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Beth cherished her childhood summers on a pristine northern Canadian lake, where she reveled in the sweet smell of dew on early morning hikes, the loons’ evening trills across the lake’s many bays, every brush stroke of her brother’s paintings celebrating their cherished place, and their grandfather’s laughter as he welcomed neighbors to their annual Welsh harvest celebration. Theirs was an unshakeable bond with nature, family, and friends, renewed every summer on their island of granite and pines. But that bond was threatened and then torn apart, first as rights to their island were questioned and then by nature itself, and the family was forced to leave. Fourteen years later, Beth has created a new life in urban Chicago. There, she’s erected a solid barrier between the past and present, no matter how much it costs—until her grandfather asks her to return to the island to determine its fate. Will she choose to preserve who she has become, or risk everything to discover if what was lost still remains? The Best Part of Us will immerse readers in a breathtaking natural world, a fresh perspective on loyalty, and an exquisite ode to the essential roles that family, nature, and place hold in all of our lives. Author: Sally Cole-Misch Publication Date: September 8, 2020 -
2016 International Book Award Finalist in Best New Fiction “Spellbinding. Readers will feel they are watching an Alfred Hitchcock movie as they turn the pages of this vivid, fast-paced novel about how uncovering the past can lead to discovering oneself. You’ll never look at vintage clothes quite the same way again.” —Jennifer Coburn, author of We’ll Always Have Paris Twenty-eight-year-old struggling San Francisco artist Anne McFarland is determined to get a one-woman show, even though no one, including herself, believes she can do it. But when she buys a coat at a thrift shop with a key in its pocket, strange, even magical, occurrences begin to unfold, and she is inspired to create her best work ever. Fifty years before, the coat’s original owner, young heiress Sylvia Van Dam, is headed toward a disastrous marriage with a scoundrel. In a split-second reaction, she does the unimaginable, which propels her destiny out of alignment and forces her on a trip of self-discovery to nature-filled Northern Arizona. When Anne and Sylvia’s lives intersect, they are both forced to face their fears—and in the process, they realize their true potential. Author: Jill G. Hall Publication Date: October 6, 2015 -
New York 1915, Marion Davies is a shy eighteen-year-old beauty dancing on the Broadway stage when she meets William Randolph Hearst and finds herself captivated by his riches, passion and desire to make her a movie star. Following a whirlwind courtship, she learns through trial and error to live as Hearst’s mistress when a divorce from his wife proves impossible. A baby girl is born in secret in 1919 and they agree to never acknowledge her publicly as their own. In a burgeoning Hollywood scene, she works hard making movies while living a lavish partying life that includes a secret love affair with Charlie Chaplin. In late 1937, at the height of the depression, Hearst wrestles with his debtors and failing health, when Marion loans him $1M when nobody else will. Together, they must confront the movie that threatens to invalidate all of Marion’s successes in the movie industry: Citizen Kane. Author: Leslie Johansen Nack Pub Date: May 3, 2022 -
In the not-so-distant future, organs can be re-grown from a handful of stem cells. For patients who can afford the treatment and hang on to life support for long enough, the prognosis is good. Even the most complex organ of all can be reproduced in the lab with nearly perfect accuracy. Nearly. Patients of brain regeneration face a wide range of problems, from loss of motor functions or intelligence to sociopathy. Spurred by personal tragedy, research scientist William Dalal works feverishly to improve the lives of those he has had a hand in saving. For every success, however, there is a consequence, and eventually a question arises in his mind: Are they worth it? His desire to help fades as he comes to realize a shocking truth: the monsters he has created are taking over. As Will walks a fine line between altruism and ambition, acquaintances and events change the way in which he perceives the world and the extent to which he is willing to compromise in order to make his mark on it. As the situation escalates, he finds himself dealing brain-enhancing drugs and developing life-altering treatments. In their deliverance, he sees his own—but is he deluding himself? Author: Akemi C. Brodsky Pub Date: August 15, 2023 -
