A best-selling memoirist bravely tells the story of the night evil paid her a visit - and how prayer chased evil away

Beverly Donofrio had already lived two lives, first as a scrappy young mother on the streets of the East Village and later as the best-selling author of Riding in Cars with Boys. By the time she reached her 50s, she thought she had seen it all.

Now, even though she was living in a vibrant, picturesque Mexican town, where she practiced yoga, drank margaritas in her backyard, and took salsa lessons, she felt lost and was searching for monasteries to visit. The religious practice that had nourished her for several years had faded. She missed God. Then one night she woke to find a rapist holding a knife to her throat. So begins the memoir that charts Donofrio's journey - a long and twisting road through denial, mourning, anger, vulnerability, and retreat at five very different monasteries.

Told through Donofrio's brutally honest, often ribald, emotionally unsparing voice, Astonished is a tender and hopeful narrative of healing and learning to love life again.