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On an ordinary day in June of 1964 in a small town in the Altiplano of Peru, Sister Mary Katherine (formerly known as Kate), a young American nun recently arrived in this very foreign place, walks away from her convent with no money and no destination. Desperate and afraid of her feelings for an Irish priest with whom she has been working, she spends eight days on the run, encountering a variety of characters along the way: a cynical Englishman who helps her out; a suspicious Peruvian police officer who takes her in for questioning; and two American Peace Corps workers who befriend her. As Kate traverses this dangerous physical journey through Peru, she also embarks upon an interior journey of self-discovery—one that leads her somewhere she never could have expected. Author: Marian O’Shea Wernicke Publication Date: September 29, 2020 -
In 1661 Madrid, Ana is still grieving the loss of her husband when her niece, sixteen-year-old Juliana, suddenly vanishes. Ana frantically searches the girl’s room and comes across a diary. Journeying to southern Spain in the hope of finding her, Ana immerses herself in her niece’s private thoughts. After a futile search in Seville, she comes to Juliana’s final entries, and, discovering the horrifying reason for the girl’s flight, abandons her search. In 1992 Missouri, in her deceased mother’s home, Rachel finds a packet of letters, and a diary written by a woman named Juliana. Rachel’s reserved mother has never mentioned these items, but Rachel recognizes the names Ana and Juliana: her mother uttered them on her deathbed. She soon becomes immersed in Juliana’s diary, which recounts the young woman’s journey to Mexico City and her life in a convent. As she learns the truth about Juliana’s tragic family history, Rachel seeks to understand her connection to the writings—hoping that in finding those answers, she will somehow heal the wounds caused by her mother’s lifelong reticence. Author: Rebecca D'Harlingue Publication Date: September 8, 2020 -
This is a book that champions older women’s stories and challenges the limiting outcomes we seem to hold for them. The Book of Old Ladies introduces readers to thirty stories featuring fictional “women of a certain age” who increasingly become their truest selves. Their stories will entertain and provide insight into the stories we tell ourselves about the limits and opportunities of aging. A celebration of women who push back against the limiting stereotypes regarding older women’s possibility, The Book of Old Ladies is a book lover’s guide to approaching old age and dealing with its losses while still embracing beauty, creativity, connection, and wonder. Author: Ruth O. Saxton Publication Date: September 8, 2020 -
Beth cherished her childhood summers on a pristine northern Canadian lake, where she reveled in the sweet smell of dew on early morning hikes, the loons’ evening trills across the lake’s many bays, every brush stroke of her brother’s paintings celebrating their cherished place, and their grandfather’s laughter as he welcomed neighbors to their annual Welsh harvest celebration. Theirs was an unshakeable bond with nature, family, and friends, renewed every summer on their island of granite and pines. But that bond was threatened and then torn apart, first as rights to their island were questioned and then by nature itself, and the family was forced to leave. Fourteen years later, Beth has created a new life in urban Chicago. There, she’s erected a solid barrier between the past and present, no matter how much it costs—until her grandfather asks her to return to the island to determine its fate. Will she choose to preserve who she has become, or risk everything to discover if what was lost still remains? The Best Part of Us will immerse readers in a breathtaking natural world, a fresh perspective on loyalty, and an exquisite ode to the essential roles that family, nature, and place hold in all of our lives. Author: Sally Cole-Misch Publication Date: September 8, 2020 -
