Sarah Corbett Lynch to publish memoir

HACHETTE Books Ireland has announced the acquisition of Sarah Corbett Lynch’s inspiring and courageous memoir 'A Time for Truth: A Daughter’s Search for Justice and Healing' which will be published in February 2025.

The memoir tells the story of Sarah and that of her father Jason Corbett who was brutally killed by his wife, Sarah’s stepmother, Molly Martens and her father Tom Martens in the family’s North Carolina home on the night of August 2, 2015. Eight-year-old Sarah and her brother Jack were asleep upstairs at the time.

In November 2023 an appeal by the Martens saw a second-degree murder conviction overturned and the Martens accepting a plea deal of voluntary manslaughter.

In the absence of a second trial, Sarah was denied her chance to take the stand. Now, in her powerful memoir, she finally speaks her truth. And, as she remembers the events before and after that night when her life was shattered, she shows that through love, there is a way forward, even in the darkest times.

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Sarah Corbett Lynch says: "Since 2015, I've always had someone else tell my story. There are podcasts, documentaries, magazine articles and forums dedicated to uncovering the truth about my father’s killing, with so many front pages over the years that I lost count. All of which attempted to tell my story but without my words.

"I've had my truth distorted, twisted and changed because I was a child but the truth will always force its way into the light. My brother and I had our words weaponised against us by the people we had trusted and loved so they could mitigate their crime of killing the most important person in my life. They betrayed our trust to avoid consequences for their actions.”

This tragic loss instilled in Sarah a burning desire to campaign for other bereaved children and for victims' rights and to help others impacted by violent crime, which she has actively done in the US and Ireland in the years since.

Drawing from diaries she has kept since she was eight, Sarah also writes about her journey of grief and recovery from trauma.