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Fifteen-year-old Jana’s Romani family leads a nomadic life, traveling and trading horses, in Czechoslovakia. When her family relocates to Prague one step ahead of the Nazi invasion, Jana becomes a freedom fighter. She gets a job in the Prague castle, where secret messages are hidden inside of clocks and she must smuggle them out of the castle and pass them on to the Resistance. After the Nazis close all Czech colleges and universities, Jana and two of her peers—her Resistance contact, Otto, who was the first in his family to attend college, and a fellow student, Albert—are even more determined to free their country from the Nazi oppressors. All three will face danger and desperate choices as they learn that this fight will cost them more than they ever imagined. In this coming-of-age story set in extraordinary times, Jana and her friends strive to find love and their place in the world—even as they fight the Nazi occupation of their country. Pub Date: June 6, 2023 Author: B.K. Oldre -
Christina Vo has always struggled with the concept of “home.” The daughter of an emotionally distant father and a mother who died when she was just fourteen, she continues to grapple with that legacy of loss and her constant quest to, as a fortysomething, find a reconciliation with the shape her life has taken. In January 2021, feeling a call to be closer to the land, she decides to leave San Francisco—this time permanently, she hopes—and set off on a road trip with one of her closest friends, David. Christina and David begin their journey with an ayahuasca ceremony in Santa Barbara, then continue on to Ojai and ultimately Santa Fe—two magical lands that serve as deep portals for healing. Throughout their travels, Christina reflects on the recent and distant past: her relationships, her past experiences in Santa Barbara and Ojai (where she stayed for nine months around her fortieth birthday, two years ago) and her evolving understanding of her relationship with her parents. All the while, she ponders how the past has shaped her current identity as a single, childless, and motherless woman in her forties. Within the context of intimate friendship, she discovers how thin the veil between worlds can be, and gradually comes to realize that her mother’s spirit has accompanied her since day one of her journey. Deeply reflective and ultimately joyful, Vo’s memoir takes us on a journey between two worlds—the physical and the spiritual—that eventually brings her to a newfound understanding of how to deepen connections with others, as well as to a place of peace and home within herself. Pub Date: April 25, 2023 Author: Christina Vo -
Growing up in an Italian American family in Queens, New York, in the ’70s, Francesca Miracola was trained from an early age to keep up appearances at all costs—but behind closed doors, her parents’ toxic marriage served as a blueprint for dysfunction. So when she met Jason Axcel at a bar as a twentysomething, she ignored all the red flags—and there were plenty of them—and dove right in, normalizing his emotional and physical abuse just like she’d learned to do. She even married and had two children with him. But something in her clicked one night when Jason strolled out the door after a vicious fight that left her degraded on the floor, and she decided she was done. Except Jason wouldn’t let her go. Even after they finally divorced and Francesca fell in love with someone else, her ex-husband was keen enough to recognize that she was the same broken girl he’d met a decade earlier, and he exploited that fact at every turn. He called the cops to her home with bogus claims; he bombarded her with provoking emails and texts; he stalked her every move; and, worst of all, he used their little boys as pawns in his campaign. Then he went for the jugular and sued her for custody. But Francesca was stronger than he’d given her credit for. Raw and illuminating, I Got It from Here is one woman’s story of saving herself and her children from the grips of a sociopath posing as a family man—and from the inherited trauma passed down by her own family of birth—while learning to trust in the inner voice that’s been trying to guide her all along. Pub Date: April 25, 2023 Author: Francesca Miracola -
