Susan grew up in a dysfunctional home and found her young life very  difficult. Her only escape was reading and writing short stories about children who were never hurt and always loved.
 

At age ten, her beloved grandmother came to visit and gave her several Harlequin romance books to read. Susan was immediately drawn to the happy endings, a stark contrast to the constant abuse at home.
 

That all changed just after her sixteenth birthday when her parents forced her out of the house. The only possessions she was allowed to take were a small backpack of clothes, her books, and the five dollars she’d made from babysitting the neighbor children that day.

Unable to contact her grandmother, who lived in another country, she was alone and scared. She wandered the streets for months doing odd jobs to make enough money to eat. During the darkness of night she hid in building doorways until the city buses came on shift at five a.m., having saved the last of her money to buy a bus pass. Exhausted, she would sleep a few short
hours in the back row seat until the driver kicked her off to face another afternoon on the streets looking for work...