Sister Of Silence: A Memoir

Sister Of Silence is truly an inspirational account of one woman whose indomitable spirit led her on a journey to self-discovery and empowerment, where she refused to be silenced.

This memoir tells the story of one abused woman who nearly reached the point of no return, while exploring one of the largest epidemics of our time in a manner that is, by turns, both calmly detached and full of gritty emotion. Sister Of Silence looks at the heartrending reasons why some women choose suicide or even murder as a way out … but then shows how such deadly thoughts can be overcome.

Sister Of Silence is the first book of its kind, written by an award-winning journalist and columnist who is daring enough to reveal how she arrived at that point of no return. More important, it explores how she found the strength to walk away, and ultimately turned her life around in the process.

The most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that about 1.5 million women are raped or physically assaulted each year by someone who is supposed to love them (an intimate partner). In addition, this violence results in 1,300 deaths annually, as well as two million injuries. Indeed, experts say10-14 percent of married women in this country are raped by their husbands.

But since most violence against women goes unreported, experts say from 960,000 to 4 million women are physically assaulted by men they know and love each year in the United States. And the FBI reports that in 2006, 32-percent of female murder victims were killed by their husbands or boyfriends. Sister Of Silence takes a hard look at how many of these women end up in such tragic situations, by fearlessly exploring where one of these women came from, and showing how other women can be set free from their silence.

In this gripping memoir, Berry lets readers take a candid look into her teenage years in Appalachia, where she grew up among the coal fields of West Virginia. Pregnant at sixteen and later married off to her unborn child’s father, she was suicidal by age twenty-one, after finding herself mother to four small children.

Suddenly Berry was forced to make one of the most agonizing decisions of her young years-–the only one that would save her life and preserve her sanity. For women who have faced these problems and prayed for a way out, or know a loved one who has–-this is a must read!

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My next book, Guilt by Matrimony, about the murder of Aspen socialite, Nancy Pfister, comes out November 17. My memoir, Sister of Silence, is about surviving domestic violence and how journalism helped free me; Cheatin’ Ain’t Easy, now in ebook format, is about the life of Preston County native, Eloise Morgan Milne; The Savage Murder of Skylar Neese (a New York Times bestseller, with coauthor Geoff Fuller) and Pretty Little Killers (also with Fuller), released July 8, 2014, and featured in the August 18 issue of People Magazine.

You can find these books either online or in print at a bookstore near you, at BenBella Books, Nellie Bly Books, Amazon, on iTunes and Barnes and Noble.

For an in-depth look at the damaging effects of the silence that surrounds abuse, please watch my live TEDx talk, given April 13, 2013, at Connecticut College.

Have a great day and remember, it’s whatever you want to make it!

~Daleen

Editor’s Note: Daleen Berry is a New York Times best-selling author and a recipient of the Pearl Buck Award in Writing for Social Change. She has won several other awards, for investigative journalism and her weekly newspaper columns, and her memoir, Sister of Silence, placed first in the West Virginia Writers’ Competition. Ms. Berry speaks about overcoming abuse through awareness, empowerment and goal attainment at conferences around the country. To read an excerpt of her memoir, please go to the Sister of Silence site. Check out the five-star review from ForeWord Reviews. Or find out why Kirkus Reviews called Ms. Berry “an engaging writer, her style fluid and easy to read, with welcome touches of humor and sustained tension throughout.”