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For readers of women’s fiction, a debut novel that celebrates the depths of the mother-daughter connection, and having faith in oneself among the hustle and bustle of academic life in the late-aughts. Eight thousand miles from her Kolkata home, Shani spends most of her time hard at work in the campus biochemistry lab chasing her lifelong dream of becoming a scientist. However, following her dream proves to be anything but easy. As the daily battles and complexities of lab life escalate, she leans into the support of her biggest ally—her mother. Despite now being continents apart, they’ve always shared an unwavering belief in Shani’s dream: a future built on intellectual and financial independence. But when her mom passes away suddenly, Shani is left adrift. The home they once shared feels foreign; her academic aspirations and the future they had dreamed of together, uncertain. Is she truly driven by genuine passion for science, or has she been trying to escape the expectations placed on her as a woman? Alone, Shani must confront these questions and discover where she truly belongs. Shani's journey, a poignant exploration of grief, identity, and belonging, will resonate with anyone who has ever questioned their place in the world. Author: Shivani Malik Publication Date: February 17, 2026 -
“Judy Gruen writes with down-to-earth warmth and humor about her personal spiritual journey. As she navigates family, friendship, love, loss, parenting, and community, you will root for her like you would cheer on a new best friend―someone who you just know somehow cares for and understands you, too.” —Lori Palatnik, founding director of the Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project As Judy Gruen walked down the aisle and into her Orthodox Jewish future, her bouquet quivered in her shaky hand. Having grown up in the zeitgeist that proclaimed, “If it feels good, do it,” was she really ready to live the life of “rituals, rules, and restraints” that the Torah prescribed? The Skeptic and the Rabbi is a rare memoir with historical depth, spirituality, and fresh feminine humor. Gruen speaks with refreshing honesty about what it means to remain authentic to yourself while charting a new yet ancient spiritual path at odds with the surrounding culture, and writes touchingly about her family, including her two sets of grandparents, who influenced her in wildly opposite ways. As she navigates her new life with the man she loves and the faith she also loves—surviving several awkward moments, including when the rabbi calls to tell her that she accidentally served unkosher food to her Shabbat guests—Gruen brings the reader right along for the ride. Reading this wry, bold and compelling memoir, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and when you’re finished, you may also have a sudden craving for chicken matzo ball soup—kosher, of course. Author: Judy Gruen Publication Date: September 5, 2017 -
In her second novel, Jill G. Hall, author of The Black Velvet Coat, brings readers another dual tale of two dynamic women from two very different eras searching for fulfillment. San Francisco artist Anne McFarland has been distracted by a cross-country romance with sexy Sergio and has veered from her creative path. While visiting him in New York, she buys a pair of rhinestone shoes in an antique shop that spark her imagination and lead her on a quest to learn more about the shoes’ original owner. Almost ninety years earlier, Clair Deveraux, a sheltered 1929 New York debutante, tries to reside within the bounds of polite society and please her father. But when she meets Winnie, a carefree Macy’s shop girl, Clair is lured into the steamy side of Manhattan—a place filled with speakeasies, flappers, and the beat of “that devil music”—and her true desires explode wide open. Secrets and lies heap up until her father loses everything in the stock market crash and Clair becomes entangled in the burlesque world in an effort to save her family and herself. Ultimately, both Anne and Clair—two very different women living in very different eras—attain true fulfillment . . . with some help from their silver shoes. Author: Jill G. Hall Publication Date: June 19, 2017 -