Can you come sit at the table? Tammy Letherer’s husband of twelve years spoke these words on a Tuesday night, just before Christmas, after he had put their three children in bed. He had a piece of paper and two fingers of scotch in front of him. As he read from the list in his hand, his next words would shatter her world and destroy every assumption she'd ever made about love, friendship, and faithfulness. In The Buddha at My Table, Letherer describes―in honest, sometimes painful detail―the dismantling of a marriage that encompasses the ordinary and the surreal, including the night she finds a silent, smiling Thai monk sitting at the same dining room table. It’s this unexpected visitation, this personification of peace, that sticks with her as she listens to her husband reveal hurtful, shocking things―that he never loved her, he doesn’t believe in monogamy, and he wants to “wrap things up” with her in four weeks―and allows her to find the blessing in her husband’s betrayal. Ultimately, it’s when she realizes that she is participating in her life, not at its mercy, that she discovers the path to freedom. Author: Tammy Letherer Publication Date: October 16, 2018 -
Dena was a busy midwife trapped on the hamster wheel of working motherhood. Adam was an eccentric Buddhist yogi passing as a hard-working dad. Bella was fourteen and wanted to be normal. Sophia was up for anything that involved skipping school. Together, they shouldered backpacks, walked away from their California life of all-night births, carpool schedules, and Cal Skate, and criss-crossed India and Nepal for eight months—a journey that led them to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the tree where the Buddha sat, and the arms of Amma the Divine Mother. From the banks of the Ganges to the Himalayan roof of the world, this enthralling memoir is an unforgettable odyssey, a moving meditation on modern family life, and a spiritual quest, written with humor and honesty—and filled with love and awe. Author: Dena Moes Publication Date: April 2, 2019 -
After seven years of faithfully following her Buddhist teacher, Renee Linnell realized she had been severely brainwashed. She had graduated magna cum laude with a double degree. She had traveled to nearly fifty countries alone before she turned thirty-five. She was a surf model and a professional tango dancer. She had started five different companies and was getting an MBA from NYU. How did someone like her end up in a cult?The Burn Zone is an exploration of how we give up our power— how what started out as a need to heal from the loss of her parents and to understand the big questions in life could leave a young woman fighting for her sanity and her sense of self. Part inspirational story, part cautionary tale, this is a memoir for spiritual seekers and those who feel lost in a world that makes them feel like they don’t belong.Author: Renee Linnell Publication Date: October 9, 2018 -
Three powerful men converge on the banks of the Red Cedar River in the early 1900s in southern Minnesota—George Albert Hormel, founder of what will become the $10 billion food conglomerate Hormel Foods; Alpha LaRue Eberhart, the author’s paternal grandfather and Hormel’s Executive Vice President and Corporate Secretary; and Ransome Josiah Thomson, Hormel’s comptroller. Over ten years, Thomson will embezzle $1.2 million from the company’s coffers, nearly bringing the company to its knees. The Butcher, The Embezzler, and The Fall Guy opens in 1922 as George Hormel calls Eberhart into his office and demands his resignation. Hailed as the true leader of the company he’d helped Hormel build—is Eberhart complicit in the embezzlement? Far worse than losing his job and the great wealth he’d rightfully accumulated is that his beloved young wife, Lena, is dying while their three children grieve alongside. Of course, his story doesn’t end there. In scale both intimate and grand, Cherington deftly weaves the histories of Hormel, Eberhart, and Thomson within the sweeping landscape of our country’s early industries, along with keen observations about business leaders gleaned from her thirty-five-year career advising top company executives. The Butcher, The Embezzler, and The Fall Guy equally chronicles Cherington’s journey from blind faith in family lore to a nuanced consideration of the three men’s great strengths and flaws—and a multilayered, thoughtful exploration of the ways we all must contend with the mythology of powerful men, our reverence for heroes, and the legacy of a complicated past. Pub Date: June 6, 2023 Author: Gretchen Cherington -
