-
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 -
Families who have supported a child with special needs will connect with this memoir about Sarah, a feisty girl with autism and a unique genetic blueprint. Her mom, Jenny, is equally feisty and determined, which leads her to make a commitment that dramatically changes her and Sarah’s lives—as well as those of many others. Sarah’s early years are filled with challenges, and Jenny and her husband, Carl, try various therapies in an effort to help her. At four years old, Sarah is still nonverbal, still doesn’t use the potty, and still struggles with eating. Jenny knows she must do more. She has heard of a method developed by the Autism Treatment Center of America called The Son-Rise Program, which, through loving, supportive interaction, aims to foster social connection in people with autism. It is a huge undertaking, requiring hours of one-on-one therapeutic playtime, which means Jenny needs to find and train volunteers to make it possible. Though Jenny isn’t sure she can do it, she decides to try. She calls her program Sarah-Rise. Accompany Jenny as Sarah’s language explodes, her eye contact intensifies, and she plays games, plays imaginatively, uses the potty, eats healthily, reads, and writes. Have your heart warmed and your socks knocked off by this momentous journey. Author: Jennifer Celeste Briggs Publication Date: January 21, 2025 -
2015 IPPY: Gold: Contemporary Fiction, Winner After her farmhouse in Greenwich, Connecticut is destroyed, Lidia is thankful her teenage twins, Carly and Clarisse, are unharmed and that her friend Polly Niven has taken them in. Lidia, whose husband left her and the girls for another man, lost her job in the financial crisis. She fears more bad news and soon discovers a connection between her and Tina Calderara, the pilot who crashed into her home. In the midst of her troubles, she meets Harry Caligan, the FBI Special Agent assigned to her case. With Harry’s help, Lidia plunges into the family mystery linking her to Tina. Author: Jean P. Moore Publication Date: June 3, 2014 -
Barnaby Brown has had enough of freezing winters, a dead-end job, and his life alone with his parrot. He wants to start anew move to California, and reawaken his lost dream of becoming an artist. Then his car crashes into as now bank nixing his plan of driving West and his beloved parrot flies away, and suddenly California feels very out of reach. After a run-in with a former teaching colleague, Barnaby is shocked into an awareness of how low he has sunk. He vows to make changes, including kicking his drinking habit and settling his debts. With the help of some good friends, Barnaby starts taking steps toward a better life and finds romance and more than a few mysteries to unravel along the way. A heartwarming novel about ordinary people and their hidden talents, Waterbury Winter celebrates the importance of keeping promises and the restorative value of art. Author: Linda Stewart Henley Pub Date: May 3, 2022 -
A dazzling literary romance about a young socialite and a smooth-talking pilot who take a chance on each other against the extreme odds orchestrated by their peers and mother nature. In 1950s New England, being a marriageable young lady means following a certain set of rules. Nineteen-year-old Sabina knows them all too well, thanks to her imposing aunt Poppy, who has already decided how Sabina will spend the season at their summer home in Edgartown, where she’ll go to college in the fall, and the type of young man she’ll eventually marry. But Sabina has other ideas. And the island, it seems, does too. Sabina is about to meet the Vineyard’s most notorious bachelor: charter pilot Colin Hatch. With a cloudy history, a questionable income, and a reputation for charming every available girl at the yacht club, Colin isn’t exactly the traditional match her aunt had in mind. When Sabina takes a chance on him anyway, a complex love triangle emerges, setting Sabina’s summer on an entirely different path—not just for this vacation season, but maybe for the rest of her life. A coming-of-age story woven into a small coastal town’s various dramas, Ways of Virtue is Dirty Dancing meets Jane Austen—complete with a beautiful seaside setting, a high-society wedding in the making, a host of scheming, jealous neighbors, and a once-in-a-lifetime hurricane that’s barreling toward them all. Author:Liz O’Neill Publication Date: September 30, 2025 -