Success as a warrior is one of the few paths to advancement in early medieval Britain and Stefan, a young Saxon peasant, has fought his way up to the rank of captain, serving under an earl who in turn serves the king of Atheldom. Returning from a series of hard-won battles, he hopes for further promotion. Instead, his command is taken from him and given to a better-born rival, while he is sent off to serve as the sheriff of an impoverished shire in the furthest corner of the kingdom. Stefan arrives in Codswallow to learn that, between marauding brigands, corrupt local officials, and a hostile populace, no sheriff has stayed longer than a single season. Determined to defeat the outlaws and gain control over the shire, Stefan forms an alliance with the keeper of the shire’s inn, a Briton with a mysterious past, but is frustrated to find that even with that clandestine aid his efforts are stymied. When he is summoned to join the search for Princess Aleswina, the betrothed bride of the king of a neighboring realm, he jumps at what he sees as his chance to get an army command back—only to be drawn into the web of intrigue that lies behind the princess’s disappearance. Author: A.M. Linden Publication Date: May 14, 2024 -
This is the story of Rebecca Stirling’s childhood: a young girl raised by the sea, by men, and by literature. Circumnavigating the world on a thirty-foot sailboat, the Stirlings spend weeks at a time on the open ocean, surviving storms and visiting uncharted islands and villages. Ushered through her young life by a father who loves adventure, women, and extremes, Rebecca befriends “working girls” in the ports they visit (as they are often the only other females present in the bars that they end up in) and, on the boat, falls in love with her crewmate and learns to live like the men around her. But her driven nature and the role models in the books she reads make her determined to be a lady, continue her education, begin a career, live in a real home, and begin a family of her own. Once she finally gets away from the boat and her dad and sets to work upon making her own dream a reality, however, Rebecca begins to realize life is not what she thought it would be—and when her father dies in a tragic accident, she must return to her old life to sift through the mess and magic he has left behind. Author: Rebecca Stirling Pub Date: July 26, 2022 -
“Wit and wisdom are the accompanying guides in Hollis Giammatteo's well-written and fully engaging memoir about aging and death. Richly spiritual yet solidly grounded, the author guides us through her quirky and humorous vignettes of self-discovery. As we travel together we find ourselves maturing along with the author into these perennial truths. This book is highly recommended for anyone seeking deeper understanding of our basic human condition.” —Rodney Smith, Buddhist teacher and author of Lessons from the Dying and Awakening: A Paradigm Shift of the Heart When Hollis Giammatteo sought a job working with the elderly, she did so with the intention of finding models of healthy aging. And she failed. In The Shelf Life of Ashes, Giammatteo chronicles her experiences with her wards, as well as the trip she embarks upon when her mother, who is convinced she is dying, entreats her to come “home.” Trips back, traumas triggered, identity in crisis, equanimity gained—this quasi-comic, concentrated journey engages the reader in the process of naming and facing the tasks involved in growing old, while asking a simple but weighted question: Can aging be done well? Author: Hollis Giammatteo Publication Date: May 10, 2016 -
When Alicia Rodriguez, a successful entrepreneur recovering from divorce and loss, accepts an invitation to Ecuador to help a friend who is studying with a shaman, she has no idea how profoundly the decision will change her life’s course.
In Ecuador Alicia meets Napo, a powerful shaman, and they begin an extraordinary relationship that spans two continents and eight years. As their connection deepens, Alicia learns the principles of shamanism and witnesses Napo’s remarkable healing abilities. Confronted with the illusion of her life in the United States, she decides to move to Ecuador to be with him, and they make plans to build a healing center together on the coast. Within a short time, however, she realizes that she has surrendered her power and agency to Napo, who now wields it as a weapon against her. After years of inner struggle, Alicia finally finds the courage to leave Ecuador and moves to Portugal, where she finds peace . . . until an unexpected phone call rekindles old memories.
An extraordinary memoir steeped in spirituality, shamanism, and metaphysics, The Shaman’s Wife is the story of a woman who, through a daring journey of self-discovery, reclaims and embraces her feminine wisdom—and realizes that love is the answer to her lifelong spiritual quest.
