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From the award-winning author of Eliza Waite comes a gripping tale of adventure and survival based on the true story of the ill-fated Donner Party on their 2,200-mile trek on the Oregon–California Trail from 1846 to ’47. Nineteen-year-old Ada Weeks confronts danger and calamity along the hazard-filled journey to California. After a fateful decision that delays the overlanders more than a month, she—along with eighty-one other members of the Donner Party—finds herself stranded at Truckee Lake on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, stuck there for the entirety of a despairing, blizzard-filled winter. Forced to eat shoe leather and blankets to survive, will Ada be able to battle the elements—and her own demons—as she envisions a new life in California? Researched with impeccable detail and filled with imagery as wide as the western prairie, Answer Creek blends history and hearsay in an unforgettable story of challenging the limits of human endurance and experiencing the triumphant power of love. Author: Ashley E. Sweeney Publication Date: May 19, 2020 -
Samantha—the fashionable wife of a successful businessman and doting mother of one—struggles to negotiate the spheres of intimacy between her husband and her family of origin. Samantha loves her husband, Richard, and she loves her sister, Elizabeth. But the two of them can barely exist in the same room, which has caused the entire family years of emotional distress. Yet it’s not until Samantha’s sister is diagnosed at age forty-three with lung cancer that her family and her marriage are tipped into full-blown crisis. A story of love, loss, forgiveness, learning to live with grief, and healing, Appearances will resonate with anyone who has ever experienced tension in their familial relationships—even as it serves as a poignant reminder that no amount of privilege can protect us from family conflicts, marital difficulty, or mortality. Author: Sondra Helene Publication Date: April 9, 2019 -
Art historian Cate Adamson, desperate to succeed to console her grieving parents, leaves the Midwest to complete her doctorate in New York—only to find herself assigned to an impossible sexist advisor. She struggles to impress him until she discovers a hidden painting, possibly a Baroque masterpiece. Risking her career, financial disaster, and further alienation from her family, she flees to Spain with the painting to consult art experts. Antonio, an impoverished duke, meets Cate on the train to Seville, and joins her search while attempting to rescue the decaying legacy of his family. They find clues and uncover evidence that will shock the titans of art history, may destroy her prospects as an art historian, and shatter her future with Antonio. Written with vivid prose, rich references to seventeenth century Spanish art, compelling characters and a historical puzzle, Attribution is the story of one contemporary woman’s journey to understand the past and unlock her future Author: Linda Moore Publication Date: October 11, 2022 -
2015 Best Book Awards Finalist in Autobiography/Memoir 2016 IPPY Gold Medal Winner in Autobiography/Memoir 2016 International Book Award Finalist in Autobiography/Memoirs Lene Fogelberg is dying—she is sure of it—but no doctor in Sweden, her home country, believes her. Love stories enfold her, with the man who will become her husband, with her enchanting surroundings, and later, with her two precious daughters. But despite her happiness, the question she has carried in her heart since childhood—Will I die young?—is closing in, threatening all she holds dear, even her sanity. When her young family moves to the US, an answer, a diagnosis, is finally found: she is in the last stages of a fatal congenital heart disease. But is it too late? Unflinchingly honest and often harrowing, Beautiful Affliction is an inspiring account of growing up and living on the verge of death—and of the beauty, harshness, loneliness, and, ultimately, unbending love that can be found there. Author: Lene Fogelberg Publication Date: September 15, 2015 -
