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KERI 5: The Original Child Abuse True Story
CHILD ABUSE TRUE STORIES VOLUME 5 OF KAT WARD'S SENSATIONAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY! Following her disastrous first year in the adult world, it's hard to imagine how seventeen-year-old Keri's life could possibly get any worse. However, as anyone who's ever been down can attest to, getting back up can often be difficult without a helping hand... But what if all the hands around you only want to push you down further? It was the summer of 1976, and a time when most young women were enjoying the kinds of summer loves they would cherish forever with a farewell song. Keri, however, was struggling just to find a man whose arms could be relied upon for comfort, as opposed to violence. At the mercy of some suitably unsuitable suitors, her life had become a whirlwind of uncertainty. One minute, she found herself living on an all-male commune; the next, shacked up with a doe-eyed gent in the country. And without any money or family to support her, she knew tomorrow's pillow might always be a strange one. Eventually though, something had to change. Chaos is the bedfellow of destruction after all. And sure enough, one day she woke up, and by the time she went to sleep that night, her life had transformed forever… One of her admirers had asked for her hand in marriage. Not an uncommon thing at the time, but still a bolt from the blue considering her perpetual state of flux. And despite her mother’s quite ironic misgivings about the candidate’s character and background, Keri accepted, and began looking ahead to a life of committed partnership. Perhaps she could be forgiven for thinking that her troubles might end with the crossing of the final 't' at the registry office. After all, the role of doting wife had given structure and purpose to many a young woman's life. So was this to be the turning point she had been waiting for all these years? Alas, no. It was never going to be as simple as that. For there was one final bombshell to be dropped on her before she lived 'happily ever after'… When requesting her birth certificate as part of the marriage legalities, she was shocked to be informed by a cleric that as far as the state were concerned, she simply didn't exist. There was no birth certificate. No record of 'Keri' whatsoever... And so as she stared down the barrel of a grown-up existence, she suddenly found herself back at square one again. With frozen feet and a panicked heart, her mind burned with just one who am I? This is a true story of child abuse. Reader discretion is advised.
730 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 10, 2014
239 people are currently reading
144 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
January 3, 2015
As the mother of 4 grown children I can NOT understand how any mother can treat any of her children they way Kats mother treated her , she is one of the cruelest of mothers out there and I have read a lot of stories about women just like her and I believe they all should be locked up and the key thrown away!! And I also don't think any mother or father that abuses their children so badly do NOT deserve to be called mom , dad , mother , father etc!! They should be called monsters that they are. With each book I read my heart breaks for Keri and her poor Nana as well , Kats Nana is such a sweet woman and she adopted Milly and was so good to her that I can't understand why Milly turned out to be so crazy , cruel and abusive! At any rate Milly is no better at being a good daughter to her Mother ( nana ) than she was at being a mother. I don't think she beat nana but nana feared she might and she talked to the kindly woman very badly , short tempered to the point Nana stated she would rather be in a nursing home and even if Keri could take nana away with her poor nana feared it would just make things worse for Kat because of Millys jealous and possessive ways with Nana. Milly always blamed Keri for ruining her life instead if taking responsibility for her own actions and choices in life that caused her life to be what they were and her jealousy over her own daughter was so severe that she abused her so badly it's a miracle she lived through it to tell her story. Kat your books have helped so many people that have been through all kinds of abuse , thank you for sharing your story! If you write more books in the series I look forward to reading them , may God bless you , keep you safe , healthy and happy :)
August 23, 2015
Why did you end the book this way?
I love your writing Kat Ward, and you story is remarkable. But why did you end the book this way? When and where will I find the next book.
While reading, I felt every emotion Keri felt. When not reading, I could not stop thinking about getting back to reading this book.
Now the book ended and I haven't a sixth bee's to read!
Why?!
I love your writing Kat Ward, and you story is remarkable. But why did you end the book this way? When and where will I find the next book.
While reading, I felt every emotion Keri felt. When not reading, I could not stop thinking about getting back to reading this book.