Author: Alicia Rodriguez Publication date: September 10, 2024 -
A suspenseful tale stretching from Spain to Hollywood, from a small Jewish community in South Carolina to a crumbling hacienda in the Yucatan, The Serpent Bearer carries readers into the lives of a glamorous British aristocrat, a Jewish gambler, and a beautiful Hollywood screenwriter—all swept up by dangerous political currents during WWII. Solly Meisner, a Spanish Civil War veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, has barely settled in after his return home when he discovers powerful Nazi sympathizers are working behind the scenes in his new hometown of Pennington, South Carolina. Determined to stop them, he signs on with the Coordinating Office of Information (COI), a newly formed US spy agency. His first assignment: travel to the Yucatan and infiltrate a group of German spies and collaborators—including Estelle, a beautiful British woman he fell in love with in Spain, and whom he fears may have betrayed him. In the Yucatan Solly encounters a band of European exiles, not all of them who they claim to be. With his contacts dropping like flies, danger lurks at every turn. But with the Nazis only a few hundred miles from the US coast and making plans for an invasion, there is no time to lose, and no one Solly trusts to track them down and stop them but himself. If he fails, the world he once knew will be gone forever—and the people he loves with it. Author: Jane Rosenthal Publication Date: March 11, 2025 -
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 -
At age fifty, Susan Morris is diagnosed with breast cancer—and she’s floored. Desperate to pinpoint the cause, one night she decides to type a question into her search engine: “What are the risk factors of getting breast cancer?” She’s surprised to discover research showing that long-term exposure to stress and traumatic childhood experiences can both increase the risk of breast cancer. The Sensitive One is a braided memoir that alternates between Morris’s childhood—as a sensitive child and then teenager who shouldered the burden of caring for her younger siblings as her dad’s alcoholism tore at the threads of their home life—and an adult who for a decade-plus has been living a trauma-free life with a caring husband and rewarding career in nursing . . . only to be diagnosed with breast cancer. This is a story of redemption—of a woman who manages to escape harrowing circumstances and start anew—but it’s also a story of how our legacy lives within us, and how healing from the adverse effects of childhood can truly take a lifetime. Author: Susan F. Morris Publication Date: August 24, 2021 -
Mother was an emotionally damaged woman shrouded in depression and dark secrets. Father was a man plagued by alcoholism who lived in a state of drunken evasion for many years before jumping ship. Kathleen was born into this family who masqueraded as ordinary and merged with a lineage and community plagued by toxic male aggression, submissive women, wannabe Mafia brutes, charlatan holy men and women, and lurid and criminal goings–on, all made possible by cheek–turners, complicit and fearful enablers, and the ever–present overarching code of silence. The Seller of Secrets tells a story of the admission of long-held secrets of trauma, leading to a poignant heroine’s journey to seek deep healing through truth, nature, various forms of energy medicine, and a longing to rediscover the authentic self. After a shocking deathbed confession is revealed, the healing path merges with an investigation into a shadowy past where the puzzle of long-hidden family secrets is painstakingly assembled. Kathleen recognizes how adverse childhood experiences shape a fractured life with limitations and how the importance of acknowledging the truth and freeing oneself from fear and the muteness of shame is the key to true freedom. Author: Kathleen Rose Morgan Publication Date: June 11, 2024 -
2016 USA Best Book Award: Parenting & Family, Finalist “Burton’s instructional guide to self-care for mothers is full of tips and techniques, and long on understanding and empathy.” ―Publisher’s Weekly Combining the thoughtful and expert narrative of a veteran mom of four children with the voices of hundreds of moms she surveyed, The Self-Care Solution offers insightful answers to poignant questions about how mothers take care of themselves, their relationships, and their jobs while raising their children—and how they don’t. Here, mothers reveal their struggles with self-care, and the consequences of neglecting themselves and their relationships, and share successful strategies to combat these issues. Each chapter also includes reflective self-assessment questions for mothers to gauge where they are from a self-care standpoint, as well as lists of tried and true tools they can employ to achieve more balance, and ultimately more satisfaction, within themselves and in their relationships. Inspirational yet practical, The Self-Care Solution will dramatically impact women who are navigating the critical responsibility of motherhood while attempting to stay true to themselves. Author: Julie Burton Publication Date: May 3, 2016 -
