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“With courage and heart, Susan Hadler embarks upon a difficult journey to find the lost and forgotten members of her fragmented family. Along the way, she uncovers the family’s decades-old pain and sometimes shame―all with the hope of healing and reconciliation. Her story shows how loss, denial, and stigma can drain us, and also how forgiveness and compassion can restore us. Her unique blend of talents―equal parts writer, psychologist, and bloodhound hot on the trail―make for highly engaging and relatable reading. No one who reads this book will ever look at his or her own family history the same way again.” —David A. Lande, National Geographic senior researcher and author of I Was with Patton Where are they now, the lost, the forgotten? With the love in her mother’s silence as her guide, Susan Johnson Hadler began a quest to find out who the missing people in her family were and what happened to them. The search led her to Germany, where her father was killed just before the end of WWII; then to a Buddhist monastery in France, where she learned new ways to relate to life and death; and ultimately to a state mental hospital in Ohio, where the family abandoned her mother’s older sister years earlier. She believed that her aunt had died—but Hadler, to her great surprise, found her still alive at age ninety-four. And the story didn’t end there. Captivating and often heart-wrenching, The Beauty of What Remains is a story of liberating a family from secrets, ghosts, and untold pain; of reuniting four generations shattered by shame and fear; and of finding the ineffable beauty in what remains. Author: Susan Johnson Hadler Publication Date: September 15, 2015 -
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 -
“A beautiful blend of heart and journalism, The Butterfly Groove is an ethereal portrait of innocence, loss, and a young woman's unwavering curiosity surrounding her mother's past. Barraco's writing is witty and profound, and she has an undeniable skill for breathing new life into the most intimate of memories.” —Charlee Fam, author of Last Train to Babylon In 1999, as a twelve-year-old girl in sunny Southern California, Jessica Barraco loses her mother, Dianne, to cancer complications. Not knowing much about Dianne’s past, Jessica grows more and more curious about her mother’s story each year—especially because her immediate family does not seem to know much more about her mother than the Internet does. A decade after Dianne passes away, now armed with a journalism degree, Jessica unlocks a memory of her mother telling her that she loved her old ballroom dance partner, and she sets out on a two-year quest to find him—along with anyone else who can tell her about Dianne. Part mystery, part coming-of-age story, The Butterfly Groove is a heart-warming exploration of how our pasts tell our truths, and how love survives all of us. Author: Jessica Barraco Publication Date: August 4, 2015 -
“Jill Dearman is the New Queen of Noir.” —Go Magazine “Brutal and magical and sexy as hell. Dearman’s noir voice shatters boundaries I never knew existed.” —Augusten Burroughs, author, Running With Scissors. “With the illusion of a good magic show and the captivating edge of the early 20th century, The Great Bravura spellbinds readers in its twisted tale.” —RT Reviews Since adolescence, Bravura and salt of the earth Susie have been partners in magic and best friends, as well as occasional bedmates. But when the two performers hire the mysterious and alluring Lena as a third banana to jazz up the act, Bravura falls madly in love. Lena believes in magic—and not just the rabbit-out-of-a hat kind. She encourages Bravura to believe in her own supernatural powers, and when Susie balks, conflict ensues. Things really go south during the classic “Disappearing Box” act, when Susie disappears for real. With her pal presumed dead, and Bravura the prime suspect, the magician must act quickly to find Susie—hopefully alive! To prove her innocence, Bravura must uncover the holes in her own story—even if it means incriminating herself, and her precious Lena, in the process. Author: Jill Dearman Publication Date: November 3, 2015 -
Winner of the 2016 Gold Medal for Best Regional Fiction, Independent Publisher Book Awards 2016 IndieFab Finalist in Historical Fiction Winner of the 2016 Readers’ Favorite Awards Silver Medal in Fiction: Historical, Event/Era In Boston at the turn of the century, two indigent adolescent boys, Aidan and Charles, are brought together by a common desire: earning enough money each day to feed themselves (and, in Aidan’s case, his mother and sister). Together, they achieve this goal by robbing drunken sailors in the brothel district of the city—until one night they accidently kill their victim. To avoid arrest, they leave the city, conning their way into an island school that only accepts boys with squeaky-clean pasts. But the pressure of keeping their stories straight soon fractures their friendship—and when the cracks begin to show, they find out that they are not as safe from the law as they had hoped. Author: Connie Hertzberg Mayo Publication Date: October 13, 2015 -