Gold Medal Winner, Autobiography/Memoir, 2015 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards “Gardner has written a rich, haunting book that vividly captures her childhood and makes everyday turmoil vital through precise and honest prose.” —Publishers Weekly, July 2014 A father makes the fateful decision to leave a successful career in the US behind and move to an isolated beach in the Dominican Republic. He plants ten thousand coconut seedlings, transplants his wife and two young daughters to a small village, and declares they are the luckiest people alive. In reality, the family is in the path of hurricanes and in the grip of a brutal dictator, Rafael Trujillo—and the children are additionally under the thumb of an increasingly volatile and alcoholic father. Set against a backdrop of shimmering palms and kaleidoscope sunsets, The Coconut Latitudes is Rita Gardner’s compelling memoir of a childhood in paradise, a journey into unexpected misery, and a twisted path to redemption and truth. Author: Rita Gardner Publication Date: September 16, 2014 -
The Enneagram—a universal symbol of human purpose and possibility—is an excellent tool for doing the hardest part of consciousness work: realizing, owning, and accepting your strengths and weaknesses. In this comprehensive handbook, Beatrice Chestnut, PhD, traces the development of the personality as it relates to the nine types of the Enneagram, the three different subtype forms each type can take, and the path each of us can take toward liberation. With her guidance, readers will learn to observe themselves, face their fears and disowned Shadow aspects, and work to manifest their highest potential. Author: Beatrice Chestnut Publication Date: July 31, 2013 -
Joanna and Ev have been partners for ten years―in business and in love―when one of the only women in government in the Middle East invites their firm to design a children’s museum in Riyadh. Jo sees a chance to solidify her name in the design world, and help Saudi girls along the way, in the venture. Her husband, however, has no desire to work in a vigorously policed society; he prefers to remain in his workshop, fashioning gadgets for museum displays. Jo’s sister and young protégé share his doubts, but Ev accedes to Jo’s wishes. The process of bidding on the job soon throws their home office into chaos and challenges their long-held assumptions about the value of their work―and marriage. If they get the job, will their partnership survive the strain? Author: Sheila Grinell Publication Date: September 24, 2019 -
International Book Awards 2016 finalist for literary fiction IPPY 2017 Gold Medal Winner in Autobiography/Memoir “Monica Starkman offers a penetrating look at the drastic capabilities of the obsessed mind. Written beautifully and carefully, at just the right pace, The End of Miracles is a thoroughly compelling piece of work.” —Roger Rosenblatt, New York Times bestselling author, literary editor of The New Republic, essayist for Washington Post and Time magazine When a pregnancy following years of infertility ends in premature labor, Margo Kerber’s grieving becomes intertwined with feelings of inadequacy and shame. An imaginary pregnancy shields her from despair until ultrasound images confront her with the truth—at which point Margo sinks into a depression requiring psychiatric hospitalization. There, her harrowing experiences magnify her sense of being abnormal. When an opportunity arises, she flees. But following her escape, a chance encounter with a mother and her briefly unattended baby evokes another fantasy: she can better nurture this infant than can its mother. This new self-deception propels Margo into a gripping, heartbreaking series of increasingly daring and dangerous actions—with profound consequences for herself and others. Author: Monica Starkman Publication Date: May 3, 2016 -