It’s unprecedented, even in the twenty-first century, for a young Sicilian woman to defy the centuries-old mandate, “Family is everything!”—but twenty-two-year-old Mariella Russo is desperate to escape Sicily. She’s being relentlessly coerced into an engagement with her wealthy college sweetheart—a young man from a prominent, powerful family—by her envious and erratic mother, who hopes the match will increase her own ignominious social status. Suddenly, Mariella’s lifelong home has become a claustrophobic island. In a bid for independence and an attempt to escape entrapment, she flees to San Francisco. But Mariella’s bête noire—entrapment—follows her to San Francisco, where everyone wants more from her than she wants to give. Her American roommate, Leslie, turns out to be a gay man rather than the woman she imagined; her employer/lover is pressuring her to live with him; and her neurotic mother is haunting her, wreaking havoc and embarrassment. An urgent return trip to Sicily puts Mariella to the ultimate challenge: will she submit to tradition, or choose a life she wants for herself? Author: Janet Constantino Publication Date: February 4, 2025 -
In this richly depicted story, told in vignettes relative to markers of age and experience, Patricia Eagle reveals the heartbreak and destruction of her sexual abuse, from age four to thirteen, by her father. A victim of her father’s anger and her mother’s complacency with his abusive behavior, Eagle uses dissociation and numbing in response to the abuse, and as a way to block her own sense of self. How does a child confused by episodes of abuse come to know what is safe or unsafe, right or wrong, normal or abnormal? How does a young woman learn the difference between real love and a desire for sexual pleasure stimulated by abusive childhood sexual experiences? Careening through life, Eagle wonders how to trust others and, most importantly, herself. As a mature woman struggling to understand and live with her past, she remains earnest in her pursuit of clarity, compassion, and trust to build a stronger life. Being Mean is about blocking sexual abuse memories, having them surface, then learning how to acknowledge and live with incomprehensible experiences in the healthiest ways possible. Author: Patricia Eagle Publication Date: June 11, 2019 -
Just days after the close of World War II, Bess Myerson, the daughter of poor Russian Jewish immigrants living in the Bronx, is competing in the Miss America pageant. At stake: a $5,000 scholarship. The tension and excitement in Atlantic City’s Warner Theatre are palpable, especially for traumatized Jews rooting for one of their own. So begins Bessie.
Drawing on biographical and historical sources, Bessie reimagines the early life of Bess Myerson, who, in 1945 at age twenty-one, remarkably rises to become one of the most famous women in America. This intimate fictional portrait reveals the transformation of the nearly six-foot-tall, self-deprecating yet talented preteen into an exemplar of beauty, a peripheral quality in her world, where success is measured by intellectual attainment. Yet it is the focus on her beauty, and the secular world of pageantry, that she must choose to escape her roots and fulfill her fierce desire to achieve and become someone for whom great things happen.
Bessie is a tender study of a bold young woman living at a precarious moment in our cultural history as she searches for love and acceptance, eager to make her mark on the world.Author: Linda Kass
Pub Date: September 12, 2023 -
Beyond the Next Village is Mary Anne Mercer’s memoir of discovery, growth, and awakening in 1978 Nepal, which was then a mysterious country to most of the world. After arriving in Nepal, Mercer, an American nurse, spent a year traveling on foot often in flip-flops with a Nepali health team, providing immunizations and clinical care in each village they visited. Communicating in a newly acquired language, she was often called upon to provide the only modern medicine available to the people she and her team were serving. Over time, she learned to recognize and respect the prominence of their cultural beliefs about health and illness. Encounters with life-threatening conditions such as severe malnutrition and ectopic pregnancy gave her an enlightening view of both the limitations and power of modern health care; immersed in villagers’ lives and those of her own team, she realized she was living in not just another country, but another time. This unique story of the joys and perils of one woman’s journey in the shadow of the Himalayas, Beyond the Next Village opens a window into a world where the spirits were as real as the trees, the birds, or the rain and healing could be as much magic as medicine. Author: Mary Anne Mercer Pub Date: May 3, 2022 -