2017 Independent Reader Discovery Awards: Winner - Health/Medicine 2016 Reader's Favorite Award: Gold Medal Winner (Non-Fiction - Health - Medical) 2016 The Beverly Hills Book Awards: Winner - Health Are you confused about vitamins? Unsure of which ones you need for optimal health, and what levels are safe? You’re not alone. Many people’s health issues could be improved with vitamins—if they only knew how to use them. In this award-winning book, The Vitamin Solution, Drs. Romy Block and Arielle Levitan provide a common-sense, medically sound approach to using vitamins to improve your diet, exercise plan, and overall health. In clear, accessible, language, they explain which vitamins and supplements can be helpful, which can be harmful, and which are altogether unnecessary; explore health topics including migraine, hair loss, fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, hot flashes, and more; and address preventive care, providing insights on topics such as screening tests, weight loss, and preserving memory. Illuminating and accessible, The Vitamin Solution is an indispensable guide to safely incorporating vitamins and supplements into any lifestyle—one that will leave readers educated, informed, and armed with simple, everyday strategies for bettering their health. Author: Romy Block and Arielle Miller Levitan Publication Date: November 17, 2015 -
2016 International Book Award Finalist in Fiction: Historical Nettie has spent every summer of her life in the Southern Wiregrass town of Crystal Springs, Alabama. This year, she hopes the small town’s relaxed pace will give her a break from the unrelenting physical and emotional changes of puberty. But a chance encounter with Mitchell, a seductively handsome yet secretive young man, turns Nettie’s summer plans and her heart upside down. As their relationship grows, Nettie realizes Mitchell is harboring a dark and dangerous secret—one that, when revealed, rocks the core of the sleepy little town and has Nettie and those she loves running for their lives. Author: Pam Webber Publication Date: August 4, 2015 -
AWARDS: Bookclub Favorite Winner of New Adult Fiction—Beverly Hills Book Awards Winner of the SILVER Medal for Best Fiction in Drama from Readers' Favorite Finalist USA Best Books Awards in Literary Fiction and in New Fiction “Under its skin, it is a lively, accessible meditation on redemption and the transformative value of good intention and deed.” ―Rebecca Coffey, author of Hysterical: Anna Freud's Story “An outstanding book that is not only deeply honest, heartbreaking, and hopeful, but also brilliant, poignant, and original. It captures what is at the heart of all of us and showcases that life is what we make it. Brilliant, just brilliant! 5 stars.” ―Emily Lewis, Mrs. Mommy Booknerd’s Book Reviews Inspired by a true story about mothers, daughters, and impossible choices—Jules Foster, a child psychologist, upon hearing news of her estranged, narcissistic mother’s terminal diagnosis, chooses to care for her mother over her own daughter, only to find out she has been betrayed all along. Things Unsaid asks us to consider what children owe their aging parents and siblings. Jules Foster is summoned to the local police station to retrieve her elderly parents, after her father has sideswiped a parked automobile. Her parents now rely heavily on her financial support, and Jules finds herself sacrificing her daughter Zoe's dreams for going to college in order to continue bankrolling them. Her husband, Mike, is forced to take sides. Joanne, her divorced younger sister, and Andrew, her brother, refuse to send their parents so much as a Christmas present. Now that their parents are incapable of caring for themselves, Jules, Andrew, and Joanne must decide where to draw the line between obligation and their own families. Throughout Things Unsaid, Jules, Zoe, and Andrew are forced repeatedly to evaluate their personal priorities and avoid repeated misfirings of the heart. As they make impossible choices, they pull back the curtain to reveal deeply buried family secrets. A powerful and courageous tale of family dysfunction and senior citizens, this bold and poignant debut novel presents deep insights into the messy and inevitably complicated world of family relationships, and shows how one woman is able to survive with her sanity and spirit intact. Author: Diana Y. Paul Publication Date: October 13, 2015 -
“Fascinating and insightful . . .” —Booklist, Starred Review Uncovered follows her as a young teen who left her secular home for life as a Hasidic Jew. Ultimately we see her as a forty-something woman who has to abandon the only world she’s know for thirty years for the sake of her personal freedom. Lax details her experiences in the Hasidic fold in understated, crystalline prose—arranged marriage, cult-like faith, endless motherhood without birth control—all the while exploring how creative, sexual, and spiritual longings simmered beneath the surface throughout her time there.Uncovered is the first memoir of a gay woman in the Jewish orthodox world, the moving story of her long journey toward finding a home where she truly belongs.In Uncovered, Leah Lax tells her story—beginning as a young teen who left her liberal, secular home for life as a Hasidic Jew, and ending as a forty-something woman who has to abandon the only world she’s known for thirty years in order to achieve personal freedom. In understated, crystalline prose, Lax details her experiences with arranged marriage, cult-like faith, and motherhood during her years with the Hasidim, and explores how her creative, sexual, and spiritual longings simmer beneath the surface throughout her time there. The first book to tell the story of a gay woman who spent thirty adult years in the Hasidic fold, Uncovered is the moving story of Lax’s long journey toward finding a home where she truly belongs. Author: Leah Lax Publication Date: August 28, 2015 -
A collection of sixty-four black-and-white photographs and sixty-two poems, Unfolding in Light offers a vision of hands as images, symbols, and archetypes, allowing the numinous to shine through the mundane. Sisters Joan Scott and Claire Scott provides an intimate pause that gives the reader a quiet moment to reflect on the meaning of everyday hands: an ill child’s hands; a dying woman’s hands; hands of lovers, young and old; hands at work, at play, in pain, in prayer, and in love. Author: Joan and Claire Scott Publication Date: November 17, 2015