Meet Chris and Marty—a married couple working on their careers, raising their only child, and chasing big adventures. At midlife, they suddenly find themselves weighing the responsibility of parenthood against the possibility of one more grand adventure, before their aging bodies and the warming continent of Antarctica further degrade. They ultimately decide it’s time to pursue their biggest dream: Ski 570 miles from the edge of Antarctica to the South Pole. With no guide or resupply. From the lush Pacific Northwest to the barren landscape of Antarctica, Chris and Marty embark on one of the hardest challenges on the planet. After three years of intense planning and training, including meticulous preparations for the care of their twelve-year-old son, they are ready. Experience a boundless white wonderland like no other on earth. Encounter life-threatening dangers lurking in the bitter cold. Feel the intensity of 220-pound sleds, relentless wind, 40-below temperatures, and mind-numbing isolation. This is not an average couples getaway. Chris and Marty go where few others have dared on the way to making history—stretching their bodies, minds, and marriage to the limit in the process. Riveting and inspiring, The Expedition is about the power of family and community, the adventurous spirit that dwells within us all, and breaking through to feel fully alive. Author: Chris Fagan Publication Date: September 3, 2019 -
Born of illustrious New England stock, Rachel Field was a National Book Award–winning novelist, a Newbery Medal–winning children’s writer, a poet, playwright, and rising Hollywood success in the early twentieth century. Her light was abruptly extinguished at the age of forty-seven, when she died at the pinnacle of her personal happiness and professional acclaim. Fifty years later, Robin Clifford Wood stepped onto the sagging floorboards of Rachel’s long-neglected home on the rugged shores of an island in Maine and began dredging up Rachel’s history. She was determined to answer the questions that filled the house’s every crevice: Who was this vibrant, talented artist whose very name entrances those who still remember her work? Why is that work—so richly remunerated and widely celebrated in her lifetime—so largely forgotten today? The journey into Rachel’s world took Wood further than she ever dreamed possible, unveiling a life fraught with challenge, and buried by tragedy, and yet incandescent with joy. The Field House is a book about beauty—beauty in Maine island landscapes, in friendship, love, and heartbreak; beauty hidden beneath a woman’s woefully unbeautiful exterior; beauty in a rare, delightful spirit that still whispers from the past. Just listen. Publication Date: May 4, 2021 Author: Robin Clifford Wood -
A Readers' Favorite Book Award Finalist and Best Book Awards Finalist * Featured in Ms. Magazine, Brit + Co, Hypertext Magazine, BookTrib, Publishers Weekly, Writer's Digest and more! An enthralling historical novel about brave women set during the peak of the Vietnam War and told through the rare perspective of a young woman, who traces her path to self-discovery and a “Coming of Conscience.” If you loved Kristin Hannah's latest novel The Women, this one's for you. On September 14, 1969, Private First Class Judy Talton celebrates her nineteenth birthday by secretly joining the campus anti-Vietnam War movement. In doing so, she jeopardizes both the army scholarship that will secure her future and her relationship with her military family. But Judy’s doubts have escalated with the travesties of the war. Who is she if she stays in the army? What is she if she leaves? When the first date pulled in the Draft Lottery turns up as her birthday, she realizes that if she were a man, she’d have been Number One―off to Vietnam with an under-fire life expectancy of six seconds. The stakes become clear, propelling her toward a life-altering choice as fateful as that of any draftee. Judy’s story speaks to the poignant clash of young adulthood, early feminism, and war, offering an ageless inquiry into the domestic politics of protest when the world stops making sense. Author: Rita Dragonette Publication Date: September 18, 2018 -
What do we, as parents, really mean when we say we want the best for our children? Irena Smith tackles this question from a unique vantage point: as a former Stanford admissions officer, a private Palo Alto college counselor, and a mother of three children who struggle to find their place in the long shadow of Stanford University. Written as a series of responses to actual college essay prompts, this witty, raw memoir takes the reader from the smoke-filled lobby of the Hebrew Aid Society in Rome, where Irena and her parents await asylum with other Soviet refugees in 1977, to the overpriced house she and her husband buy in Palo Alto in 1999, to the hushed inner sanctum of the Stanford admissions office. Irena grows a successful college counseling practice but struggles to reconcile the lofty aspirations of tightly wound, competitive high school seniors (and their anxious parents) with her own attempts to keep her family from unraveling as, one by one, her children are diagnosed with autism, learning differences, depression, and anxiety. And although she doesn’t initially understand her children—or how to help them—she will not stop stumbling and learning until she figures it out. The Golden Ticket opens a much-needed conversation about extreme parenting, the weight of generational expectations, and what happens when Gen-X dreams meet unexpected realities. It's a sharp-eyed depiction of hard-won triumphs and of the messy, challenging parts of parenting you won't see on Facebook or Instagram. Above all, it's an invitation to embrace a broader, more generous definition of success. Pub Date: April 18, 2023 Author: Irena Smith -