It’s 1910, and Catherine Ogden is aching to live a creative and meaningful life. That’s not easy to do when her aunt and uncle—and all of New York society—consider a good marriage to be the pinnacle of feminine achievement. But when Catherine visits Oakview, the Northern California estate of handsome bachelor William Brandt, she thinks that it might be possible to satisfy her family’s hopes as well as her own. In that beautiful place, she finds the promise of a new start and the opportunity to use her artistic gifts in designing the garden. But as Catherine is drawn into William’s hidden life, as well as the secrets of his estate staff, she discovers that Oakview holds both more opportunity and more risk than she ever imagined. It will take all her courage—and the lessons of some shocking revelations from the past—to choose the path that leads to real freedom. Full of rich period detail and complex characters, and set against an unforgettable backdrop, The Seeing Garden explores what it takes for a woman to discern the path to her most authentic life. Pub Date: May 9, 2023 Author: Ginny Kubitz Moyer -
For fans of Kate Quinn, a dual-timeline adventure novel of a historian who risks everything—including her life—to discover the truth about a female Renaissance sculptor unjustly erased by history. Two determined women four hundred years apart. One mysterious statue. And a bombshell that could change history. Art historian Mia is running out of time to prove her theory that the sculptor of an unearthed erotic statue was a courtesan erased from history—a scandal no one will believe. Chasing through Venice, she tracks down hidden details of Sofia, a powerful courtesan who seems to have left a trail of sex-fueled art buried across the city, but Mia’s now being followed, and even her boss might be in on the lie. Meanwhile, in 1609, Sofia defies Venice’s unfair laws to create illicit art that could ruin her future. Her aspirations to become a great artist go up in flames when her patron’s wife steals her work and threatens her lover. Four hundred years later, it's up to Mia to discover the truth, but now she’s uncovered a world of art theft that could leave her ousted—or, worse, right in the crosshairs of the most powerful crime family in Italy, who will stop at nothing to force her to authenticate the famous statue. Mia’s only hope is to prove Sofia’s existence before everyone involved silences them both forever. Author: Kerry Chaput Publication Date: February 10, 2026 -
In this thriller, star investigative reporter Samantha Fuller joins a feisty Cape Cod fisherwoman to foil a wind farm developer’s evil plot to poison precious ocean scallop beds—and finds herself facing off against right-wing climate deniers. In Provincetown, MA, feisty scallop fisherwoman Isabella Ferreira goes up against a sleazy wind farm developer, Olaf Svensson, who wants to install wind turbines in the ocean right off the coast of Cape Cod. At a nearby scallop hatchery, marine biologists Leif and Astrid Borgen are already using the new gene editing technique CRISPR to insert a growth hormone gene into scallop embryos to make them bigger and thus more profitable—all of which is legal. But unbeknownst to the hatchery owner, Svensson is also paying the pair to insert another gene—one that causes PSP, paralytic shellfish poisoning. If this works, no one will ever eat scallops from this site again, thus freeing it up for Svensson’s turbines. Enter Pulitzer Prize–winning Boston Times reporter Samantha Fuller. Together with Isabella, she slowly uncovers Svensson’s deadly plot—but not before hundreds of people die. Along the way, love blossoms, tragedies occur, and the subtleties of the pro- and anti-wind power groups are exposed. Author: Judy Foreman Publication Date: August 11, 2026 -
