Pan Books

Les Cummings spent many years of his childhood in a local authority children’s home.  Conditions were harsh, with terrifying violence meted out by some of the staff.  Sent to live with foster parents for nearly three horrendous years, he was beaten, starved and sexually abused.  He spent many days at a time locked in a cupboard under the stairs.  His life was slipping out of control, until one day he found the strength to break free of his abusive past.

The Only Way Is Essex introduced Essex men and girls to TV audiences , but only a watered-down version of the species.  In Confessions of an Essex Girl, the ultimate Essex girl, Becci Fox, has written an outrageously funny and deadly accurate account of Essex in the raw, experienced first-hand.  In contrast to the programme, every episode in the book happened exactly as she writes it.  Dozens of rave reviews on Amazon are testimony indeed to the new comic voice that is Becci Fox.

Naomi Jacobs went to sleep one night in 2008 as a 32-year-old mother, and woke up the next morning believing she was a fifteen-year-old school girl. She did not recognise the house she woke up in, though it was hers, nor her ten-year-old son, Leo. As far as she was concerned, she was in 1992 when John Major was Prime Minister, before the world had been blessed with mobile phones, DVDs or reality TV. She didn’t know it, but she had dissociative amnesia.

With the help of her personal diaries and those close to her, Naomi set about piecing together as much as she could of her missing years. What she discovered shocked her. As she dug deeper, she began to experience disturbing flashbacks of traumatic events. Would Naomi ever find her way back to the person she once was? Did she even want to?

Funny and moving, I Woke Up in the Future is ultimately an inspiring story of loss and redemption, and the power of second chances.