A Time for Truth: My Father Jason and My Search for Justice and Healing - Biography of the Year, An Post Irish Book Awards 2025

'I was 12 weeks old when my mother, Mags, died.
I was eight years old when my father was killed by Molly and Thomas Martens. The Martens made me an orphan. They took away my father, my only constant, the only loving parent I had.'
From the Victim Impact Statement of Sarah Corbett Lynch, given in North Carolina Superior Court in 2023

On 2 August 2015, Irishman Jason Corbett was killed in his North Carolina home by his American wife Molly Martens and her father Tom. Sarah, Jason's eight-year-old daughter, and her brother Jack were also in the house that fateful night, asleep upstairs.

Now eighteen years old, Sarah Corbett Lynch tells her story for the first time. She shares her earliest memories of her beloved dad and her life with him, Jack and Molly Martens in their home in North Carolina, and gives her account of the events leading up to the night that changed everything. She remembers the aftermath of her father's death, and how her words were weaponised amidst lies and deception during her family's gruelling nine year battle for justice - and the devastation they shared when Molly and Tom Martens were released from prison in 2024, after serving just three and a half years.

Using entries from the diary she has kept since she was eight, Sarah also writes about her journey of grief and recovery from trauma, as she and Jack were welcomed into the safe, loving home of her aunt Tracey, her father's sister, in Ireland. And she looks to the future, determined to honour her mother's and her father's memory and to do what she can to change the world for the better.

Raw, powerful and inspirational, A Time for Truth is an unforgettable story of heartbreak and loss, but also of strength, love and courage as this remarkable young woman has survived, healed and thrived - against the odds.

Sarah is an award-winning bereaved children and victims' rights campaigner and one of the youngest authors in Irish history. Born in Ireland, her mother died tragically when she was twelve weeks old and later, when Sarah was four, her family moved to the US when her father remarried.

Sarah and her older brother Jack were left orphaned when their father, Jason Corbett, was killed by their stepmother, Molly Martens, and her father, Tom Martens, in August 2015. Sarah and Jack then returned to Ireland to be raised by Jason's sister, Tracey, and her husband, Dave. 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.

At just 13 years old, Sarah wrote an illustrated book, Noodle Loses Dad, to help children cope with bereavement and loss. Her book was later adopted by children's rights groups, professionals, counselling services, and schools as a valuable teaching aid. For her work, Sarah received a special National Garda Síochána award and a Limerick Young Person tribute.

A native of Limerick, now living in County Clare, Sarah is also an accomplished singer, actor, and dancer. A qualified swim teacher and lifeguard, she loves to snorkel surf, and sea swim.