In the United States, more than 15 million women are parenting children on their own, either by circumstance or by choice. Too often these moms who do it all have been misrepresented and maligned. Not anymore. In We Got This, seventy-five solo mom writers tell the truth about their lives—their hopes and fears, their resilience and setbacks, their embarrassments and triumphs. Some of these writers’ names will sound familiar, like Amy Poehler, Anne Lamott, and Elizabeth Alexander, while others are about to become unforgettable. Bound together by their strength, pride, and—most of all— their dedication to their children, they broadcast a universal and empowering message: You are not alone, solo moms—and your tenacity, courage, and fierce love are worthy of celebration. Author: Marika Lindholm et. al Publication Date: September 10, 2019 -
We Never Told is a page-turning novel about a glamorous family in the golden age of Hollywood. Set in suburban New York, it follows Sonya Adler's life from growing up in a "broken home," to the hippie sixties, and into the present with a shocking twist at the end. The story outlines a time when unmarried women were shamed into putting their newborns up for adoption and the consequences which have touched thousands of people. This fast-paced story is not just about sisters keeping a secret but is a heart-wrenching and funny tale about a not often talked-about part of American history: children finding their birth families fifty years later. Author: Diana Altman Publication Date: June 11, 2019 -
Debbie and Judy are twins—but Judy was born with cerebral palsy, and Debbie was not. Despite the severity of Judy’s brain damage, her parents chose to keep her at home with her three siblings, and ultimately Judy lived at home with them well into adulthood. Even after her father died, she continued to stay with her mother, her care augmented by a succession of home attendants—until, that is, her doctor told Debbie that Judy’s care at home was wanting and she would not survive without nursing home care. In We Used to Dance, Debbie tells of the emotional trauma she experienced when she was forced to place her sister—a sister unable to sit, stand, eat regular food, feed herself, use a bathroom, or make her needs and desires known through speech or other means—in a new and strange environment. Following Judy’s life in her new home as well as her past relationship with Debbie and the rest of their immediate family, this is a raw, personal memoir of love and guilt—and, ultimately, acceptance. Author: Debbie Chein Morris Pub Date: October 24, 2023 -
In this fast-paced coming-of-age novel we meet Fiona, an art student at a New Jersey college who is brilliant, beautiful, and struggling to find herself. Through her eyes we relive the turbulent culture of sex, drugs, and rock ’n roll, the first draft lottery since World War II, the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, the Kent State University shootings, and the harsh realities of war for Americans in their early twenties. Fiona’s best friend, Melissa, is in a dead-end relationship, pregnant, and going nowhere fast. After Melissa’s abortion, Fiona and Melissa spend a week in Florida, where they are introduced to tarot cards and the anti-war movement. Following this experience, Melissa becomes obsessed with the occult; Fiona, though intrigued, approaches the tarot cautiously, with the voice of her conservative Christian mother screaming in her head. After Fiona’s return from Florida, she begins dating Reuben—a journalism major and political activist. Reuben decides to move to Canada to avoid the draft and encourages Fiona to accompany him. But is that really what she wants? Caught between her feelings for Reuben and her own aspirations, Fiona struggles to define herself, her artistic career, and her future. Author: Susen Edwards Publication Date: November 15, 2022 -
Freddie was raised on faith. It’s in her blood. Yet rather than seeking solace from the Almighty when she loses her husband of many years, she enters a state of quiet contemplation—until her daughter, and then her sister, each come home with a host of problems of their own, and her solitude is brought to an end. As Freddie helps her daughter and sister deal with their troubles, her own painful past—a wretched childhood at the hands of an unbalanced, pious mother—begins to occupy her thoughts more than ever, as does Anna, the grandmother she’s always wished she’d known better. Freddie feels that she and Anna are connected, not just through blood but through the raising of difficult daughters, and it’s a kinship that makes her wonder what unseen forces have shaped her life. With all that to hand, a new family crisis rears its head—and it forces Freddie to confront the questions she’s asked so many times: What does it mean to believe in God? And does God even care? Author: Anne Leigh Parrish Publication Date: October 15, 2014 -