Rikki and her sister, Linda, fell out with one another four months ago. They are not speaking when Linda emails that she has lethal abdominal tumors, that her only hope of survival is a total bone marrow replacement. Linda claims Rikki is too old to donate, and explains there’s only a slight chance she is a good match anyway—but Rikki refuses to accept that. Despite the wounding between them, Linda’s email ignites a wild aspiration in her sister: she will become the perfect donor, the perfect match, with the healthiest, most vigorous cells possible. She rises with intent to heal herself, her sister, and their rootlines, the patterns formed in their family of origin that have quietly shaped their lives. Rikki walks through the science while confronting dogma that limits how mind can transform body. She builds herself into a stem cell factory using Muay Thai kickboxing and vegetarian nutrition. Working through childhood wounds and mental limits with meditation and yoga, she finds her own power, as well as ways to show up for Linda and walk with her from the edge of death to a new life. Together, the two sisters beat the lymphoma—and, as they rediscover the intimacy and love of their innocent childhood, heal the intertwined roots of their family pain. Author: Rikki West Publication Date: September 22, 2020 -
Tara moves to the American South three years after her arranged marriage to tech executive Sanjay. Ignored and lonely, Tara finds herself regressing back to childhood memories that have scarred her for life. When she was eight, her parents had left her behind with her aging grandparents and a schizophrenic uncle in Mangalore, while taking her baby brother with them to make a new life for the family in Dubai. Tara’s memories of abandonment and isolation mirror her present life of loneliness and escalating abuse at the hands of her husband. She accepts the help of kind-hearted American strangers to fight Sanjay, only to be pressured by her patriarchal family to make peace with her circumstances. Then, in a moment of truth, she discovers the importance of self-worth—a revelation that gives her the courage to break free, gently rebuild her life, and even risk being shunned by her community when she marries her childhood love, Cyrus Saldanha. Life with Cyrus is beautiful, until old fears come knocking. Ultimately, Tara must face these fears to save her relationship with Cyrus—and to confront the victim-shaming society she was raised within. Intimate and deeply moving, Purple Lotus is the story of one woman’s ascension from the dark depths of desolation toward the light of freedom. Author: Veena Rao Publication Date: September 29, 2020 -
Twenty-four years old and newly employed in Manhattan, Jenna McGrath agrees to place herself under the dead body of a wealthy, prominent New Yorker—her boss—to hide the identity of his real lover. But why? Because she is half in love with him herself; because her only friend at Hull Industries asked her to; because she feared everyone around her; because she had no idea how this would spin out into her own, undeveloped life; because she had nothing and no one? Or just because? Deftly told and sharply observed, Jenna Takes the Fall is the story of someone who became infamous . . . before she became anybody at all. Author: A. R. Taylor Publication Date: September 1, 2020 -
Welcome to Krista Nerestant’s journey from the other side of the globe—the islands of the Philippines—to the United States of America. In Indestructible, she shares the hidden gifts of trauma that have empowered her not just to survive but to thrive in a life most would have given up on. These pages contain her hard-won understanding of how it’s possible to extract life-healing lessons from each of life’s obstacles—even a violent past. As a young woman, Krista was a traumatized overachiever bound by the cultural and societal limitations of the developing nation in which she was raised. But coming out as a spiritual medium unearthed for her the many resources she had in her emotional arsenal, and inspired her to embark on a healing journey. In this candid memoir she brings readers along with her through the many trials of adversity she’s faced—as well as her moments of triumph and healing. A book that will inspire readers to seek the presence of the Hero within and begin to create the life they want, Indestructible reveals that the power of choice—belief, perspective, feeling—is the ultimate resource. Author: Krista Nerestant Publication Date: September 8, 2020 -
Mary, a Rust Belt farm girl, the bastard child of an unwed, unconventional single mother, claws her way out of poverty and weds, but soon stumbles over the myth of monogamy. When her first husband, Don, dies, she seeks a more honest, equitable relationship, determined that her infant son, Billy, will not be a fatherless child as she was. The day before she leaves on a freighter for Greece, she meets Isaac in the East Village, and their romance blooms as they shuttle back and forth between Brooklyn and Crete. In addition to the distance between them, however, Mary must also take on Isaac’s conventional Jewish mother and all her beliefs about how and where they should live. Fatherless, Fearless, Female follows the international adventures of the dauntless Mary as she moves from a mob-operated strip joint in Chicago to the vineyards and villages of Crete, from art schools in New York and Jerusalem to the Imperial Iranian Air Force Base in Isfahan during the revolution of ’78. Along the way, she navigates through a maze of broken vows, broken families, and broken educational systems—and learns, at last, the value of love and the true meaning of her mother’s deathbed story. Author: Mary Charity Kruger Stein Publication Date: September 29, 2020 -