For fans of Lessons in Chemistry, a based-in-fact novel imagining young Renaissance noblewoman Bianca Capello’s experiences as she pursues a cure for malaria in the Medicis’ Florence. Florence, 1563. Forbidden from practicing her herbal cures in Venice, the young noblewoman Bianca Capello flees to Florence, where the ruling Medici family practices alchemy. There, she wins herself an invitation to their palace, and, as it turns out, a path to the duke regent Francesco’s bed. The impassioned bond between Francesco de Medici and Bianca is at the core of this fact-driven dive into medicine, politics, love, and ultimately death in Renaissance Florence. Malaria killed many of the Medicis, but traces of the poison arsenic were recently found in Francesco’s remains. Even more sinister: Bianca’s remains have never been found. To this day, what happened to Bianca and Francesco remains one of the greatest mysteries surrounding Renaissance Italy’s legendary Medicis. Bianca’s Cure probes what might have been as Bianca’s quest for a malaria cure—in palaces, gardens, sick rooms, and whorehouses—collides with Francesco’s intensifying illness. Her main tool is the herb artemisia—medicine still used today. A woman who dared to practice science well ahead of her time, Bianca fights off self-doubt until she believes herself invincible. But is she? When only she stands between Francesco and death, her skill may save him or doom them both. Author: Gigi Berardi Publication Date: February 10, 2026 -
Jill Sherer Murray lived in a dead-end relationship into her forties before she finally let it go. She was like millions of women who struggle with whether to stay in a loveless marriage, a bad relationship, or give up on dating altogether, believing love isn’t in the cards. You may be struggling with a similar decision yourself. Perhaps you’re terrified of being single, and yet you don’t truly feel you’re living the life you want. With warmth and honesty, Murray shows you how letting go—of feeling stuck, afraid, and alone, and of believing what you’ve got is all you deserve—can free you from a life that isn’t serving you. She knows this is true, because she did it herself—and ultimately attracted the love and life she wanted. Through her story, other women’s stories, surprising facts and statistics, and helpful exercises, Big Wild Love will show you the way back to the self you’ve lost. It will put you on the path to change and teach you that, wherever you are, it’s never too late to start anew and find the Big Wild Love you deserve. Author: Jill Sherer Murray Publication Date: May 12, 2020 -
Blackwildgirl begins her life as a queen superpower. When she is still a child, however, her parents strike a bargain that leads to her dethronement—and sets her on a forty-five-year journey to become the warrior she was born to be: Blackwildgoddess. Join an interactive adventure exploring the private life and journals of a young Black girl, beginning at the age of eight, as she struggles and evolves from a tennis player, musician, and college student to become a wife, mother, lawyer, scholar, and writer. Documenting revelations and reflections during her twelve-stage initiation journey in America and the African diaspora, this intimate, introspective autobiography—composed of acts, stages, scenes, and letters to Love—reveals how writing can unearth and give life to women’s powerful, sassy, and willful spirits. Authentic, vulnerable, and spirit-filled, this captivating and enthralling road map is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the experiences of girls as they seek to become wild women—women who are fierce and fearless; women who are warriors for themselves and others; and women who are committed to excavating and cultivating their spiritual gardens to manifest and fulfill their destiny in the world. Be sure to get the companion journal, Blackwildgirl: Finding Your Superpower to journey and journal along as you read. Write your own story. Discover your own inner wisdom. Own your power and purpose. Celebrate yourself. Author: Menah Adeola Eyaside Pratt Publication Date: May 21st, 2024 -
From the outside, Vanya’s childhood looked idyllic: she rode horses with her father in the solitude of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and attended flamboyant operas with her mother in the city. But life for Vanya and her family turned dark when ghosts from her father’s service on a Pacific destroyer in World War II tore her family apart. Set in postwar California, this is the story of a girl who tried to make sense of her parents’ unpredictable actions―from being left to lie in her own blood-soaked diaper while her Christian Scientist mother prayed, refusing to get medical help to watching her father writhe on his bed in the detox ward, his hands and feet tethered with leather straps―by immersing herself in the beauty and solitude of the wilderness around her. It was only decades later, when memories began to haunt her, that Vanya was able to look back with unflinching honesty and tender compassion for her family and herself. In this elegant, haunting narrative, Erickson invites us to witness it all―from the gripping, often disturbing, truths of her childhood to her ultimate survival. Author: Vanya Erickson Publication Date: August 21, 2018 -
