The Lost Key

About the Book

A haunting story of a child’s terrifying experience in an unsafe,unloving and inhumane environment which leads to growing up under the rules of a harsh existence.  Ursula never learns to express herself as a child for fear of cruelty and punishment and locks away her feelings and emotions to keep safe.  Inevitably, when freed from the brutality that abounds, she becomes aware of the childhood she lacked through her journey into adulthood.  Will Ursula be able to find her inner child and become healed from the nightmare of the past?

About the Author

Susan Mahan, teacher and author of a variety of stories, wrote this story based upon some of her own personal experiences,  experiences of close friends who survived WWII in Nazi Occupied Europe as well as the experiences of many children she has taught over the years who had come from dysfunctional families of varying degrees.  This particular story has strong correlations between survivors of the Holocaust and survivors of dysfunctional families.  As a youth, Susan felt a strong affinity toward the study of World War II due to the commonalities between harsh home lives and concentration camp victims.  Although this story depicts more of the life experiences during an actual war, many people can relate to it in the sense of their own personal war from a traumatic childhood experience.  Susan continues to teach children and write stories of a variety of genres.