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by Tracy M. Hayward (Author)
Looking for Love is the unflinching memoir of a woman's fight for survival, dignity, and genuine connection against the backdrop of poverty, abuse, and institutional failure.
Born to a sixteen-year-old mother in Salem, New Jersey, Tracy M. Hayward's life was shaped by instability from the start. By fifteen, she was pregnant and living in Philadelphia's Richard Allen projects, surrounded by drugs and neglect. What followed was an eleven-year cycle of abuse, infidelity, and financial exploitation at the hands of her children's father, followed by another relationship that escalated from manipulation to a violent assault that nearly took her life.
Yet this is not merely a story of victimhood. Between the shelters and the betrayals, Hayward built something: she earned her nursing certification, secured Section 8 housing, and raised children largely on her own. She navigated welfare programs, job training initiatives, and the constant precarity of poverty while refusing to let anyone-abusive partners or a broken system-define her worth.
Written in a raw, authentic voice that never seeks pity, Looking for Love documents the painful pattern of mistaking control for care and the long, hard-won journey toward real stability. It is a testament to resilience, the fierce love between a mother and her children, and the hope that genuine love might finally be found.
