Cosette's Tribe by Leah Griffith

Every little girl wants an adoring father, and nine-year-old Cosette is no different, so when, Ken, a daddy-faced neighbor, befriends Cosette, she believes that Heaven has sent him to be her dad. Fearful of asking her shy mother to meet Ken, Cosette takes the initiative by bringing him home unannounced—remarkably, the two hit it off. But harmless daydreams morph into dark realities when Cosette’s meddling backfires, and the thing she wanted most becomes her total undoing, shattering her innocence and changing her once secure world into a place of fear and isolation. Cosette’s Tribe is the intimate account of a young girl caught between the beauty of what she hoped for and the vile reality of the life she's forced to endure. As family ties are tested and friendships forged, a tortured, yet resilient child, dares to find her own unconquerable strength. Cosette's Tribe was inspired by the author's own turbulent childhood. She is currently working on a continuation of Cosette's Tribe.