For fans of Liane Moriarty and Maria Semple, this contemporary debut novel weaves together romance, mystery, and adventure as a woman travels to the Grand Canyon seeking answers after uncovering an old family secret. After crashing into a devastating revelation, Cyd’s tranquil life on the Florida panhandle is further upended when she receives a letter announcing an inheritance from an estranged aunt. The inheritance contains mysterious “items of a personal nature” which Cyd must collect in person halfway across the country. In a last attempt to salvage her deteriorating marriage, Cyd agrees to travel with her husband on what he promises—and she questions—will be the trip of a lifetime. As they set out, a hurricane threatens their hometown. Soon, fueled by the growing threat of the storm and the tension brewing between them, the couple’s long-suppressed problems erupt. Cyd digs deep for the courage to continue the journey on her own, unsure if either her home or her marriage will survive. Once in Phoenix, Cyd learns the strange details of the inheritance and a decades-old family secret. But what was the whole truth? Clues and instinct lead Cyd to Sedona and then to the Grand Canyon. She descends into the vast chasm alone searching for answers to newly raised questions and age-old mysteries. She steps off the beaten path, literally, knowing she must make peace with her pain-filled past and her uncertain future. Author: Jayne Mills Publication Date: July 8, 2025 -
Unflinchingly honest and darkly funny, this memoir will resonate with anyone facing the complicated reality of aging and illness in the United States. Elizabeth and her mother, Judy, have always had a complicated relationship. Now they face a confounding illness, as well as a labyrinthine healthcare system, at a complicated stage of life. Nothing is as it first seems in this riveting account of an unconventional mother-daughter journey—a journey that from the start poses questions about love, life, family, aging, healthcare, sex, and death. In Bound, Elizabeth Anne Wood addresses these questions as she chronicles the last eight months of her mother’s life—a period she comes to see, over the course of months, as a maternity leave in reverse: she is carrying her mother as she dies. Throughout their journey, Wood uses her notebook as a shield to keep unruly emotions at bay, often taking comfort in her role as advocate and forgetting to “be the daughter,” as one doctor reminds her to do. Meanwhile, her mother’s penchant for denial and childlike tendency toward magical thinking lead to moments of humor even as Wood battles the red tape of hospital bureaucracies, the frustration of planning in the midst of an unpredictable illness, and the unintentional inhumanity of a healthcare system that too often fails to see the person behind the medical chart. Author: Elizabeth Anne Wood Publication Date: August 13, 2019 -
In Bowing to Elephants, a woman seeking love and authenticity comes to understand herself as a citizen of the world through decades of wandering the globe. During her travels she sees herself more clearly as she gazes into the feathery eyes of a 14,000-pound African elephant and looks for answers to old questions in Vietnam and the tragically ravaged landscape of Cambodia. Bowing to Elephants is a travel memoir with a twist―the story of an unloved rich girl from San Francisco who becomes a travel junkie, searching for herself in the world to avoid the tragic fate of her narcissistic, alcoholic mother. Haunted by images of childhood loneliness and the need to learn about her world, Dimond journeys to far-flung places―into the perfumed chaos of India, the nostalgic, damp streets of Paris, the gray, watery world of Venice in the winter, the reverent and silent mountains of Bhutan, and the gold temples of Burma. In the end, she accepts the death of the mother she never really had―and finds peace and her authentic self in the refuge of Buddhist practice. Author: Mag Dimond Publication Date: September 17, 2019 -
Bridey is tethered to her mom’s addiction to dangerous men who park their Harley-Davidsons in the house and kick holes in all their doors. Raised to be her mother’s keeper, rescuer, and punching bag, Bridey gets used to stuffing her life into black trash bags, hauling them between Alaska and California, and changing schools every time her mom moves in a new monster or runs away from one.
