Ava's Story - Thrown Away Children:14

Medical professionals Katy and Jonathan had been trying for a baby for eight long years. Finally after putting nearly every penny they had into IVF, they got their dream family - with twins. Ava and Tom were devoted, lively siblings and their parents were over the moon.

Then one day, when they were just three years old, everything changed. Their parents had been collecting their grandparents from the airport, while they were at nursery.

But 3pm came and went and no one arrived to take them home.

Instead the classroom assistant was told the heartbreaking news: Ava and Tom’s parents and grandparents had been involved in a collision on the M25.

All four had died.

Ava’s story tells the tragic tale of what happened next - as Cath, the mum of the twins’ first foster family, falls in love with little Tom but has an inexplicable hatred for his sister, and after some difficult months, insists on handing her back.

As Louise steps in to try to help the abandoned little girl, she soon realises that Cath’s anger may have been even worse than she realised: Ava’s showing signs of physical abuse.

Can Louise expose Cath for what she is? And will the twins be reunited? It’s a heartbreaking tale but with an ending that will restore your belief in good samaritans.

Louise Allen is a Sunday Times bestselling author, foster carer and artist who has regularly appeared in the media, including BBC’s Front Row, Radical with Amol Rajan, Loose Women and This Morning.

She grew up in the care system after being born to a teenage mum who had been groomed by a married man. Unfortunately, her pain didn’t end there. She suffered sexual abuse and neglect during her time in the system. Now married with children and living in the South West, Louise decided she wanted to help prevent others from enduring the same horrors she had.

She now fosters children on both a short and long-term basis, has launched the Spark Sisterhood - a network of powerful businesswomen which helps ‘looked-after’ children get started on the career ladder - and has taken her campaign for reform to the highest levels of authority.

She wrote her first book, Thrown Away Children in 2017 and has gone on to write a further 13, her last instalment being Diego’s Story.