For readers who were inspired by Alua Arthur’s Briefly Perfectly Human, an emotional, eye-opening account of one woman’s journey from loss and abuse to healing and spiritual awakening. As a boy, Jay Amelong predicted the accident that caused his death, down to the color of the car that hit him. “I will die young, while riding my bike,” he told friends and family repeatedly. “It won’t be much longer, I want you to be prepared.” These were baffling words to hear from the mouth of a content thirteen-year-old—but when Kristina Amelong was only seventeen, her brother’s tragic death unfolded exactly as he said it would, radically changing her life. Propelled down a self-destructive path of drug addiction and reckless sex, Kristina spent much of her young adult years wanting to die. Once or twice she came close. Always, Jay’s bizarre story and his inexplicable acceptance of his own death lived in her body. More than thirty years after losing Jay, Kristina embarks on a journey of discovery, seeking truth about herself, her brother, and the universe. The result of her investigation is a memoir that defies belief. Charting a life path from loss and abuse to healing and spiritual awakening, What My Brother Knew demonstrates the transformative power of facing the mystery of death head-on and our incredible ability, as humans, to do just that. Author: Kristina Amelong Publication Date: May 27, 2025 -
When a young girl feels complicit in her own abuse, how does that thwart her attempts to build a happy life as an adult woman? When disturbing memories begin to surface, Marti returns to the small Vermont town she ran away from thirty years ago to face her demons. She drags her unwitting teenage daughter along on the journey—heightening already existing tension between mother and daughter. But Marti is determined to achieve what she’s returned home for: forgiveness for lies told, and revenge for secrets held. Exploring the vast social changes that took place between 1970 and 2000 and turning a critical eye on times before language such as #MeToo helped give voice to these all-too-common occurrences, What Was Lost is a raw, powerful tale of one woman confronting the ghosts of her past. Author: Melissa Connelly Publication Date: October 8, 2024 -
In 1967, Fay Stonewell, a water tank escape artist in Florida, leaves for Vietnam to join the Amazing Humans, a jerry-rigged carnival entertaining the troops, abandoning her teenage, disabled son, Dickie, in the care of an abusive boyfriend. Now forty-years-old, Dickie recalls the chaotic months after Fay left. His troubled home life ends in a surprising act of violence, forcing him to run away first to Manhattan, where he’s taken in by the eccentric artist Laurence Jones and later, by Spin, a gay man struggling with AIDS in a Massachusetts coastal town. Spin may offer Dickie what he’s always wanted: a home without wheels. But the farther Dickie runs, the tighter the past clings to him. Fay faces dangerous threats also. From the night her plane jolts onto a darkened Saigon runway, she confronts every bad decision she’s made as she struggles to return to her son. But the Humans owner is hellbent on keeping her in Vietnam, performing only for war-injured children at a hospital, daily reminders of the son she’s left behind. Ultimately, What We Give, What We Take is a deeply moving story of second chances and rising above family circumstances, however dysfunctional they may be. Author: Randi Triant Pub Date: April 12th, 2022 -
In 1947, war bride Ursula arrives in Minneapolis torn between guilt over leaving loved ones behind and her desire to start a new life—and a family—in this promised land. But the American dream proves elusive—she is struck with polio, and then shocked by the sudden death of her GI husband. Without a spouse or the child she so desperately wanted, Ursula must rely on her shrewd survival skills from wartime Berlin, and she takes in a boarder to help make ends meet. She soon falls in love with the Argentinean medical technician living in her spare bedroom, but his devotion to communism troubles her—and when she finds herself pregnant with his child, she is faced with a dilemma: how to reconcile her dream of motherhood with an America that is so different from what she imagined. Pub Date: July 25, 2023 Author: Christine Gallagher Kearney -
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 -
In her second novel, Valerie Taylor—award-winning author of What’s Not Said—gives readers another romantic comedy interwoven with forbidden love, infidelity, and family. With the court date set for her divorce and the future she’d planned with a younger man presumably kaput, Kassie O’Callaghan shifts attention to reviving her stalled marketing career. But that goal gets complicated when she unexpectedly rendezvous with her former lover in Paris. After a chance meeting with a colleague and a stroll along Pont Neuf, Kassie receives two compelling proposals. Can she possibly accept them both? Kassie’s decision process screeches to a halt when her soon-to-be ex-husband has a heart attack, forcing her to fly home to Boston. There, she confronts his conniving and deceitful fiancée—a woman who wants not just a ring on her finger but everything that belongs to Kassie. In the ensuing battle to protect what’s legally and rightfully hers, Kassie discovers that sometimes it’s what’s not true that can set you free. Author: Valarie Taylor Publication Date: August 24, 2021 -