Desperately seeking the normal life she’s observed in sitcoms and her friends’ families, Bridey earns her way into a fancy, private college, where she tries to forget who she is until her mom calls with a threat that drops Bridey to her knees. Watching doctors and police interrogate her mother at the hospital, Bridey realizes her mom has become a monster herself . . . and she doesn’t want to be saved.
But Bridey does.
Bright Eyes is about the indomitable spirit of a young girl forced to be brave, required to be resilient, and conditioned to be optimistic, and how she ultimately uses the same traits that helped her to survive her mother’s chaos to create her own happily-ever-after.
Author: Bridey Thelen-Heidel Publication date: September 24, 2024 -
Karen Grassle, the beloved actress who played Ma on Little House on the Prairie, grew up at the edge of the Pacific Ocean in a family where love was plentiful, but alcohol wreaked havoc. In this candid memoir, Grassle reveals her journey to succeed as an actress even as she struggles to overcome depression, combat her own dependence on alcohol, and find a loving relationship. With humor and hard-won wisdom, Grassle takes the reader with her through the sexual revolution and upheavals of the ’60s, to training at the famed London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art, behind the curtains of Broadway, and onto storied Hollywood sets. We know Karen Grassle best as the actress playing the strong prairie woman Caroline Ingalls, but here is the complex, funny, rebellious, and soulful woman we didn’t know. Raw, emotional, and empathic, Bright Lights celebrates and honors womanhood, in all its complexity. Author: Karen Grassle Publication Date: November 16, 2021 -
The only thing reclusive bookworm Nora, high-powered attorney Christina, and supermom-in-training Leanne ever had in common was their best friend, Molly. When Molly dies, she leaves mysterious gifts and cryptic notes for each of her grieving best friends, along with one final request: that these three mismatched frenemies have brunch together every month for a year. Filled with heartwrenching scenes and witty prose, Brunch and Other Obligations explores the intricate dynamics of girlhood acquaintances who are forced to reconnect as women. This upbeat novel reminds readers that there’s hope for getting through the hard times in life—with a lot of patience, humor, and a standing brunch date. Author: Suzanne Nugent Publication Date: May 5, 2020 -
2017-18 Reader Views Literary Award, Nominations for Regional, Global and other Special Awards “It’s impossible to read But My Brain Had Other Ideas and not be in awe of this woman’s determination to triumph over her disease. Brandon’s clear-eyed approach to her story will hook you from the first chapter and remind you what it means to live life full on. Her refusal to be circumscribed by angioma is a reminder of the power of hope in all of our lives.” —Lee Woodruff, New York Times best-selling author and journalist When Deb Brandon discovered that cavernous angiomas—tangles of malformed blood vessels in her brain—were behind the terrifying symptoms she’d been experiencing, she underwent one brain surgery. And then another. And then another. And that was just the beginning. The book also includes an introduction by Connie Lee, founder and president of the Angioma Alliance. Unlike other memoirs that focus on injury crisis and acute recovery, But My Brain Had Other Ideas follows Brandon’s story all the way through to long-term recovery, revealing without sugarcoating or sentimentality Brandon’s struggles—and ultimate triumph. Author: Deborah Brandon Publication Date: October 10, 2017 -
By age four, Claudia Marseille had hardly uttered a word. When her parents finally had her hearing tested and learned she had a severe hearing loss, they chose to mainstream her, hoping this would offer her the most “normal” childhood possible. With the help of a primitive hearing aid, Claudia worked hard to learn to hear, lipread, and speak even as she tried to hide her disability in order to fit in. As a result, she was often misunderstood, lonely, and isolated—fitting into neither the hearing world nor the Deaf culture. This memoir explores Claudia’s relationships with her German refugee parents—a disturbed, psychoanalyst father obsessed over various harebrained projects and moneymaking schemes and a Jewish mother who had survived the Holocaust in Munich—and with her own identity. Claudia shares how she emerged from loneliness and social isolation, explored her Jewish identity, struggled to find a career compatible with hearing loss, and eventually opened herself to a life of creativity and love. But You Look So Normal is the inspiring story of a life affected but not defined by an invisible disability. It is a journey through family, loss, shame, identity, love, and healing as Claudia finally, joyfully, finds her place in the world. Author: Claudia Marseille Publication Date: May 14, 2024 -
