Your biography becomes your biology. The emotional trauma we suffer as children not only shapes our emotional lives as adults, it also affects our physical health, longevity, and overall wellbeing. Scientists now know on a bio-chemical level exactly how parents’ chronic fights, divorce, death in the family, being bullied or hazed, and growing up with a hypercritical, alcoholic, or mentally ill parent can leave permanent, physical “fingerprints” on our brains. Chelsea barely survives a horrific murder at Halloween which sees her 2 flat mates slaughtered. She is stabbed, slashed and bleeding out when Lang and his police colleagues arrive. Her life is saved and she recovers physically, albeit scarred. Mentally the scars will never heal and she spends some time in a psychiatric hospital after attempting suicide.

On Halloween night five years ago, Chelsea Dutton and her roommates are celebrating their friend Amy's birthday. The night ends with two girls brutally stabbed and murdered to death and Chelsea is found in her bathtub with multiple stab wounds clinging on to her life.... A message is written in the bathroom next to Chelsea's body "YOU MADE ME'' (ugh... can we say creeeepppyyy) There's so many ways this story could have gone, I slowly started to put the pieces together. At about 60% into the book I was certain where it was headed, and I was correct. Though I must admit, briefly I started to change my mind. I thought maybe the story was headed in a different direction, but soon realized that's what Jennifer Jaynes wants the reader to think. Well played Jennifer, well played. Even though I had predicted where it was headed, I was not at all disappointed with how it played out. This is a great psychological thriller! Chelsea Dutton survives a night of terror....a night of multiple murders, but fears the worst....the killer's return. She had a nasty scar on her cheek that extended from the side of her nose to her left ear. Chelsea had been diagnosed with amnesia and lost memories, nightmares and flashes. Now 5 years later, she still lived in fear with the thought of the killer’s return. After the murders of her roommates, Chelsea left Springfield and moved to Boston, where she lives an isolated life working from home as a medical transcriptionist. Elizabeth, a nurse she met after the murders, is the only person she can trust.To learn everything I could, I spent two years interviewing the leading scientists who research and study the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences and toxic childhood stress. I combed through seventy research papers that comprise the ACE Study and hundreds of other studies from our nation’s best research institutions that support and complement these findings. And I followed thirteen individuals who suffered early adversity and later faced adult health struggles, who were able to forge their own life-changing paths to physical and emotional healing. Her biological parents had been dead since she was six years old. There were a long string of foster families whom she had lived with until she turned eighteen and started college. Halloween, the fifth anniversary of the murders, takes on a new twist. Who is really the killer (then and now)? Or is there something more dark and sinister at play?

I had this read in a matter of hours, so I'm happy to say my second experience with this author was much better than my first! ( The Stranger Inside and I didn't get along well) When Chelsea Dutton’s life was shattered five years previously, she hovered on the brink of death for some time, gradually getting stronger. But mentally she didn’t cope. Her two room-mates had been brutally murdered while she’d been left for dead. The killer had never been found. Living in Boston, working from home and keeping company with her cat Harry and best friend and one-time nurse Elizabeth was Chelsea’s life; but she was depressed and still looked over her shoulder whenever she was outside… I really liked this one. It’s one of those psychological thrillers that you’ll enjoy it! It’s well-written and fast-paced. Told in multiple POV, 3rd person. It’s a stand-alone novel. It was truly enjoyable for me and hope you like it, too!Donna has once again taken a difficult medical topic and made it not only easy to understand, but a great read. Eye-opening and inspiring, Childhood Disrupted provides a paradigm-shifting roadmap for understanding how early stress is linked to later illness, and offers a must-read vision for how to begin healing at any age. This book will help readers and especially women better understand the biology of stress, and jumpstart important new conversations about our health and well-being!” BuzzFeed Bring Me Obsessed with travel? Discover unique things to do, places to eat, and sights to see in the best destinations around the world with Bring Me!