Nottingham, Nottinghamshire Sep 29, 2026 (Issuewire.com) - Good Reach Publishing has released Caterpillars Aren't Ugly, the debut memoir of author and counsellor Linda Hamilton. The book is Hamilton's account of surviving childhood sexual abuse, her long process of recovery, and the role family silence can play in allowing harm to continue. It is available now in paperback, hardcover and ebook formats.

At the centre of the memoir is a night in 1976, when Hamilton was a child in her family home, and the years that followed. "No one should ever feel unsafe in their own home, with the adults around them," she writes. "When it happens, life changes forever."

Hamilton began writing the book in October 2021, during a week spent alone with memories she had carried for most of her life. The memoir follows her from childhood into adulthood, through building a marriage, raising a daughter and training as a counsellor.

The title reflects the book's central image: a caterpillar is not ugly, it is simply not yet what it is becoming. Hamilton uses this idea to describe recovery as a gradual change that continues throughout life.

Alongside her personal story, Hamilton examines how relatives who knew and stayed silent, and cultural pressures that placed privacy above a child's safety, can leave children without protection. She also reflects on how today's children's services, multi-agency safeguarding hubs and trained social workers developed as society came to recognise what had once gone unchallenged behind closed doors.

Hamilton describes her approach not as an expert but "as a companion -- someone walking the same path, stumbling and learning." The book discusses how the body holds memory, living with triggers and rebuilding trust, and it includes lighter passages in which Hamilton finds humour in parts of the life she has built since.

A message that runs throughout the memoir, and one Hamilton draws from her counselling training, is that responsibility never lies with the child. "A child is never to blame for any abuse," she writes. "It was not my fault, period."

The book is intended for survivors and their families, as well as counsellors, safeguarding professionals and others who support people affected by childhood trauma.

About the Author

Linda Hamilton has worked with children for many years and currently manages a team. She is trained as a counsellor. She lives with her husband, and the couple have one adult daughter. Caterpillars Aren't Ugly is her first book.

Book Details

Caterpillars Aren't Ugly by Linda Hamilton (Good Reach Publishing, May 12, 2026) is available in paperback (ISBN 978-1-918039-58-0), hardcover (ISBN 978-1-918039-59-7) and ebook (ISBN 978-1-918039-60-3).

Interviews and Review Copies

Linda Hamilton is available for interviews, podcast appearances, panel discussions and book club visits. She can speak about surviving childhood trauma, family silence, recovery, the role of faith in her healing, the experience of writing the memoir, and her work as a counsellor. She does not discuss the identity of her abuser.

Review copies are available on request for press, reviewers and booksellers through the media contact listed with this release.

Media Contact

Good Reach Publishing

*****@gmail.com

https://goodreachpublishing.com/