Now the book ended and I haven't a sixth bee's to read!
Why?!
December 27, 2014
Cannot understand the hatred the mother has for her own child - in 3 generations. maybe something deeply spiritual.
March 15, 2017
Good
Keri's life takes some dramatic turns. I'm still addicted to her life story. Very well written. Author keeps me guessing as to what is going to happen next.
Keri's life takes some dramatic turns. I'm still addicted to her life story. Very well written. Author keeps me guessing as to what is going to happen next.
June 14, 2017
Keri Karin
This will be more like a summary rather than a review. Having read the previous 4 volumes I want to remind myself of what each contains, so as not to confuse them, so am issuing a spoiler alert!
Volume 5 of Kat Ward’s compelling and harrowing autobiography, picks up where Keri is about to spend Christmas with Vince and his family who she gets along with apart form Vince's brother, Donald, who has taken a dislike to her.
After Christmas Keri sees her mother and Nana and suspects that her mother is controlling Nana who seems more vulnerable and afraid of Millie, Keri's mother.
We see also that feelings of self hatred and thought of self harm and suicide are a recurrent theme at this time in Keri’s life and given her upbringing it doesn't come as a surprise.
Meanwhile, Vince has decided he and Keri should get engaged. The staff at the hostel and Vince's parents suggest Keri and Vince should get a flat together. They are offered lovely accommodation in a 'cottage' in Sunningdale with a trendy and progressive landlady, Maria Gladstone. But Vince is appalled to learn that the other residents are a pair of gays and another pair of pot-smoking hippies, people he doesn’t approve of. Keri argues against his prejudices though we have to remember that Vince's homophobia in particular was very common during this period, the mid 1970s. Their landlady arranges a housewarming party and things reach a head between Vince and Keri when things start to get out of control with drink and drugs at the party. It is the final straw for Vince and he dumps Keri. Cue Mark, Keri's old friend from the Bed and Breakfast who comes to her rescue and takes her back to his parent's house in Bath. He's always been besotted with Keri and on her 18th birthday showers her with gifts, proposes to her and promises to make her happy. But Keri needs her own independence and gets a heavy manual part time job in a greengrocer's. Kind though Mark and his family are, Keri knows she's not in love with him and knows she can't go through with it. Besides, she misses her old friends and job and decides to return to Staines, even though she's jobless and homeless.
She is secured a temporary place at the old Bed & Breakfast place, before landing herself a job with accommodation at a Heathrow hotel as a cafeteria waitress. But when she returns to Staines to get her contraceptive pills from the doctor he informs her she is about 28 weeks pregnant. She is horrified by this news and has to leave her hotel job. She is instead found some dingy accommodation in Woking by a social worker. She gets a job quickly with a temp agency as a shorthand typist with a Chartered Accountant where her peers are understanding about her pregnancy. She eventfully plucks up the courage to phone Vince with her news but he is still angry with her and doesn't trust her. She in turn feels disassociated from 'the thing' inside her.
Keri is eventually found a place at a mother and baby home in Walton-on-Thames. She and Vince eventually make it up and he proposes to her. However Keri is far from happy. She feels fearful and irritable around the other babies at West Lodge, making her feel abnormal and a sense of self-loathing as well as fearing turning out like her monstrous mother. In order to get married she needs her birth certificate but to her horror they are unable to trace it at Somerset House. She eventually decides to write to her mother but before getting a reply she is racked by awful back pain and discovers she has gone into labour and is taken to hospital where she is subject to some very judgmental attitudes and intrusive examinations.
Her baby daughter is born prematurely and is taken to the special care baby unit. But Keri doesn't bond with her and has no emotional feelings for her other than disgust, resentment and fear of harming her. This is hardly surprising after her own appalling and abusive childhood - she just doesn't know how to be a mother. She's had no role model, no love, only hate and abuse (with the exception of her Nana). Vince is a doting father but Keri s feeling of loathing intensify especially when she has to breastfeed her daughter. Meanwhile, her mother of all people, sends her clothes for the baby along with her birth certificate which proves all along that she was never Keri (the name which always felt wrong to her) but Karin. Keri and Vince get married although Keri realizes she doesn't love Vince, perhaps she never has - he has just been there for her. But she wants to be away from West Lodge house and institutions and the book ends with her leaving a life of institutions behind her and moving in with Vince s mum and dad.