Germany, 1940. While struggling to survive at an orphanage, young Didi crosses paths with a rebellious, quirky girl who will either help her escape a life of abuse and uncertainty or lead her down an even darker path. Fast-forward to 1970. With help from a worn leather journal, another young girl learns the story of Didi, who escaped war-torn Germany for a better life in America—except her life didn’t turn out as expected. The stories of these two girls intertwine and eventually collide one Christmas night when Didi, all grown up, finally remembers the secret she buried long ago. Chasing North Star looks back at a time when four free-range siblings, cigarettes in hand, roamed the streets ’til sunrise and hid from a gun-toting, mentally ill mother who couldn’t help herself. Stingray bicycles, transistor radios, and late nights in the cemetery—just another day in Alamo. That is, until the youngest sibling stumbles upon Didi’s story. Author: Heidi McCrary Publication Date: September 29, 2020 -
At forty, Margaret quits her sales job to follow her husband’s hotel career to Paris. She’s setting sail on this adventure with a glass half full of bravery, a well-traveled passport, a journal in which she plans to write her novel, and the mentally engrained Davis Family Handbook of Rules to Live By. Everyone tells Margaret she’s living the dream, but she feels adrift without a professional identity. Desperate to feel productive and valued, she abandons her writing and throws herself into new roles: perfect wife, hostess, guide, and expatriate. When she and her husband move to Cairo, however, the void inside she’s been ignoring threatens to engulf her. It’s clear that something needs to change, so she does the one thing she was raised never to do: asks for—and accepts—help. Over the next fifteen years abroad, the cultures of Egypt, Thailand, and Singapore confront Margaret with lessons she never would have learned at home. But it’s only when they move back to Chicago—with Margaret now stepping into the role of perfect caretaker to her parents—that she has to decide once and for all: will she dare to let go of the old rules and roles she thinks keep her safe in order to step into her own life and creative destiny? Author: Margaret Davis Ghielmetti Publication Date: September 15, 2020 -
“The prolific author and playwright parcels her stream of consciousness into wily and witty essays in Life in New York.” —The New York Times That elusive Holy Grail of modern physics, A Theory of Everything (ToE), would explain the universe in a single set of equations. Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking tackled the problem during their lifetimes and the quest continues today in laboratories around the world. Leaving string theory, galaxy clusters, and supersymmetry to the Quantum Computer and Hadron Collider crowd, Pedersen has taken up the rest—that is, A Theory of Everything Else (ToEE), based on her own groundbreaking experiences as a dog walker, camp counselor, and Bingo caller. Pedersen’s essays are a series of colorful helium balloons that entertain as well as affirm and uplift. Why, she ponders in one essay, are thousands are perishing as a result of assault weapons, carbon emissions, forest fires, pesticides, and processed foods—and yet how lawn darts were banned in the 1980s after two people died? In A Theory of Everything Else, Pedersen vividly demonstrates how life can appear to grind us down while it’s actually polishing us up—and why everyone wants to live a long time but no one wants to grow old. Author: Laura Pedersen Publication Date: September 1, 2020 -
“A mesmerizing kaleidoscope of stories about displacement, finding home, and the kindness of strangers. Haunting and heartfelt.” —Fiona Davis, national best-selling author of The Chelsea Girls An extraordinary narrative inspired by true events. 1938. Eli Stoff and his parents, Austrian Jews, escape to America just after Germany takes over their homeland. Within five years, Eli joins the US Army and, like all those who became known as Ritchie boys, he works undercover in Intelligence on the European front to help the Allies win World War II. In A Ritchie Boy, different characters tell interrelated stories that, together, form a cohesive narrative that follows Eli from Vienna to New York, from Ohio to Maryland, and then to war-torn Europe before he returns to the heartland of his new country to set down his roots. Set during the dawn of World War II and the disruptive decade to follow, A Ritchie Boy is the poignant, compelling tale of one young immigrant’s triumph over adversity. Author: Linda Kass Publication Date: September 1, 2020 -
