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Circa 1987, always with a book in hand!
I've always been a big book worm! My mom likes to remind me how we'd go to our local public library, and I would read through the whole elementary school summer reading list within the first week or two of summer.

I guess it's not too much of a surprise that I grew up with a love of both reading and writing. Even today, I've always got at least one or two books I'm in the middle of reading - although in this busy season of my life, it usually takes me a lot longer to read through them these days.

I love writing books as a way to dive deep into learning about a topic, and then share the lessons I've learned with my readers. Read on for a little background information about each of the books I've written, and visit my Author Page on Amazon to learn more! You can also click on the image for each book to be taken directly to the book's page on Amazon.

Christine
Financial Abuse Recovery is my newest book, and I was so excited to bring this book to life in collaboration with my friend and colleague, Eileen Martin. I'm passionate about the topic of this book - recovering from the financial aspects of abusive relationships - because this was a big part of my personal journey as a survivor. I've also seen far too many times through the survivors I've worked with how devastating the financial fallout from an abusive relationship can be. Our aim in writing this book was to offer tools, information, and encouragement to support survivors in pursuing financial empowerment as they heal and rebuild their lives.
I was invited to write The Verbal Abuse Recovery Workbook shortly after Triumph Over Abuse (see below) was written. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to develop an interactive resource to help survivors process different aspects of the process of recovering from abuse, specifically verbal and emotional abuse. I've heard from readers that the activities in the Workbook are helpful for reflecting on their experiences and for moving forward in their healing journeys.
Triumph Over Abuse was the first book in which I publicly wove some of my own personal experiences as a survivor into the lessons I've learned through my professional career. This book is intended to offer survivors a road map for healing from abuse and building a thriving future. This book was a precursor to The Source for Survivors, an online resource I've developed to offer a framework and practical tools for survivors along the healing journey following abuse.
For many years before writing Responding to Family Violence, I had been teaching a graduate-level counseling course on the topic of Family Violence, and I could never find quite the right textbook for the course. Book publisher reps who I was asking about this started suggesting I should write the book myself, and I'm so glad we took on the challenge. This book is written for both practicing mental health professionals, as well as for those enrolled in pre-service training programs. I've always been a firm believer that all mental health professionals should be trained to support individuals and families affected by abuse, and I hope this book is a valuable resource for to support those training efforts.
Overcoming the Stigma of Intimate Partner Violence was a passion project for my co-author, Allison Crowe, and me. We wrote this book as a way to share what we had been learning from survivors who participated in our See the Triumph campaign-related research studies. The book is a bit more academically-oriented than some of my other books, but I hope it's of interest to anyone interested in learning about--and challenging--the stigma surrounding violence and abuse survivors.
For many years, while serving as a Professor in UNCG's Counseling Department, I taught the graduate-level course on Sexuality Counseling. So I was thrilled when I was offered the opportunity to write a textbook on the topic, and the experience was even more meaningful because I was joined by two former students - Amber Pope and Ben Willis - as co-authors. Since the book was published, it's been adopted as the official textbook in many other counseling courses on Sexuality Counseling, and we've been grateful to hear from many professors and students about what a helpful resource it has been for their careers.
Although I think Just Engaged is currently out of print (it was first published in 2008, after all), this book holds a special place in my heart since it was my first book! I actually wrote this book based on the work I'd done for my doctoral dissertation on the topic of premarital counseling. Here's a fun fact about this book - My first attempt to get this book published in 2004 was not successful. After a round of many rejections, I put it on the shelf for a few years. I decided to give it another try a couple years later and was thankful to find an agent and publisher to help bring it to life in 2008.