Kat has a real talent for encapsulating the feelings, the attitudes and the backdrop of the mid-!970s in her accounts. I look forward to reading to the next stage of Kat’s incredible life-story.
This will be more like a summary rather than a review. Having read the previous 4 volumes I want to remind myself of what each contains, so as not to confuse them, so am issuing a spoiler alert!
Volume 5 of Kat Ward’s compelling and harrowing autobiography, picks up where Keri is about to spend Christmas with Vince and his family who she gets along with apart form Vince's brother, Donald, who has taken a dislike to her.
After Christmas Keri sees her mother and Nana and suspects that her mother is controlling Nana who seems more vulnerable and afraid of Millie, Keri's mother.
We see also that feelings of self hatred and thought of self harm and suicide are a recurrent theme at this time in Keri’s life and given her upbringing it doesn't come as a surprise.
Meanwhile, Vince has decided he and Keri should get engaged. The staff at the hostel and Vince's parents suggest Keri and Vince should get a flat together. They are offered lovely accommodation in a 'cottage' in Sunningdale with a trendy and progressive landlady, Maria Gladstone. But Vince is appalled to learn that the other residents are a pair of gays and another pair of pot-smoking hippies, people he doesn’t approve of. Keri argues against his prejudices though we have to remember that Vince's homophobia in particular was very common during this period, the mid 1970s. Their landlady arranges a housewarming party and things reach a head between Vince and Keri when things start to get out of control with drink and drugs at the party. It is the final straw for Vince and he dumps Keri. Cue Mark, Keri's old friend from the Bed and Breakfast who comes to her rescue and takes her back to his parent's house in Bath. He's always been besotted with Keri and on her 18th birthday showers her with gifts, proposes to her and promises to make her happy. But Keri needs her own independence and gets a heavy manual part time job in a greengrocer's. Kind though Mark and his family are, Keri knows she's not in love with him and knows she can't go through with it. Besides, she misses her old friends and job and decides to return to Staines, even though she's jobless and homeless.
She is secured a temporary place at the old Bed & Breakfast place, before landing herself a job with accommodation at a Heathrow hotel as a cafeteria waitress. But when she returns to Staines to get her contraceptive pills from the doctor he informs her she is about 28 weeks pregnant. She is horrified by this news and has to leave her hotel job. She is instead found some dingy accommodation in Woking by a social worker. She gets a job quickly with a temp agency as a shorthand typist with a Chartered Accountant where her peers are understanding about her pregnancy. She eventfully plucks up the courage to phone Vince with her news but he is still angry with her and doesn't trust her. She in turn feels disassociated from 'the thing' inside her.
Keri is eventually found a place at a mother and baby home in Walton-on-Thames. She and Vince eventually make it up and he proposes to her. However Keri is far from happy. She feels fearful and irritable around the other babies at West Lodge, making her feel abnormal and a sense of self-loathing as well as fearing turning out like her monstrous mother. In order to get married she needs her birth certificate but to her horror they are unable to trace it at Somerset House. She eventually decides to write to her mother but before getting a reply she is racked by awful back pain and discovers she has gone into labour and is taken to hospital where she is subject to some very judgmental attitudes and intrusive examinations.
Her baby daughter is born prematurely and is taken to the special care baby unit. But Keri doesn't bond with her and has no emotional feelings for her other than disgust, resentment and fear of harming her. This is hardly surprising after her own appalling and abusive childhood - she just doesn't know how to be a mother. She's had no role model, no love, only hate and abuse (with the exception of her Nana). Vince is a doting father but Keri s feeling of loathing intensify especially when she has to breastfeed her daughter. Meanwhile, her mother of all people, sends her clothes for the baby along with her birth certificate which proves all along that she was never Keri (the name which always felt wrong to her) but Karin. Keri and Vince get married although Keri realizes she doesn't love Vince, perhaps she never has - he has just been there for her. But she wants to be away from West Lodge house and institutions and the book ends with her leaving a life of institutions behind her and moving in with Vince s mum and dad.
