Hodder pulls back on Keenan memoir

Hodder has said it has "decided not to further distribute…in its current form" the memoir Broken by anti-abuse campaigner Shy Keenan.

Broken, which was released in 2008, described the abuse Keenan suffered as a child at the hands of her stepfather, who was later jailed for his crimes. It has sold 111,990 copies through Nielsen BookScan.

Non-fiction publishing director Rowena Webb told The Bookseller there would be no further comment for legal reasons.

E-editions of Broken are no longer available on Kindle and iTunes, although the book is still showing as available to download on the Waterstones website. Physical copies of the book are still showing as available to order on a number of websites.

Keenan, who has removed images of the book previously featuring on her Twitter account, was unavailable for comment, according to her agent David Riding at MBA.

The campaigner is a founder of Phoenix Survivors, which works with victims of child sex abuse. In addition to her memoir Broken, Keenan has also written Where Angels Fear: A Terrifying True Story of Little Children Trapped in a World of Abuse and Suffering (Hodder), together with Sara Payne, and a fiction title, The Stolen Ones (Hodder).