Virginia Giuffre's posthumous memoir, Nobody's Girl, is not an easy read - nor should it be.

It is a harrowing, often deeply uncomfortable account of a young woman's stolen innocence and the depravity of the powerful figures, as well as her own family, who preyed upon her. Having written on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal for more than 15 years, I thought I'd heard it all. I'd sat through testimony, read every court filing, and spoken to countless victims.

But nothing prepares you for the raw pain that bleeds through her book. Giuffre's voice, often tempered in life by lawyers, PR handlers and palace spin, finally rings clear and unfiltered in death. Co-written with journalist Amy Wallace, the book gives her what she was so often denied: control of her own story. It's a haunting, defiant final word from a woman who refused to be silenced.

The picture she paints is grim. A teenager plucked from vulnerability, groomed and trafficked by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, passed between men whose money and status made them untouchable. The book doesn't just expose the predators; it lays bare the entire ecosystem that protected them: the aides, the lawyers, the powerful friends who looked the other way.

And then there's Prince Andrew, formerly known as the Duke of York. Giuffre's allegations against the royal have long haunted the monarchy, but Nobody's Girl reignites that scandal with devastating precision.

She details three occasions on which she alleges she had sex with the prince - claims he has always denied. Her account of the third encounter, on Epstein's private island, is especially disturbing, describing what she calls "an orgy" involving Epstein and several other young women.

The impact on the royal family is seismic. The prince's denials now sit uneasily alongside the grim authenticity of Giuffre's voice. The book strips away the comfort of distance and makes the allegations personal again. It drags the scandal back into public consciousness, right when the monarchy is desperate to move on.

What's most striking, though, isn't the headlines the book will generate; it's the humanity within it. For so long, Giuffre was a name attached to other people's agendas: the tabloid victim, the royal accuser, the pawn in someone else's narrative.

Here, she's none of those things. She's a woman telling her truth, with no palace press office to rebut her and no courtroom to restrain her.

Her death six months ago still feels unbearably tragic. But her tome is her legacy, a blistering act of defiance against the men who used her, the establishment that dismissed her, and a royal family still reeling from the fallout.

It's not a book anyone will enjoy reading. It's one you'll endure, because to look away would be to participate in the same silence that protected Epstein and his circle for far too long.

For me, after 15 years of covering this story, Nobody's Girl offers something I hadn't expected: clarity. It's a reminder of who Virginia really was - not a headline, not a scandal, but a survivor who refused to be silenced.

And now, finally, through her own words, she's made sure she never will be.

'Virginia Giuffre's final word is a harrowing reminder of the evil she endured' - The Mirror