Kat has a real talent for encapsulating the feelings, the attitudes and the backdrop of the mid-!970s in her accounts. I look forward to reading to the next stage of Kat’s incredible life-story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 26, 2022
Wow
I was reading the first book when the BBC peadophile scandal first broke and her story stayed with me. I have just started re reading from the very beginning again. Karin has me captivated with the way she writes and has inspired me to start writing also. The strength this woman possesses is nothing short of heroic. With social media as prominent as it is, I hope to read in one of her next books that she made contact with tramp, candace and old friendly faces again, now time to start book 6
I was reading the first book when the BBC peadophile scandal first broke and her story stayed with me. I have just started re reading from the very beginning again. Karin has me captivated with the way she writes and has inspired me to start writing also. The strength this woman possesses is nothing short of heroic. With social media as prominent as it is, I hope to read in one of her next books that she made contact with tramp, candace and old friendly faces again, now time to start book 6
Read
December 19, 2021What Kerri went through was undoubtedly horrendous and my heart goes out to her. However I found this hook difficult to read as Kerri knows how it feels to be abandoned, abused and spoken to so harshly, yet she refers to her baby girl as a 'thing' 'brat' 'it' 'monster' without any regard that her daughter will one day read this book!
Why treat your own kids like that if you know how awful it feels? I feel so so sad for her poor children.
Why treat your own kids like that if you know how awful it feels? I feel so so sad for her poor children.
October 2, 2017
Getting boring.
Should have stopped a few books ago. Unfortunately I will read the next one because I like to finish series, but I am glad I am not paying for these. Hopefully next one will peak my interest better
Should have stopped a few books ago. Unfortunately I will read the next one because I like to finish series, but I am glad I am not paying for these. Hopefully next one will peak my interest better
March 27, 2019
Just such strong a young lady who didn't know her own strength "KARIN" who despite the odds due to horrific horrible mother
I would recommend for anyone to get away from abuse and stay away anyway you can, it prevents one from having there own life.
I would recommend for anyone to get away from abuse and stay away anyway you can, it prevents one from having there own life.
May 3, 2023
I am totally addicted to Keri's story. From Book one to now reading Keri 6 I cannot stop! I am absolutely horrified that this can actually happen to people, let alone ALL this to one person! How she managed to stay even mildly sane is beyond my understanding! It at times seems almost too crazy to be true, yet I know from deepest depth that Kat is being honest to the best of her memory. They always said that truth is stranger than fiction, but this tops it all!
October 26, 2020
Good Read
Love it!!! A must read starting from Keri 1. It will get you caught up into Keri’s life. Give it a try!!
Love it!!! A must read starting from Keri 1. It will get you caught up into Keri’s life. Give it a try!!
March 25, 2023
Read Trigger Warning!! This book will break your heart and make you hug your kids and not want to let them go
March 13, 2025
Love this series
I've never read a more honest account of someone's life before. I am flying through the Keri books. Great read!
I've never read a more honest account of someone's life before. I am flying through the Keri books. Great read!
November 16, 2025
Survivor
I was captivated from the very first 'Keri' book that I read. I thought it was well written and showed true spirit but very harrowing at times.
I was captivated from the very first 'Keri' book that I read. I thought it was well written and showed true spirit but very harrowing at times.
March 15, 2015
I wish it had not been the last book
This is a very good book to read. I liked the whole series. She has been so abused through her life. I will read any other books that are written. I hope she does another one about how her life has been since she no longer had to live under social services or her mother. I know it happens but I do not understand how anyone can treat her own daughter like she did and was always getting away that she did. If like this type of book you will love this.