Ever since a childhood tragedy bonded Jessica Jensen to Oregon’s mighty Nesika River, she has seen herself as its guardian. Now a courageous field biologist, Jess has just finished gathering scientific evidence that could bring about the dismantling of the massive hydro dam that threatens to destroy her river. But then Jess discovers that her boss is suppressing her scientific evidence―and as she digs deeper into the reason for her boss’s actions, she learns that the dam’s fate is at the mercy of a dark and far-reaching government and corporate conspiracy. Even worse, her live-in boyfriend, Jeff, who is supposedly on her side, may not be the man she thought he was. As Jess’s life spirals out of control, she mysteriously starts to make contact with Piah, a Native American Molalla woman who lived on the riverbanks of the Nesika 200 years before Jess. Piah, too, faces a terrible threat that could destroy all that’s left of her world. As the veil between their two worlds begins to lift, each woman learns important lessons from the other about how to love and rekindle their faith in the future, even in the face of tragic loss and uncertainty. Author: Lisa Reddick Publication Date: October 9, 2018 -
In accordance with her Sicilian Catholic family’s unspoken code, Paolina Milana learned at an early age to keep her secrets locked away where no one could find them. Nobody outside the family needed to know about the voices her Mamma battled in her head; or about how Paolina forged her birth certificate at thirteen so she could get a job at The Donut Shop; or about the police officer twenty-six years her senior whose promise to her Papà to “keep an eye on her” quickly translated into something sinister. And perhaps that’s why no one saw it coming when—on the eve of her sweet sixteen, pushed to edge—Paolina attempted to take her own mother’s life. Raw and compelling, The S-Word is the true story of a girl who nearly suffocates in the silence she was taught to value above all else—until she finally finds the strength to break free of the secrets binding her and save herself. Author: Paolina Milana Publication Date: May 5, 2015 -
A debut contemporary memoir about a young woman struggling to understand her identity as the daughter of a Jewish mother and Christian Palestinian father, coming of age in Colombia as increasing violence and the instability of the 1980s engulf her country. Sonia Daccarett grew up with a Jewish mother and a Christian Palestinian father in Colombia during the drug-war 1980s. When she asks her parents questions about their family’s ethnicity and religion they answer evasively, defining their family religion and ethnicity as “nothing.” Grandparents and family members who speak Yiddish, Hebrew, and Arabic and fled from places called the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russia, Bethlehem, and the Ottoman Empire, does not sound like “nothing” to Sonia. At the same time, Sonia grapples with her American education at school. She is both enchanted and challenged by the tropical landscape of her childhood in a remote suburb of Cali, which is rapidly changing as cocaine trafficking and drug cartels begin to dominate the city’s life. As she tries to discover what her family is, Colombia begins unraveling around her through violence, kidnappings, and the death of acquaintances and friends. At the same time, her parents’ marriage and their personal identities are rocked by the faraway Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Soon, she will have to decide whether to stay in Colombia with her family or leave them behind to find the answers she seeks. Author: Sonia Daccarett Publication Date: August 12, 2025 -
In 1983, two outcasts are brought together by circumstance: nine-year-old Michael Nygaard, a Minnesota farm boy transplanted to suburban Chicago after his father dies, and Julia Parnell, a woman trying to begin again after a failed attempt to live openly. Michael doesn’t understand the new people around him: the wild girl across the street nurtures their friendship and then undermines it; her alcoholic father rockets between affability and rage; the bullies at school taunt him; and he adores his teacher, Miss Parnell, but knows she’s living a false life. When Julia’s secret is exposed, she faces a choice: accept herself for who she is or deny her true nature. Meanwhile, Michael must also choose whether to simply endure his new situation or fight back. Coming of age will take bravery from these two lost souls—and if they can’t find the strength to change, neither will have the life they long for. Author: Jessica Null Vealitzek Publication Date: April 22, 2014 -
For readers who found comfort in Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, a 9/11 widow’s memoir of rediscovering joy and finding love again after the violent loss of her husband. One sunny Tuesday morning, Maryellen Donovan’s beloved husband, Steve Cherry, lost his life in the 9/11 attacks—rocking her to her core, and changing her family forever. Maryellen’s life and love with Steve was all she could have hoped for; in the wake of his death, she was inconsolable. But ultimately, she had no choice but to be strong for her two young sons—and even when deep in the grip of hopeless despair, she found solace in her deep faith and belief that, with the support of friends and family, she would eventually find love and happiness once again. Her route to her happy ending proved long and winding and full of obstacles—cancer, family conflict, even more loss—but she always found a way forward, no matter the setbacks she encountered. An inspirational story that will provide hope to anyone who’s experienced unfathomable loss and loneliness, The Road to Yesterday is a testament to the idea that there is always a path to love and joy—if only you’re determined enough to keep yourself open to it. Author: Maryellen Donovan Publication Date: September 9, 2025 -