Suzanne’s story begins with a phone call from her husband, Michael, telling her he has collapsed on the job. They soon learn he has multiple sclerosis. Despite the negative patterns threatening their marriage, she is determined to handle the caregiving tasks suddenly thrust upon her. Through love, psychological insights, and spiritual inquiry, she cultivates her abilities—and gains the courage to confront a medical system that often saves her husband but at other times threatens his life. As time progresses, Michael undergoes many hospitalizations; he also makes miraculous recoveries that allow adventure back into their lives, including a numinous experience with dragonflies. When Suzanne faces her own medical crisis, their world is shaken once again—but throughout it all, love is their bond, one even death cannot sever. In Watching for Dragonflies, Suzanne reaches out to other caregivers and anyone who has experienced a life-changing crisis, inviting them to explore the many avenues of growth and transformation that uninvited change can bring. Often poignant, at times funny, and always riveting, Watching for Dragonflies will bring comfort—and inspiration—to readers as they navigate their own transformative journey. Pub Date: June 6, 2023 Author: Suzanne Marriott -
In the late 1860s in Bantry, Ireland, sixteen-year-old Eileen O’Donovan is forced by her family to marry an older widower whom she barely knows and does not love. Her brother Michael, at age nineteen, becomes involved with the outlawed Irish Republican Brotherhood, a secret organization dedicated to the violent overthrow of British rule in Ireland. Their fates intertwine when they each decide to emigrate to America, where both tragedy and happiness await them. An exciting coming-of-age story of a brother and sister in an Ireland still under the harsh rule of the British, Out of Ireland brings alive the story of our ancestors who braved the dangers of immigration in order to find a better life for themselves and their families. Pub Date: April 25, 2023 Author: Marian O'Shea Wernicke -
Thirteen-year-old Evan Hanson is always the last in her family to know what’s going on—at least, that’s how it feels. Her father, Gene, who’s been meaner since he began serving in Vietnam, isn’t around much, and she likes it better that way. But then her brother, Adam, gets drafted and her anti-war mother, Endura, takes him across the border to Canada, leaving Evan alone with Gene and her younger, special needs brother, Teddy. When he realizes Endura isn’t returning, Gene takes Evan and Teddy to Eat and Get Gas, his mother’s café and gas station in Hoquiam, Washington. There, as well as her no-nonsense but loving grandma, Evan encounters Aunt Vivian, a teasing but caring know-it-all; Uncle Frankie, injured in Vietnam and suffering from PTSD; Paco, the draft dodger Frankie is hiding; Hal and Hubert, the strange but gentle next-door neighbors who play the piano like virtuosos and help out when they’re needed; and Louanne, Frankie’s reserved, sensitive sister. She is drawn in particular to Louanne, who was disfigured by a car accident that killed the rest of her and Frankie’s family. At Eat and Get Gas, Evan finds a new freedom, and she starts to carve out a place for herself by helping in the café and sorting mail for Uncle Frankie, who runs a postal route in addition to running the gas station. She eventually, too, learns some of the family secrets she’s been kept in the dark about—and comes to understand that her mother isn’t coming back any time soon. Then, after reading a letter that wasn’t meant for her, Evan discovers the biggest secret of all. Pub Date: June 6, 2023 Author: Jodi Wright (J.A. Wright) -
A decade has passed since Lucas Connolly lost his best friend—and the only man he’s ever loved—in World War I, but he still can’t shake his guilt over Jamie’s death. In fact, ever since losing Jamie, Lucas has heard his friend’s voice inside his head—confused about what happened to him, begging him for help. And now, suddenly, it’s not just Jamie’s voice anymore; now, a specter who looks and acts exactly like Jamie did before his death, and who is demanding answers from Lucas about what happened to him, has begun to haunt him. Concerned about Lucas’s deteriorating mental state, his friend Angela encourages him to move on with his life, and even sets him up with a coworker whom she suspects is also gay. But Lucas is too consumed with the secret he still keeps about the part he played in Jamie’s death to even begin to form a healthy connection with someone new—and as Jamie’s ghost begins to recover his memories and get closer to the truth, Lucas’s obsession only deepens. Ultimately, Lucas realizes that his only path forward is to first go backward—that only in examining his troubled youth, facing his deepest self, and shining a light on the shadowed parts of his past will he finally be able to set his old friend, and himself, free. Pub Date: June 13, 2023 Author: E.L. Deards -
