"Your dad has given you away," his stepmother said with a sinister smile. These haunting words would follow young Olan for the rest of his life.

At nine years of age, he wondered, "Can your daddy really give you away?" Can he do that? He would soon discover that he could, and he did. His life was about to change forever.

In Given Away, a book made available through Authors Tranquility Press, Olan Hill, Jr. shares his true life story, revealing the depth of pain and hardship, adventure and triumph he finds throughout his life.

October in California can at times seem bleak. As Olan came walking home from school on that dark day, he discovered all his belongings carefully packed into a small cardboard box.

The box was sitting on the front porch of that little clapboard house where he lived, in Bean Town (a community just outside Clovis, California). Climbing the steps that day, his mind spun with curiosity.

With the heartbreaking news that his father had given him away, he was soon to be in a faraway place, some 1500 miles away. Given Away reveals his struggles, hopes and dreams.

In writing this book, the author does not blame anyone for what happened to him. He does not write with anger or hatred; he only wants to tell his story as he experienced it - the good, bad and indifferent.

Given Away also tells of the author's ancestral tree, sharing the many stories of his grandparents during the difficult days of the great depression. .