What’s Your Book? is an aspiring author’s go-to guide for getting from idea to publication. Brooke Warner is a publishing expert with thirteen years’ experience as an acquiring editor for major trade houses. In her book, she brings her unique understanding of book publishing (from the vantage point of coach, editor, and publisher) to each of the book’s five chapters, which include understanding the art of becoming an author, getting over common hurdles, challenging counterproductive mindsets, building an author platform, and ultimately getting published. Brooke is known for her straightforward delivery, honest assessments, and compassionate touch with authors. What’s Your Book? contains the inspiration and information every writer needs to publish their first or next book. Author: Brooke Warner Publication Date: September 18, 2014 -
Born in the Netherlands at a time when girls are to be housewives and mothers and nothing else, Hendrika de Vries is a “daddy’s girl” until her father is deported from Nazi-occupied Amsterdam to a POW camp in Germany and her mother joins the Resistance. In the aftermath of her father’s departure, Hendrika watches as freedoms formerly taken for granted are eroded with escalating brutality by men with swastika armbands who aim to exterminate those they deem “inferior” and those who do not obey. As time goes on, Hendrika absorbs her mother’s strength and faith, and learns about moral choice and forced silence. She sees her hidden Jewish “stepsister” betrayed, and her mother interrogated at gunpoint. She and her mother suffer near starvation, and they narrowly escape death on the day of liberation. But they survive it all―and through these harrowing experiences, Hendrika discovers the woman she wants to become. Author: Hendrika de Vries Publication Date: August 27, 2019 -
When Diana quit her job and followed her husband to Manila, she believed the move would work for both of them: Jay would finally have his dream job, and she would take time off from her accounting career to start a family. Four years later, however, she’s still not pregnant. Her fertility doctor advises her to relax—an undertaking that is easier said than done in one of the noisiest, most crowded cities in the world. Nevertheless, Diana tries. She takes up yoga and meditation. She buys goldfish. Then one day, while Jay is away on business, a violent coup d’état erupts. The rebels bomb the presidential palace and occupy parts of the city. Clearly, Diana decides, something needs to change. Determined to have a baby while she’s still young enough, she convinces Jay to transfer to the small South Pacific nation of Vanuatu, said to be “the most relaxing place on earth.” It isn’t long before she realizes that the island’s tropical beauty hides dangers and disappointments that will test her courage, her marriage, and her ability to open herself up to new possibilities. Publication Date: April 27, 2021 Author: Nicki Chen -
“Lena’s beautifully developed character, Ridley’s commanding sense of place, and a well-drawn supporting cast bring this intricate historical fiction vividly to life.” —Barbara Stark-Nemon, author of Even in Darkness Coming of age in Prague in the 1930s, Lena Kulkova is inspired by the left-wing activists who resist the rise of fascism. She meets Otto, a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, and follows him to Paris to work for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. As the war in Spain ends and a far greater war engulfs the continent, Lena gets stuck in Paris with no news from her Jewish family, including her beloved baby sister, left behind in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Otto, meanwhile, has fled to a village in England, and urges Lena to join him, but she can’t obtain a visa. When Lena and Otto are finally reunited, the safe haven Lena has hoped for doesn’t last long. Their relationship becomes strained, and Lena is torn between her loyalty to Otto and her growing attraction to Milton, the son of the eccentric Lady of the Manor. As the war continues, she yearns to be reunited with her sister, while Milton is preoccupied with the political turmoil that leads to the landslide defeat of Churchill in the 1945 election. Based on a true story, When It’s Over is a moving, resonant, and timely read about the lives of war refugees, dramatic political changes, and the importance of family, love, and hope. Author: Barbara Ridley Publication Date: September 26, 2017 -