After her mother’s death, Gabrielle Robinson found two diaries her grandfather had kept while serving as doctor during the fall of Berlin 1945. He recorded his daily struggle to survive in the ruined city—“I creep out at 10 o’clock at night to the clinic under whistling grenades and bombs, a wilderness of fire and dust, behind it, although already high in sky, the blood red moon”—and attempts to do what little he could for the wounded and dying without water, light, bedding, and medications. But then the diaries revealed something that had never been mentioned in her family, and it hit Robinson like a punch to the stomach: Api, her beloved grandfather, had been a Nazi. In this clear-eyed memoir, Robinson juxtaposes her grandfather’s harrowing account of his experiences during the war with her memories of his loving protection years afterward, and raises disturbing questions about the political responsibility we all carry as individuals. Moving and provocative, Api’s Berlin Diaries offers a firsthand and personal perspective on the far-reaching aftershocks of the Third Reich—and the author’s own inconvenient past. Author: Gabrielle Robinson Publication Date: September 15, 2020 -
The incidence of cancer continues to rise—but despite how many lives have been touched by cancer, hearing of a loved one or friend’s diagnosis still invokes such fear that it is hard to know what to do next. In All of Us Warriors, Rebecca Whitehead Munn paints a realistic picture of the impact cancer has on an individual’s life, and she attempts to demystify the experience by sharing heartfelt stories from twenty survivors and their loved ones, men and women, with seven types of cancers and all stages of the disease, as well as advice regarding how to approach someone you love living with cancer and tips and tricks for helping others feel joy in the midst of pain. This inspirational book provides a positive outlook of strength and perseverance, reinforcing the idea that the reader is stronger than cancer and not alone, and offering real strategies that cannot be found in online medical sites. Like a conversation with a new best friend (or twenty of them), All of Us Warriors is full of understanding, acceptance, and practical advice gained from personal experience. Author: Rebecca Whitehead Munn Publication Date: September 1, 2020 -
Kassie O’Callaghan’s meticulous plans to divorce her emotionally abusive husband, Mike, and move in with Chris, a younger man she met five years ago on a solo vacation in Venice, are disrupted when she finds out Mike has chronic kidney disease—something he’s concealed from her for years. Once again, she postpones her path to freedom—at least, until she pokes around his pajama drawer and discovers his illness is the least of his deceits. But Kassie is no angel, either. As she struggles to justify her own indiscretions, the secret lives she and Mike have led collide head-on, revealing a tangled web of sex, lies, and DNA. Still, mindful of her vows, Kassie commits to helping her husband find an organ donor. In the process, she uncovers a life-changing secret. Problem is, if she reveals it, her own immorality will be exposed, which means she has an impossible decision to make: Whose life will she save—her husband’s or her own? Author: Valerie Taylor Publication Date: September 15, 2020 -
When faced with overwhelming hardship, what we believe makes all the difference. At age twenty-six, Anne Reeder Heck was attacked by a stranger and brutally raped. Years later, still seeking to heal the remnants of this trauma, Anne stands alone in her living room one winter day and claims her desired belief aloud: “This is my year of strength.” Her clear intention results in a phone call; her rapist has been identified—fourteen years after the crime. Offering all the gripping and uplifting details of a story that sparked national interest—Heck appeared on the front page of The Washington Post and was interviewed by Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America—A Fierce Belief in Miracles lights the way for those seeking to heal from life’s traumas by demonstrating the importance of clear intention and trusting inner guidance, and the transformative power of forgiveness. Author: Anne Reeder Heck Publication Date: September 22, 2020 -