In the spirit of The Glass Castle and The Burning Light of Two Stars, Antonia Deignan delivers what New York Times best-selling author Julie Cantrell calls a “a heart-shattering memoir of painful truth and soulful healing.” As a child, Antonia perceived her father’s nighttime visits as special acts of love. On some deeper level, though, she knew what was happening wasn’t right. To escape, she began creating imaginary worlds and used dreams to transport her away from her fears. As she got older, Antonia traded those fantasies for dance—but despite her outlets she remained trapped underwater, without a lifeline to make her feel fundamentally safe. For years, Antonia silently navigated the dark fathoms of her internalized pain, which manifested in myriad self-destructive habits: disordered eating, drug and alcohol abuse. Only decades later, while recovering from a serious bike accident, did she finally stop running and start reflecting—giving her the power to fully accept what had happened to her in her early life and ultimately forgive the unforgivable. Raw and visceral yet gorgeously lyrical, Underwater Daughter masterfully conveys not only the rippling effects of childhood trauma but also the hope that with honesty and work, healing is possible. Pub Date: May 2, 2023 Author: Antonia Deignan -
Greece. Politics. Love. Danger. Reeling from a failed marriage and spurred on by a burgeoning sense of feminism, twenty-five-year-old Kate accepts a position as a speech therapist in a center for children with cerebral palsy in Thessaloniki, Greece. It is 1974, and the recent end of Greece’s seven-year dictatorship has ignited a fiery anti-American sentiment within the country. Despite this, as her Greek improves, Kate teaches communication to severely disabled children, creates profound friendships, and finds a home in the ancient and historied city. From a dramatic Christmas pig slaughter to a mesmerizing fire walking ceremony, her world expands rapidly—even more so when she falls in love with Thanasis, a handsome Communist. Through Thanasis, Kate meets people determined to turn a spotlight on their former dictators’ massacre of university students, as well as their record of widespread censorship and torture of dissidents. The more she learns, the more her loyalty to her country and almost everything she was taught in her conservative home state of Texas is challenged. Kate is transformed by her odyssey, but when her very safety is threatened by the politics of her lover, she must choose: risk everything to stay with Thanasis and the Greece that has captured her heart, or remove herself from harm’s way by returning to her homeland? Pub Date: June 13, 2023 Author: Kathryn Crawley -
“. . . a survival story of the highest order, navigating the complex terrain of marriage, medical crisis, and a future reimagined.” —CAROLINE VAN HEMERT, award-winning author of The Sun is a Compass A marine biologist’s adventurous life as a professor and mother in Alaska is upended when her healthy husband is slammed by a rare type of stroke. His radical approach to recovery clashes with her instinct to keep him safe at home and sets them on a collision course as he insists on ambitious sailing expeditions with Beth and their young son in Alaska’s magnificent yet unforgiving waters. Author: Beth Ann Mathews Publication Date: May 2, 2023 -
In this beautifully crafted blend of memoir and guidebook, Suzanne Anderson invites you to walk with her through the brutal landscape of trauma and loss in a way that is profoundly transformational. Whether you are going through a personal dark night or struggling with these uncertain and disruptive global times, this book offers a proven pathway to allow the breaking down to be the breaking open into a whole new way of living, loving, and leading. Structured into three distinct parts, Part One sets the stage and walks us through the shocking event of her husband’s suicide and the dismantling of her life. Using compelling personal stories throughout, Part Two explores how to embody each of the eight critical capacities of resilience, and Part Three provides some of the inner tools, rituals and broader perspectives needed. Drawing from her years of exploration into the development of human potential and the personal, shattering journey of loss, Suzanne guides you to make your own path through the darkest of times—and to become a light in the world that others can look to in their own times of need. Pub Date: June 13, 2023 Author: Suzanne Anderson -
Joanne Greene grew up in Boston during the 1960s and ’70s, a turning point for women in the United States. Doors were opening wider, and Joanne walked through as many as she could. As a young woman, she dove headfirst into San Francisco radio and television, and went on to host and produce award-winning feminist and other timely features and talk shows for decades. Throughout, she worked at having a great marriage and being an exemplary parent. But underlying her high-achieving life was a sometimes-destructive need for control. Vulnerability and dependency were okay . . . for other people. Joanne’s value was tied to how in charge, how together, and how productive she was. Then she suffered a traumatic accident—and it set her on a journey of discovery that taught her true power came in the still moments, the moments when she not only loosened her grip but even allowed herself to crack. In fragility, Joanne found, there was beauty—and possibility, too. By Accident is a story about discovering that control is a seductive illusion and how letting go of the need for it can reveal great strength and lead us to even firmer ground. Pub Date: June 20, 2023 Author: Joanne Greene -