This is a very good book to read. I liked the whole series. She has been so abused through her life. I will read any other books that are written. I hope she does another one about how her life has been since she no longer had to live under social services or her mother. I know it happens but I do not understand how anyone can treat her own daughter like she did and was always getting away that she did. If like this type of book you will love this.
December 22, 2014
Been waiting for this book!
Wow! Not disappointed in Karin's last addition to the Keri series. I did however think after the treatment she received growing up she would have felt more loving towards her own child. Why did no one warn her about postpartum depression? And I really don't understand why no one helped her to know that most of her feelings were completely normal.
Wow! Not disappointed in Karin's last addition to the Keri series. I did however think after the treatment she received growing up she would have felt more loving towards her own child. Why did no one warn her about postpartum depression? And I really don't understand why no one helped her to know that most of her feelings were completely normal.
June 4, 2015
I'm really not sure
I've read all five of these books in a row. I found some discrepancies that just left me puzzled. While I believe there is some truth to these books, I can't help but think that some of this story has been embellished. It really took away from the story for me.
I've read all five of these books in a row. I found some discrepancies that just left me puzzled. While I believe there is some truth to these books, I can't help but think that some of this story has been embellished. It really took away from the story for me.
March 20, 2016
Excellent reading
Have read all the books in this series and have thoroughly enjoyed. She is an excellent writer. This book does contain somewhat disturbing thoughts towards a newborn baby and made me wonder if the author had displayed behaviour in the past as alleged by her mother. However this doesn't excuse the mother's cruelty and abusive manner shown previously.
Have read all the books in this series and have thoroughly enjoyed. She is an excellent writer. This book does contain somewhat disturbing thoughts towards a newborn baby and made me wonder if the author had displayed behaviour in the past as alleged by her mother. However this doesn't excuse the mother's cruelty and abusive manner shown previously.
April 5, 2016
And then.... WHAT???
Exemplary writing, engulfing reading, current affairs but once taboo subject and I WANT MORE!!!! Karin has become a dear Dear friend. I am certain we would uproariously laugh and commiserate with the best of them. I ache knowing I am at the end of this series and almost feel as if it were written for me personally. Well done Karin, well done indeed.
Exemplary writing, engulfing reading, current affairs but once taboo subject and I WANT MORE!!!! Karin has become a dear Dear friend. I am certain we would uproariously laugh and commiserate with the best of them. I ache knowing I am at the end of this series and almost feel as if it were written for me personally. Well done Karin, well done indeed.
February 22, 2015
The story of Keri
This is one of the best stories I've ever read! It will definitely keep your attention throughout the entire series. It's truly sad everything this poor girl had to endure during her lifetime. This book is a must read for everyone!!!
This is one of the best stories I've ever read! It will definitely keep your attention throughout the entire series. It's truly sad everything this poor girl had to endure during her lifetime. This book is a must read for everyone!!!
March 27, 2015
Good series
This was book 5 in a series. I loved each book for different reasons. I'd like to hope there is a final book so readers know what happened to Vince, the baby and KAREN!!!
This was book 5 in a series. I loved each book for different reasons. I'd like to hope there is a final book so readers know what happened to Vince, the baby and KAREN!!!
February 17, 2015
Enjoyed
I enjoyed reading the whole series of books. It's a shame that it was a true story and someone had to live in those conditions
I enjoyed reading the whole series of books. It's a shame that it was a true story and someone had to live in those conditions
May 14, 2015
Great book
I hope this is not the end of the series. I would like to find out what happened as she started a new life. I hope some very happy things are to come.
I hope this is not the end of the series. I would like to find out what happened as she started a new life. I hope some very happy things are to come.
January 9, 2016
Loved it
I read all five books. Good hough they must have been difficult, I would love a new series where these left off. Thank you!
I read all five books. Good hough they must have been difficult, I would love a new series where these left off. Thank you!
July 4, 2016
Good book
A long book but I couldn't put the book down hopefully it continues to go like that very sad story to
A long book but I couldn't put the book down hopefully it continues to go like that very sad story to
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews