Christian Bookworm

In Priceless, by Tom Davis, we join Stuart Daniels from Scared on a journey to Russia. In Scared, Stuart rediscovered his faith, and gained a new purpose while covering the AIDS crisis in Africa: to educate people about the social injustices that are being perpetrated on others in the world.
 
Stuart travels to Russia to interview an old friend who is the director of an orphanage about the increase of AIDS in orphans, and suddenly finds himself helping to smuggle two young teenage girls out of his hotel. What follows next is an education in the sex slave trade. It’s not just an education for Stuart though and it’s not fiction. Tom educates the reader as well, and as I read, I was sick at the horror that so many children have to face each day. 

One of the most disheartening things in Priceless was how the government and/or people who are supposed to be helping these children are involved in the process of kidnapping, beating, often times drugging them, and then forcing them to become sex slaves in brothels or prostitutes working the streets and hotels.  If they can get away, most of them are afraid to try because of threats against family members. These boys and girls can be as young as my youngest, who is seven. I can’t even imagine my nine year old daughter in that situation.

While the story in Priceless is fiction, it is a reality that many children face on a daily basis. It breaks my heart that children the age of mine are forced into the sex trade with no way out. Tom’s purpose for writing Priceless was more than just writing a good novel. These are stories you don’t hear from the news organizations. He is on the ground helping to rescue children who are forced into these situations.  You can find more about his work here.

What did you think about Priceless?