The Earthquake Child is the story of an adoption, told through the voices of an adoptee, his desperate young birth mother, and his loving but grieving adoptive mother. How can Joshua’s behavior be explained? This question is all-consuming for his adoptive family. Joshua was relinquished at birth, then adopted only days later. Is it his genetic inheritance of substance abuse and generational poverty that causes him to act out, run away and eventually become involved with drugs? Is it the losses he’s experienced in his adoptive family? Or is it the very fact of adoption itself—the trauma of being amputated from his gestational mother to be raised by a family unrelated to him by blood, culture, or biology? What makes our children who they are? These voices and questions will resonate with all parents, but particularly with those who are or have been part of the adoption triangle: adoptees, mothers who have relinquished a child, and parents who’ve added a child to their family through adoption. Pub Date: June 20, 2023 Author: Elayne Klasson -
For twenty-five years, paramedic and firefighter Christy Warren put each tragic, traumatizing call she responded to in a box and closed the lid. One day, however, the box got too full and the lid blew open—and she found herself unable to close it again. Her brain locked her inside a movie theater in which film after film of gut-wrenching scenes from her career played over and over again; she found herself incapable of forgiving herself for what happened at one call in particular. Caught in a loop of shame, anger, irritability, and hypervigilance—classic signs of PTSD—she began to spiral, even to the point of considering suicide, and yet still she was reluctant to seek help. In the end, it took almost losing her marriage to force Christy into action—but once she began to reach out, she found a whole army of folks waiting and ready to help her. The team of people supporting her eventually grew to include an EMDR therapist, a psychiatrist, her peers at a trauma retreat, and a lawyer who made the case for medical retirement and workers compensation. Along the way, Christy learned the vital truths that made it possible to keep going even in her darkest moments—that post-traumatic stress was literally a brain injury; that suicide and alcohol were not the only ways out; that asking for help was a sign of strength, not weakness; and that although it was ultimately up to her to do the work to change the dialogue in her head, she was not alone. Pub Date: June 20, 2023 Author: Christy Warren -
Samantha Lockwood, Day Sets, and Harriet Robinson come to Fort Snelling from very different backgrounds. It’s 1835 and the world is changing, fast, and they are all struggling to keep up. After she refuses another suitor he’s chosen for her, Samantha’s father banishes her to live in the territory with her brother. He, too, tries to take over her marriage plans—but she is determined to find her own husband, even when her choices go awry. Day Sets demands that her white husband create a school to educate their daughter, supporting her father’s belief that his people must learn the ways of the white man in order to ensure the tribe’s future. Until events prove her father wrong. Harriet’s life in the territory is more like that of a free person than anywhere she’s lived. She even falls in love with Dred Scott and dreams of a life with him. But they are both enslaved, and she keeps being reminded of how little control she has over her own fate. As their cultures collide, each of these three women must find a way to direct her own future and leave a legacy for her children. Pub Date: June 27, 2023 Author: Linda Ulleseit -
French professor Georgie Bricker hasn’t poked a toe outside Virginia’s Willa Cather College for women in two decades. She realizes the irony: she’s working to shape her students into world leaders even as PTSD-induced agoraphobia, a result of trauma she suffered as a girl, keeps her prisoner on a tiny college campus. She tells herself her life is fine. Yet on her forty-ninth birthday, she wishes for something extraordinary. Georgie is shattered to learn that her sanctuary is heavily in debt. While she scrambles to rescue the French department, her first love, Truman Parker, arrives to serve as a financial consultant to the school. By day, Georgie works as faculty liaison to his committee. By night, she’s a moth to his porch light. When the college announces it will shutter, Georgie and fiercely independent Laurel Cross, the student who’s closest to Georgie’s heart, organize a rally to save it. Between her rekindled love for Truman and Laurel becoming the daughter she never had, her wish for the extraordinary seems to have been granted. But the pivotal rally forces Georgie into the bigger, unsheltered world, where she must confront her final fears—or forfeit her chance for emotional freedom and a fulfilling new life. Pub Date: July 11, 2023 Author: Elizabeth Sumner Wafler -