Thirteen-year-old Mary Agnes Coyne, forced from her home in rural Ireland in 1886 after being accused of incest, endures a treacherous voyage across the vast Atlantic alone to an unknown life in America. From the tenements of New York to the rough alleys of Chicago, Mary Agnes suffers the bitter taste of prejudice for the crime of being poor and Irish. Marriage at age sixteen takes her west to Colorado Springs, where her young husband chases a phantom cure for tuberculosis. When tragedy strikes, Mary Agnes finds herself alone again, dreams shattered. But she is determined to forge her own path, and after securing work as a chuckwagon cook at a rugged Colorado ranch, she discovers a newfound sense of purpose and identity. Torn between desire for her ranch boss—who is neither Irish nor Catholic—and propriety, Mary Agnes returns to Chicago, her future uncertain. There, resilience and resolve become her constant companions as she faces yet another tragedy: her family, newly arrived from Ireland, disowns her. Digging deep within, Mary Agnes discovers strength and worth as she redefines what it means to belong while grappling with the clash of heritage, religion, and matters of the heart. Author: Ashley E. Sweeney Publication Date: December 10, 2024 -
Brenda Lockhart’s family has been living well beyond their means for too long when Brenda’s husband leaves them—for an older and less attractive woman than Brenda, no less. Brenda’s never worked outside the home, and the family’s economic situation quickly declines. Oldest daughter Peggy is certain she’s heading off to a university, until her father offers her a job sorting mail while she attends community college instead. Younger daughter Allison, a high school senior, can’t believe her luck that California golden boy Kevin has fallen in love with her. Meanwhile, the chatter about the O. J. Simpson murder investigations is always on in the background, a media frenzy that underscores domestic violence against women and race and class divisions in Southern California. Brenda, increasingly obsessed with the case, is convinced O. J. is innocent and has been framed by the LAPD. Both daughters are more interested in their own lives—that is, until Peggy starts noticing bruises Allison can’t explain. For a while, it feels to everyone as if the family is falling apart; but in the end, they all come together again in unexpected ways. Publication Date: June 1, 2021 Author: Mary Camarillo -
In 1660, Amsterdam is the trading and map-printing capital of the world. Anneke van Brug is one of the colorists paid to enhance black-and-white maps for a growing number of collectors. Her artistic talent brings her to the attention of the Blaeu printing house, and she begins to color for a rich merchant, Willem de Groot. But Anneke is not content to simply embellish the work of others; she longs to create maps of her own. Cartography, however, is the domain of men—so it is in secret that she borrows the notes her father made on a trip to Africa in 1642 and sets about designing a new map. Anneke hopes to convince the charismatic de Groot to use his influence to persuade Blaeu to include her map in the Atlas Maior, which will be the largest and most expensive publication of the century. But family secrets, infidelity, and murder endanger her dream. Will her map withstand these threats, or will it be forever lost? Author: Rebecca D'harlingue Pub Date: September 19, 2023 -