“All that glitters is not gold in Corie Adjmi’s wonderful short story collection Life and Other Shortcomings. Adjmi exposes the fear, envy, and yearning that simmer just beneath the surface of her characters’ beautiful lives. Her writing is both elegant and powerful. I was hooked from the first page to the last.” —Ellen Sussman, New York Times best-selling author of four novels, A Wedding in Provence, The Paradise Guest House, French Lessons and On a Night Like This Life and Other Shortcomings is a collection of linked short stories that takes the reader from New Orleans to New York City to Madrid, and from 1970 to the present day. The women in these twelve stories make a number of different choices: some work, others don’t; some stay married, some get divorced; others never marry at all. Through each character’s intimate journey, specific truths are revealed about what it means to be a woman—in relationship with another person, in a particular culture and era—and how these conditions ultimately affect her relationship with herself. The stories as a whole depict patriarchy, showing what still might be, but certainly what was, for some women in this country before the #MeToo movement. Both a cautionary tale and a captivating window into women’s lives, Life and Other Shortcomings is required reading for anyone interested in an honest, incisive, and compelling portrayal of the female experience. Author: Corie Adjmi Publication Date: August 4, 2020 -
She was going to stab her doctor, but she wrote a book instead. Years later, Willa Goodfellow revisits her account of the antidepressant-induced hypomania that hijacked her Costa Rican vacation and tells the rest of the story: her missed diagnosis of Bipolar 2, how she’d been given the wrong medications, and finally, her process of recovery. Prozac Monologues is a book within a book—part memoir of misdiagnosis and part self-help guide about life on the bipolar spectrum. Through edgy and comedic essays, Goodfellow offers information about a mood disorder frequently mistaken for major depression as well as resources for recovery and further study. Plus, Costa Rica.- If your depression keeps coming back . . .
- If your antidepressant side effects are dreadful . . .
- If you are curious about the bipolar spectrum . . .
- If you want ideas for recovery from mental illness . . .
- If you care for somebody who might have more than depression . . .
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Five college friends have arrived at forty in very different circumstances, but with at least one thing in common: they are among the most privileged in society. Elizabeth and Sara are lawyers, Martha is a doctor, Carmen is a wealthy and well-educated homemaker, and Heather, the most successful, is a famous tech executive—and after more than two decades of friendship, they know one another better than anyone. Then Heather writes a women’s advice book detailing the key life “mistakes” of her four friends—opting out, ramping off, giving half effort, and forgetting your fertility—that becomes wildly popular, and Elizabeth, Sara, Martha, and Carmen all feel the sting of Heather’s cruel words. Despite their rarified status, these women face everyday obstacles, including work problems, parenting challenges, secondary infertility, racism, sexism, financial stress, and marital woes—and as they weather their fortieth year, each one can’t help but wonder if their life might have been different if they had followed Heather’s advice. But as these friends are continually reminded, life is complex, messy, disappointing, and joyful, often all at once—and no one can plan her way out of that reality. In the end, all five women must embrace the idea that their lives are shaped not just by their choices but also by how they handle the obstacles life inevitably throws at us all. Author: Laura Jamison Publication Date: August 4, 2020 -
As a little girl, Teressa’s father dotes on her and little sister, Karen, while mercilessly mocking her older sister, Debbie. Teressa thinks its Debbie’s fault—until she gets a little older and he begins tormenting her, too. Soon enough, his verbal abuse turns physical. Her sergeant father brings his military life home, meeting each of his daughters’ infractions with extreme punishment for them all. Meanwhile, their mother watches silently, never defending her daughters and never subjected to physical abuse herself. Terrified to be at home and terrified to tell anyone, Teressa seeks solace in books, music, and the family she can find outside of her home: a best friend, a kind neighbor, and a doting grandfather. At first cowed by her father’s abuse and desperate to believe that maybe, one day, things will change, Teressa ultimately grows into a young woman who understands that if she wants a better life, she’ll have to build it for herself—so she does. Author: Teressa Shelton Publication Date: August 11, 2020 -