Lindsey Henke is freshly married and a newly practicing psychotherapist when she finds out she is pregnant with her first child. Nine months later, on a cold Minnesota night in December 2012, after a perfect pregnancy, Lindsey goes into labor—only to be told upon arrival at the hospital that her baby has no heartbeat. After the stillbirth of her daughter, Lindsey grapples with the unbearable agony of losing a child. Unprepared to cope with a sorrow this deep, she uses the only tools she has—her skills as a therapist—to plot her own path through grief. Over the next year and half, as Lindsey mourns the loss of one child while simultaneously trying to hold space for the joy of expecting another baby, she learns that grief can live side by side with joy. When Skies Are Gray offers a poignant message to any mother who is grieving: Your pain is real. The sharp ache of the grief you feel will soften over time, though your love for the child you lost will always remain. And it’s okay to feel that love; it’s a mother’s love, and like lullabies, a mother’s love never dies. Author: Lindsey M. Henke Publication Date: May 21, 2024 -
When China opened its doors in the 1980s, it shocked the world by allowing private enterprise and free markets. Dori Jones was among the first American correspondents to cover China under Deng Xiaoping, who dared to defy Maoist doctrine to try to catch up with richer nations. Though introverted, Dori used her fluency in Mandarin to get to know the ordinary people she met—people embracing opportunities that had once been unimaginable in China. Soon, Dori fell for a Chinese man who had fled China with his family in 1949 and only recently returned. Together, they found the relatives his parents had left behind, who were just starting to hope for a better future. This euphoria—shared by American businesses and Chinese citizens alike—reached its peak in 1989, when a million peaceful protestors filled Tiananmen Square, demanding democracy. Dori lived that hope, as well as the despair that followed when the army opened fire. After Tiananmen, dejected and sure that the era of promising possibilities was over, she returned to America in 1990—only to watch as China resumed its growth. Written in a time when China’s rapid rise is setting off fears in Washington, When the Red Gates Opened offers insight into the daring policies that started it all. Author: Dori Jones Yang Publication Date: September 22, 2020 -
What sort of mad longing besets a woman—nearing fifty and recently widowed—to sell everything she owns, buy an around-the-world airline ticket, pack a single suitcase, and set off alone on a year-long journey without a plan or agenda? When Your Heart Says Go answers that question. Set in 1990–’91, Judy’s story takes readers from San Diego through eleven European countries, the then-Soviet Union, and finally India, during the lead-up to the first Gulf War. Explorations of foreign locales and interactions with strangers and acquaintances who become a lifeline to friendship are interspersed with occasional flashbacks to Judy’s life with her beloved husband, Tom, as well as his illness and death. Descriptions of sites historic and current serve as both daily life and background for Judy’s struggle to find her way as a sober, single, independent woman in the vast world as it edges toward the collapse of the Soviet Union and war in the Middle East. The outer journey serves as a container for the inner; the more Judy experiences of the world, the more she learns about herself—and the closer she gets to realizing her lifelong dream of being a writer. Author: Judy Reeves Pub Date: October 10, 2023 -
In Where Do You Hang Your Hammock? seasoned coach and author Bella Mahaya Carter shows writers how to use their present circumstances as stepping-stones to a successful and meaningful writing life, navigated from the inside out. It encourages writers and authors to rethink their ambitions (which may be fueled by the tyrannical demands of the ego) and trust in their heartfelt purpose and values in the journey to becoming, or continuing on, as authors. Many writers believe their self-sabotaging thoughts are trustworthy and true. They take rejection personally. They surmise that if they don’t achieve their goals they have failed, and lose sight of who they are and what matters most. This book is for writers looking for inspiration and for authors daunted by the publishing process, who might lack the requisite author platform to get published the way they dreamed, or whose careers may not be unfolding as expected. It aims to be the friend and trusted expert writers turn to when hijacked by their own thinking. Ultimately, it reminds authors that they are infinite creators. Publication Date: June 1, 2021 Author: Bella Mahaya Carter