Why are so many teachers leaving the profession? They’re burned out; they feel disrespected, and unsupported. After teaching remotely during a pandemic, they’re returning to classrooms with under-socialized and sometimes out-of-control kids. What to do? Teaching by Heart chronicles the journey of a journalist-turned-teacher determined to make teaching work—despite its difficulties. Peek into Madame Nelson’s classroom to see her trying to reach teens who dance, cry, and hit each other in French class; administrators who laud the latest pedagogical trends and testing regime; and parents who sometimes support—and sometimes interfere with—their children’s education. Meet colleagues who save her from quitting, and her children who provide advice. Along the journey, she evolves from an aloof elitist into an empathetic listener to all sorts of teens. Isn’t it time we create schools in which teachers want to stay and new ones enter? Without committed teachers, how can we prepare students to run our world? Teaching by Heart illuminates why it’s so hard to hold on to classroom teachers these days—and what can be done to better the situation. Pub Date: October 31, 2023 Author: Jennifer Nelson -
On a blustery Maine day, thirty-nine-year-old Roberta Kuriloff found herself standing on a plot of land purchased with her former partner, holding a couple of wood stakes to mark off exactly where her new house would sit. No longer their land. No longer their dream. Now, just hers. Immersed in a world of blueprints, materials, contractors, and critters, Roberta confronted the major losses she’d suffered in her life—in particular the deaths of her mother and aunt from cancer and her separation from her father and brother during her placement in an orphanage—and to try to understand how those losses had shaped the woman, lawyer, and activist she’d become. As she cleared land, hammered nails, lifted beams, and shivered in her rented mobile home, the answers began to come to her. Roberta soon found love again, with a woman named Nancy . . . only to lose her abruptly just one year later in a car accident. Her grief over Nancy’s death, and the psychic and out-of-body events she experienced following that loss, led to an eight-year spiritual quest where she explored her Jewish roots, the Kabbalah, Buddhism, and reincarnation. As she healed, new love beckoned with Bernice—and at long last Roberta found that intrinsic sense of self, that unshakable foundation of heart and soul, that home, that she’d been searching for all along. Pub Date: July 18, 2023 Author: Roberta S. Kuriloff -
This collection of novelettes takes the reader from the not-to-distant future to a time when travel between worlds is a common occurrence. Each stop along mankind’s journey outward to the stars is accompanied by a deeper look inward—from examining how extraterrestrial beings might use our own biology against us, to how wishes are really granted, to posing questions about the very nature of our souls. Original and thought provoking, these stories—which include an interstellar religious thriller involving a second coming of Christ—will stimulate the intellect and engage the imagination. Pub Date: July 18, 2023 Author: Nancy Joie Wilkie -
When Barbara Terao moves into a new home in Washington, two thousand miles from her husband in Illinois, she doesn’t know when—or if—she’ll ever live with him again. Her diagnosis of breast cancer three months later changes both of them in ways they never imagined. In the ensuing months, Barbara’s husband and adult children show up to help her through a year of difficult treatments and surgery, and Barbara, in her Whidbey Island cottage, learns to listen to her heart and intuition. Nurtured by Douglas fir forests, the Salish Sea, and her community, she changes her life from the inside out. Her journey, she realizes, wasn’t about leaving her husband so much as finding herself. Reconfigured in body, mind, and spirit, Barbara finally has words for what she wants to say—and the strength to be a survivor. Pub Date: July 18, 2023 Author: Barbara Wolf Terao -