In 1998, fiery Eleanor “Els” Gordon thought the new century would find her married to her childhood soul mate, rejuvenating her family’s Scottish Highlands estate, and finally earning a managing director title at her investment bank. Maybe she’d even have the courage to discover why her estranged mother ran home to Italy thirty years earlier. But when 2000 dawns, Els is mourning her fiancé and her father, and she’s unemployed, broke, and sharing an antique plantation house on the Caribbean island of Nevis with the ghost—or “jumbie”—of Jack Griggs, the former owner. Jack’s jumbie wangles Els’s help in making amends for wrongs committed during his Casanova life, and in exchange he appoints himself Cupid on behalf of a charter captain who’s as skittish about vulnerability as Els. Meanwhile, Els lures her mother to Nevis in hopes of unraveling the family secrets—but will the shocking truth set her free, or pull her fragile new happiness apart? A moving and lyrical novel that transports readers from lush tropics to rugged highlands and back again, The Moon Always Rising explores how the power of forgiveness can help even the most damaged person fix whatever is broken. Author: Alice C. Early Publication Date: April 21, 2020 -
2015 National Indie Excellence Award Winner in Autobiography 2015 Writer’s League of Texas Book Awards Winner in Non-Fiction “What makes this book particularly valuable is its vivid depiction of the abhorrent consequences of legalized segregation. What gives it heart is the window it opens to the personal journeys of mother and daughter. An important, riveting history lesson that, unfortunately, is still relevant today.” —Kirkus Reviews In 1967, when Jo Ivester was ten years old, her father transplanted his young family from a suburb of Boston to a small town in the heart of the Mississippi cotton fields, where he became the medical director of a clinic that served the poor population for miles around. But ultimately it was not Ivester’s father but her mother—a stay-at-home mother of four who became a high school English teacher when the family moved to the South—who made the most enduring mark on the town. In The Outskirts of Hope, Ivester uses journals left by her mother, as well as writings of her own, to paint a vivid, moving, and inspiring portrait of her family’s experiences living and working in an all-black town during the height of the civil rights movement. Author: Jo Ivester Publication Date: April 7, 2015 -
The Parrot’s Perch opens in 2013, when Karen Keilt, age sixty, receives an invitation to testify at the Brazilian National Truth Commission at the UN in New York. The email sparks memories of her “previous life”—the one she has kept safely bottled up for more than thirty-seven years. Hopeful of helping to raise awareness about ongoing human rights violations in Brazil, she wants to testify, but she anguishes over reliving the horrific events of her youth. In the pages that follow, Keilt tells the story of her life in Brazil—from her exclusive, upper-class lifestyle and dreams of Olympic medals to her turmoil-filled youth. Full of hints of a dark oligarchy in Brazil, corruption, crime, and military interference, The Parrot’s Perch is a searing, sometimes shocking true tale of suffering, struggle—and survival. Karen Keilt lived through the darkest days of Brazil’s military dictatorship. In her courageous and compelling memoir, Keilt narrates an emotionally honest reckoning of her desire to find true happiness. Forbidden by her wealthy family to even mention her imprisonment, torture, and rape, Keilt is forced to make a change that will affect the rest of her life. Seen through her testimony to the Brazilian National Truth Commission at the UN, readers become witnesses to both her vulnerability and her quiet strength. Author: Karen Keilt Publication Date: April 16, 2019 -
Based on a true story, this is the tale of Adélaïe Labille-Guiard’s fight to take her rightful place in the competitive art world of eighteenth-century Paris. With a beautiful rival who’s better connected and better trained than she is, Adélaïde faces an uphill battle. Her love affair with her young instructor in oil painting gives rise to suspicions that he touches up her work, and her decision to make much-needed money by executing erotic pastels threatens to create as many problems as it solves. Meanwhile, her rival goes from strength to strength, becoming Marie Antoinette’s official portraitist and gaining entrance to the elite Académie Royale at the same time as Adélaïde. When at last Adélaïde earns her own royal appointment and receives a massive commission from a member of the royal family, the timing couldn’t be worse: it’s 1789, and with the fall of the Bastille her world is turned upside down by political chaos and revolution. With danger around every corner in her beloved Paris, she must find a way to adjust to the new order, carving out a life and a career all over again. Author: Susanne Dunlap Publication: August 30, 2022 -
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