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 -
Her brother’s letter touched a match to the wick of Annie’s doused dreams. Dream enough for her, to stroll the length of a town without the abortive glances, the stilted greetings, the wider berth given her on the sidewalk. “I could use some help out here,” he wrote. “What’s holding you to Iowa anyway?” Annie Rushton leaves behind an unsettling past to join her brother on his Montana homestead and make a determined fresh start. There, sparks fly when she tangles with Adam Fielding, a visionary businessman-farmer determined to make his own way and answer to no one. Neither is looking for a partner, but they give in to their undeniable chemistry. Annie and Adam’s marriage brims with astounding success and unanticipated passion, but their dream of having a child eludes them as a mysterious illness of mind and body plagues Annie’s pregnancies. Amidst deepening economic adversity, natural disaster, and the onset of world war, their personal struggles collide with the societal mores of the day. Annie’s shattering periods of black depression and violent outbursts exact a terrible price. The life the Fieldings have forged begins to unravel, and the only path ahead leads to unthinkable loss. Based on true events, this sweeping novel weaves a century-old story, timeless in its telling of love, heartbreak, healing, and redemption embodied in one woman’s tenacious quest for control over her own destiny in the face of devastating misfortune and social injustice. Author: Ellen Notbohm Publication Date: May 8, 2018 -
For fans of Roisín O’Donnell’s Nesting, an intense, suspenseful story of a young mother’s fight to save herself after the man she thought was her white knight turns out to be just as dangerous as the man he helped her escape. After twenty-one-year-old Emily Miller flees her ex-husband, Lee, with the exterminator she hired to kill hornets in her backyard, she finally feels safe. Jake Clayton offers Emily and her daughter a beautiful place to live where neither Lee nor her mother, who wants custody of Jenna, can find them. Unlike Lee, Jake has a steady job, doesn’t drink (she’s never met a man who doesn’t), and doesn’t hit. And he doesn’t think Emily is too much—too mouthy (Lee), too large (her mother), too extra. Isolated in a cabin in the Santa Cruz mountains with only a three-year-old for company, Emily distracts herself from the liquor cabinet and from worrying that Lee will track her down by planning a surprise for Jake: a reunion with the sisters he hasn’t seen since foster care. But the deeper she digs into Jake’s past, the less he seems like the man she trusts—and when she learns Lee has disappeared, she suspects Jake could have done . . . something. But that’s ridiculous, right? Sure, Jake is bossy about where she goes and who she sees. Sure, he has a temper. But murder? That’s just her being dramatic—like Lee and her mother always say she is. Right? Author: Catherine Marshall-Smith Publication Date: July 21, 2026 -
In the summer of 1994, a freak lightning and thunder storm explodes on the southern coast of Maine, killing Nancy Bills’s husband and critically wounding her younger son. She promises her late husband that she will write their family’s story and bind it with a red ribbon of love and courage. In language alternately tender and gritty, The Red Ribbon documents the aftermath of Bills’s husband’s death. As a wife, she grieves and attempts to rebuild her life; as a mother, she strains to be the parent her young adult sons need. Then, one year later, she is faced with more loss—this time, the father whom she adores. After his death, other deaths, some anticipated and others unpredictable, follow. Meanwhile, the impending death of her aging mother is a particular challenge; Nancy struggles to be a good daughter, and on many visits to Montana, her home state, she tries to mend their painful history. Insightful, moving, and full of intelligence and humanity, The Red Ribbon is a story of surviving the many and often devastating lightning strikes of life, and a gift of compassion and wisdom for readers who are struggling with their own losses. Author: Nancy Freund Bills Publication Date: May 28, 2019