At fifty-four, Alenka was running out of time to follow through on a dream she’d written down in her pocket-size Rumi book just after her first marriage crumbled. Years later, as she slowly rebuilt her life with her second husband, things started spiraling out of control. The only way she knew how to heal and connect all painful parts of her life was by riding her bike, and she didn’t want to have regrets. But was she brave enough to embark on an unknown path and risk losing everything . . . perhaps even her own life? Determined to awaken her dying spirit and heal her battered body, Alenka loaded her mountain bike with 50 pounds’ worth of camping gear and set off on a 2,500-mile journey. Starting in Lake Tahoe California, she hoped to ride along the Sierra Nevada Mountain range to the tip of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, following remote mountain trails. Alone. What followed was an irrevocably transformational journey of love, hope, courage, and resilience—and here, Alenka tells that story in a voice stripped of self-pity and infused with a good dose of humor. She Rides is a galvanizing wake-up call for anyone who wants to unearth and follow their own deeply buried dreams—and reclaim their life. Pub Date: July 18, 2023 Author: Alenka Vrecek -
Fifteen-year-old Elena lives in a church attic in San Francisco’s Richmond neighborhood, where she is cared for by her guardian, a kind Russian priest named Father Al. Six days a week, Father Al sends her out of Our Lady, across the meadows and ponds of Golden Gate Park, and all the way to Baba Vera’s house on Taraval Street for Baba’s version of school. Unlike regular school, however, Elena’s learning is unnerving. Baba Vera’s preposterous demands, dizzying antics, and house—which is full of skeletons, brooms, strange implements, and guinea pigs, among other oddities—seem straight out of a Russian fairy tale Father Al used to read to Elena . . . not life in 2020. If not for her beloved doll, Kukla—bequeathed to her by the mother she never got to know, but of whom she often dreams—Elena would be overwhelmed. Yet she works hard at every task given her, understanding intuitively that there is a purpose to every one of her grandmother’s strange assignments. Frank, a young taxi driver, enters Elena’s world on the day he delivers a strange, witch-like woman named Anya to Our Lady. Upon meeting Anya and Elena, a dream-world begins to spin for him—and he feels a deep, protective pull toward Elena. In the days that follow, Frank devotes himself to saving her from the harm he is sure Anya intends toward her. What he comes to understand, as he enters more deeply into Elena’s story, is that she has magic of her own. He thought he was supposed to save her—but in the end, the two of them may just save each other. Pub Date: July 25, 2023 Author: Barbara Sapienza -
In the middle of a perilous drought in the Northwest, an arsonist begins setting fires all around. It gives Zoe Penney nightmares about her home—seated right next to tinder-dry woods—rising up in explosions of fire, as well as haunting dreams of a little boy deep in the forest. Winter brings the longed-for rains but also a cancer diagnosis for Zoe’s husband, Jay, which plunges the family into disbelief and fear. The children lean in close to their parents, can’t stop touching them. As Jay’s treatment begins, nature lets loose with strange and startling encounters, while a shadowy figure hovers about the corners of the house. First, Zoe’s fear turns to anger: How can I love you if I am to lose you? How can I live in joy when the sky is falling? But she gradually learns that it’s possible to love anything, even terrible things—if you can love them for what they are teaching you. Pub Date: May 9, 2023 Author: Ann Putnam -
It’s 1939, and all across Europe the Nazis are coming for Jews and anti-fascists. The only way to avoid being imprisoned or murdered is to assume a new identity. For that, people are desperate for papers. And for that, the underground needs forgers. In Paris, Sarah, a young Jewish artist originally from Berlin, along with her music teacher and father figure, Mr. Lieb, meet Cesar, a Spanish Republican who knows well the brutality of fleeing fascism. He soon recognizes Sarah’s gift. She will become the underground’s new forger. When the war reaches Paris, the trio joins thousands of other refugees in a chaotic exodus south. In Marseille, they’re received by friends, but they’re also now part of a resistance the government is actively hunting. Sarah, now Simone, continues her forgery work in the shadows, expertly creating false papers that will mean the difference between life and a horrifying death for many. When Mr. Lieb is arrested and imprisoned in Les Milles internment camp, Simone, Cesar, and their friends vow to rescue him, enlisting the help of American journalist Varian Fry, known for plotting the escapes of high- profile people like Andre Breton and Marc Chagall. In this enlightening and thrilling story of war, love, and courage, author Linda Joy Myers explores identity, ingenuity, and the power of art to save lives. Pub Date: July 11, 2023 Author: Linda Joy Myers
