/Penguin, and book fifteen, Snatched, published by Harpercollins, were both released on the same day last year (2022). She recently finished book 16 - a celebrity memoir - and is currently working on book 17 for a major publisher.
Veronica also has a Masters (Distinction) in Creative Writing from University of Glasgow.
For more information please contact Eve White Literary Agent, London.
You can follow Veronica on Twitter @Von77Clark.