Standalone Novels
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| The Only Girl in the World | 2014 | Buy |
Maude Julien grew up on a remote estate in northern France, with no schooling, no friends, and no ordinary childhood. Her father, Louis Didier, had a fixation on raising a child who could survive anything. He subjected her to ice baths, forced her to hold live wires, and kept her away from other children. Her mother, who had been taken in by Didier as a child herself, was complicit in the arrangement. The book, originally published in French as Derrière la grille and translated into English in 2014, details how Julien eventually escaped and rebuilt her life.
After leaving the estate as a young adult, Julien went on to train as a psychotherapist and has since specialised in helping survivors of cult-like family structures and psychological abuse. Her professional work gives her memoir a reflective quality: she writes about her childhood not only as a survivor but as someone who now understands the mechanisms her father used.
The Only Girl in the World was co-written with journalist Ursula Gauthier and received wide attention in France when it first appeared. It stands as a rare account of extreme isolation that combines raw personal testimony with psychological clarity.