Casey Watson, author of Too Hurt to Stay, on tour May 2013

About Too Hurt to Stay

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harper Element (April 23, 2013)

Eight-year-old Spencer takes himself to social services and demands to be taken into care. It’s a desperate act, a cry for help, but his parent’s reaction – good riddance – speaks volumes. Casey’s hackles are immediately up for this poor child.

Spencer is the middle child of four siblings. His parents claim all their other kids are ‘normal’ and that Spencer was born ‘vicious and evil’. Casey and her family are disgusted – kids aren’t born evil, they get damaged. Although when vigilante neighbours start to take action and their landlord threatens eviction, Casey is stretched to the limits, trying desperately to hold on to this boy who causes so much pain and destruction.

Casey is determined to try and understand what Spencer is going through and help him find the loving home he is so desperately searching for. But it’s only when Spencer’s mother gets in touch with social services for the first time that gradually everything starts to make sense.

About Casey Watson

Casey Watson is a specialist foster carer. She has been working in this field for six years after giving up her position as a behavior manager for a local school. During this time she has welcomed 14 difficult to place children into her home. As a specialist foster carer she works with profoundly damaged children, seeing each child through a specific behavioral modification program, at the end of which they will hopefully be in the position to be returned either back to their family or into mainstream foster care. Casey is married with two grown-up children and three grandchildren. The name Casey Watson is a pseudonym.

Find out more about Casey at her website, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.