For fans of Philippa Gregory and Allison Pataki, a debut biographical historical novel about a young Swedish countess whose youthful love affair with the heir to her country’s throne has profound personal and political repercussions. In some games, winning means losing everything that matters. In the opulent world of the Swedish royal court, Jacquette Gyldenstolpe walks a dangerous tightrope between romance and political intrigue. Neglected by her parents and ostracized by the people around her, the young countess falls in love with Prince Oscar, heir to the Swedish throne—but their passionate affair has far-reaching consequences for the new Bernadotte dynasty, which is already challenged by threats from inside Sweden and beyond. By the time Jacquette learns that the Butterfly Game is not for the faint-hearted, it is too late. For she has a secret—one as precious to her as it is potentially devastating to the crown—and she will stop at nothing to protect it. Based on a true story and set in stormy early-1800s Europe, Butterfly Games is a sweeping historical tale of forbidden love, fierce duty, and the cost of ambition. From the lavish ballrooms of Stockholm to the elegant manor houses of the Swedish countryside, Jacquette’s story will transport readers to a world where every whisper could lead to triumph or ruin. Author: Kelly Scarborough Publication Date: January 20, 2026 -
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 -
Growing up in Santa Barbara, California, way too close to the Hollywood dream machine, Jenna Tico’s self-worth wanes to invisibility when her identity becomes enmeshed with validation from celebrities and spiritual F-boys . . . until she claws her way back to empowerment. Here, Tico shares vulnerable personal essays, stories, and poetry—all grouped following the cycles of the moon—chronicling her journey from late bloomer to full grownup. Observing the world of twenty-something relationships from perspectives as diverse as a bachelorette houseboat, a music festival afterparty, and the airplane ride to a death bed, she validates the experiences of women who feel like they have been abandoned by the generation that came before them. Her self-reflective stories encourage healthy life choices for young women without telling them where, what, or how to live their lives—and always with a healthy dash of humor on the side. Simultaneously hilarious and poignant (without the whiff of morality play), Cancer Moon invites readers to embrace their twenties—aka the “age of wallowing”—as a humorous and necessary step toward understanding how we become who we want to be in the world. Author: Jenna Tico Publication date: September 17, 2024 -
For fans of Daniella Mestyanek Young’s Uncultured and Tara Westover’s Educated, one woman’s gripping firsthand account of falling into—and eventually escaping—a female guru–led cult as she seeks her own personal awakening. Growing up under the sway of a Brooklyn housewife turned guru, Priya Hutner is drawn into a world shaped by bizarre rituals, spiritual promises, and oppressive beliefs. What begins as a quest for enlightenment unravels into a stifling reality as the boundaries between spiritual devotion and control blur—and as Priya becomes an integral part of the ashram community, sharing the guru’s teachings, she becomes further entangled in a web of spiritual control and manipulation. In this deeply personal memoir, Priya shares her struggle to break free from her guru and the cult-like grip to which she falls prey. Priya’s traumatic escape from the community marks a profound turning point as she regains personal power, rediscovers herself, and achieves true liberation in the process. A spiritual adventure story and a cautionary tale, Chasing Nirvana is a story of love, heartbreak, and redemption that offers a powerful reflection on the perils of blind faith and the beauty of reclaiming one’s life on one’s own terms. Priya’s story is a testament to the human spirit’s capacity for resilience, self-discovery, and freedom from the bondage of belief. Author: Priya Hutner Publication Date: March 3, 2026