Between 1870 and 1900, twelve million people immigrated to America. Hundreds of thousands of them came to work in the textile mills of Fall River, Massachusetts. The Mill of Lost Dreams is a story of love, friendship and sacrifice that provides an inside view into the world of textile mills and the daily life of seven courageous souls who leave home and risk everything for their shared dream of a better life: Angelina and Guido Wallabee, who have left their family’s failed farm in Italy; eleven-year-old Miranda Alysworth and her fifteen-year-old brother, Francois, who have escaped from indentured service in Canada; twins Phoebe and Charlie Dougherty, the children of Irish immigrant parents, who, though not yet thirteen, are forced to work in Troy Mill to support their family after their father’s untimely death; and eleven-year-old, Anne Kenny, an orphan who’s never known where she came from. All but one take jobs in Troy Mill in Fall River. Over the course of seven decades, there are marriages, births, secrets exposed, friendships tested, and innocence lost. Some succeed in making a new life away from harm but pay a terrible price. Many cannot build the life they dreamed of and the consequences impact and shape the lives of their children—and their children’s children. Author: Lori Rohda Publication Date: August 11, 2020 -
“Linda Ulleseit has written a heroic tale of family, friendship, loss, and redemption. With undeniable beauty, she captures the courage of a young woman and community stunned by unforgettable tragedy. She writes with humility, grace, and a quiet brilliance as she portrays young Dolores’s search for family and the generous, hardworking heart at the center of The Aloha Spirit.” —Milana Marsenich, author of Copper Sky and The Swan Keeper The spirit of aloha is found in Hawaii’s fresh ocean air, the flowers, the trade winds . . . the natural beauty that smooth the struggles of daily life. In 1922 Honolulu, unhappy in the adoptive family that’s raised her, Dolores begins to search for that spirit early on—and she begins by running away at sixteen to live with her newlywed friend Maria. Trying to find her own love, Dolores marries a young Portuguese man named Manolo His large family embraces her, but when his drinking leads to physical abuse, only his relative Alberto comes to her rescue—and sparks a passion within Dolores that she hasn’t known before. Staunch Catholics can’t divorce, however; so, after the Pearl Harbor attack, Dolores flees with her two daughters to California, only to be followed by both Manolo and Alberto. In California, Manolo’s drinking problems continue—and Alberto’s begin. Outraged that yet another man in her life is turning to the bottle for answers, Dolores starts to doubt her feelings for Alberto. Is he only going to disappoint her, as Manolo has? Or is Alberto the embodiment of the aloha spirit she’s been seeking? Author: Linda Ulleseit Publication Date: August 18, 2020 -
Royal Academy, London 1919: Lily has put her student days in St. Ives, Cornwall, behind her—a time when her substitute mother, Mrs. Ramsay, seemingly disliked Lily’s portrait of her and Louis Grier, her tutor, never seduced her as she hoped he would. In the years since, she’s been a suffragette and a nurse in WWI, and now she’s a successful artist with a painting displayed at the Royal Academy. Then Louis appears at the exhibition with the news that Mrs. Ramsay has died under suspicious circumstances. Talking to Louis, Lily realizes two things: 1) she must find out more about her beloved Mrs. Ramsay’s death (and her sometimes-violent husband, Mr. Ramsay), and 2) She still loves Louis. Set between 1900 and 1919 in picturesque Cornwall and war-blasted London, Talland House takes Lily Briscoe from the pages of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and tells her story outside the confines of Woolf’s novel—as a student in 1900, as a young woman becoming a professional artist, her loves and friendships, mourning her dead mother, and solving the mystery of her friend Mrs. Ramsay’s sudden death. Talland House is both a story for our present time, exploring the tensions women experience between their public careers and private loves, and a story of a specific moment in our past—a time when women first began to be truly independent. Author: Maggie Humm Publication Date: August 18, 2020
