THE INVISIBLE GIRL

Eloise is a vibrant girl with a charming and caring nature who turns up in Torey's life quite unexpectedly. Despite her cagey attitude and a tendency to run away from difficult questions, Eloise's veiled cries for help reveal a desperate need for kindness and patience.

Her background is an all-too-common litany of family dysfunction, addiction and abuse, interspersed with social services intervention and stints in foster care. After being passed from family, to foster home, to family and back again, Eloise developed complex behavioral needs and a worrying infatuation with the daughter of her old foster parents. She runs away from her latest home to seek Torey out and ask her for help, but is less than forthcoming with the issues troubling her. Torey gains permission to meet with Eloise weekly, in the hope that some gentle care and attention can help Eloise gain some sense of security in her life. Can Torey and the other social workers provide the loving attention that has so far been missing in Eloise's life, or will she run away from them too?

Torey Hayden is an educational psychologist and a special education teacher who, since 1979, has chronicled her real-life struggles in the classroom in a succession of bestselling books, including LOST CHILD and ONE CHILD. Her books span subjects such as autism, sexual abuse, Tourette syndrome and selective mutism. She currently lives and writes in the UK, where she works with charities such as the NSPCC, Childline, the Samaritans and the Citizen's Advice Bureau.