Sold

Lakshmi's family is desperately poor, but village life in the mountains of Nepal has its share of pleasures. When the monsoons wreck their crops yet again, Lakshmi's stepfather says she must leave home and take a job to support her family. She arrives at 'Happiness House' full of hope, but soon learns the unthinkable truth - she has been sold into prostitution. This new world becomes a nightmare from which there is no escape. But, very gradually, Lakshmi makes friends with others in the house, and gathers her courage, until the day she has to face the hardest decision of all: will she risk everything to reclaim her life? Deceptively simple, eloquent, and shocking - this is a story you will never forget. 'A phenomenal book, a punch in the gut...It drew me in from the first page, even though I wanted to turn away...McCormick has taken a difficult, distasteful subject and written something readable and compassionate without shying away from the truths of the matter. I only wish it was a historical document, not a portrait of a world we have all helped to create.' Deborah Ellis, author of the Parvana series.

About the Author

Patricia McCormick is a former journalist, novelist and two-time National Book Award Finalist. Cut was her first novel. Published in 1999, it has sold nearly a million copies. Her other books, Sold,My Brother's Keeper, and Purple Heart have received numerous awards.

Her new book, Never Fall Down also a National Book Award finalist, is based on the true story of an 11-year-old boy who survived the Killing Fields of Cambodia by playing music for the Khmer Rouge. He would later find out that the music was used to cover up the sounds of the killings; as a man, he has worked to revitalize the traditional songs of Cambodia, an art form that would otherwise have been lost in the genocide.

'The Khmer Rouge used every means possible to break the spirit of their victims," McCormick says. "But Arn Chorn Pond, an 11-year-old boy, would turn the tables on them. He used music to save his…