Author: Pamela Samuels Young

Published: October 2019 by Goldman House Publishing

Category: Legal Thriller, Drama, Book Review

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What Really Goes on Behind School Doors?

When the classroom is no longer a safe space for her child, an outraged mother is determined to seek justice for her bullied daughter. Enter hard-charging attorneys Angela Evans and Jenny Ungerman. From the start, the two lawyers face more than an uphill battle.

Failure To Protect covers the horrific and ongoing epidemic of bullying. It became even more widespread since the emergence of social media, which can and is being used as a weapon to persecute the person being bullied even more. 

After Bailey Lewis recently lost her father, she and her mother moved house and Bailey started at a new school in the hopes of leaving the bullies behind. But Bailey again became a target and the victim of the school bully. She felt unable to let her mother know how bad things were, she would only get the usual platitudes, which didn’t help in the least. She couldn’t even make her godfather Dre understand how much she didn’t want to go to school. 

Just because I’m only nine years old, grown ups think I don’t have problems.

They tell me stupid stuff like, Bailey, you have to learn to stand up for yourself. Or Try to make friends with the bully. And the lamest one of all, Just ignore them and they’ll leave you alone.

I tried that last one about a thousand times. It definitely doesn’t work.

Bailey had reported the bullying several times but no avail, since it’s not only children who were bullies. It was continuous and vicious and had reached the point where Bailey was terrified of going to school.

There’s an extremely serious and important message at the heart of this excellent legal drama. As well as vividly highlighting the terrible toll caused by constant bullying and how it affects susceptible children, Failure To Protect also touches on not taking a child’s concerns seriously enough. When the unthinkable happens, Bailey’s distraught mother begins proceedings against the school. Criminal defence attorneys, Angela Evans and Jenny Ungerman are determined to uncover the truth despite the odds being stacked against them.Some people however are only concerned with reputation and career above anything else, including the welfare of children in their charge.

Pamela Samuels Young again focusses on the dangers that can affect young children, the use of social media making an awful situation much worse. The shocking subject matter is handled well and realistically, with twists that added to the drama. Well written, emotional and thought provoking.

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Award-winning author and attorney Pamela Samuels Young writes mysteries that matter. Dubbed “John Grisham with a sister’s twist” by one reviewer, Pamela’s fast-paced novels tackle important social issues.

Her most recent legal thriller, Failure to Protect, takes on the bullying epidemic and its devastating aftermath. Pamela won the prestigious NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Fiction for her thriller Anybody’s Daughter, which provides a realistic look inside the world of child sex trafficking. Her courtroom drama Abuse of Discretion centers around a troubling teen sexting case. #Anybody’s Daughter and #Abuse of Discretion are young adult editions of the two books. A young adult version of Failure to Protect is forthcoming.

Author links ~ Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

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