When faced with overwhelming hardship, what we believe makes all the difference. At age twenty-six, Anne Reeder Heck was attacked by a stranger and brutally raped. Years later, still seeking to heal the remnants of this trauma, Anne stands alone in her living room one winter day and claims her desired belief aloud: “This is my year of strength.” Her clear intention results in a phone call; her rapist has been identified—fourteen years after the crime. Offering all the gripping and uplifting details of a story that sparked national interest—Heck appeared on the front page of The Washington Post and was interviewed by Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America—A Fierce Belief in Miracles lights the way for those seeking to heal from life’s traumas by demonstrating the importance of clear intention and trusting inner guidance, and the transformative power of forgiveness. Author: Anne Reeder Heck Publication Date: September 22, 2020  

After her mother’s death, Gabrielle Robinson found two diaries her grandfather had kept while serving as doctor during the fall of Berlin 1945. He recorded his daily struggle to survive in the ruined city—“I creep out at 10 o’clock at night to the clinic under whistling grenades and bombs, a wilderness of fire and dust, behind it, although already high in sky, the blood red moon”—and attempts to do what little he could for the wounded and dying without water, light, bedding, and medications. But then the diaries revealed something that had never been mentioned in her family, and it hit Robinson like a punch to the stomach: Api, her beloved grandfather, had been a Nazi. In this clear-eyed memoir, Robinson juxtaposes her grandfather’s harrowing account of his experiences during the war with her memories of his loving protection years afterward, and raises disturbing questions about the political responsibility we all carry as individuals. Moving and provocative, Api’s Berlin Diaries offers a firsthand and personal perspective on the far-reaching aftershocks of the Third Reich—and the author’s own inconvenient past. Author: Gabrielle Robinson Publication Date: September 15, 2020  

At forty, Margaret quits her sales job to follow her husband’s hotel career to Paris. She’s setting sail on this adventure with a glass half full of bravery, a well-traveled passport, a journal in which she plans to write her novel, and the mentally engrained Davis Family Handbook of Rules to Live By. Everyone tells Margaret she’s living the dream, but she feels adrift without a professional identity. Desperate to feel productive and valued, she abandons her writing and throws herself into new roles: perfect wife, hostess, guide, and expatriate. When she and her husband move to Cairo, however, the void inside she’s been ignoring threatens to engulf her. It’s clear that something needs to change, so she does the one thing she was raised never to do: asks for—and accepts—help. Over the next fifteen years abroad, the cultures of Egypt, Thailand, and Singapore confront Margaret with lessons she never would have learned at home. But it’s only when they move back to Chicago—with Margaret now stepping into the role of perfect caretaker to her parents—that she has to decide once and for all: will she dare to let go of the old rules and roles she thinks keep her safe in order to step into her own life and creative destiny? Author: Margaret Davis Ghielmetti Publication Date: September 15, 2020  

Mary, a Rust Belt farm girl, the bastard child of an unwed, unconventional single mother, claws her way out of poverty and weds, but soon stumbles over the myth of monogamy. When her first husband, Don, dies, she seeks a more honest, equitable relationship, determined that her infant son, Billy, will not be a fatherless child as she was. The day before she leaves on a freighter for Greece, she meets Isaac in the East Village, and their romance blooms as they shuttle back and forth between Brooklyn and Crete. In addition to the distance between them, however, Mary must also take on Isaac’s conventional Jewish mother and all her beliefs about how and where they should live. Fatherless, Fearless, Female follows the international adventures of the dauntless Mary as she moves from a mob-operated strip joint in Chicago to the vineyards and villages of Crete, from art schools in New York and Jerusalem to the Imperial Iranian Air Force Base in Isfahan during the revolution of ’78. Along the way, she navigates through a maze of broken vows, broken families, and broken educational systems—and learns, at last, the value of love and the true meaning of her mother’s deathbed story. Author: Mary Charity Kruger Stein Publication Date: September 29, 2020  

Four young children caught between love and hate—hostages to the cruelty of revenge. A deceitful American father and a naïve decision by a Filipino mother transformed their lives forever.   Valorie, Veronica, Vance, and Vincent’s perfect world turned into a nightmare one hot afternoon in 1959 in Cebu, Philippines. What was to be a quick lunch with their father turned into a flight to America, where four dreadfully long years of running from state to state, hiding, and vanishing into the night followed. Kidnapped from the only world they knew, confusion quickly set in. At nine, Valorie, the eldest, liked seeing their father after his absence for over a year. Vance, a timid six-year-old, went along with whatever Valorie did. Vincent, the baby at three, cried for his mother while clinging to Veronica for comfort. Veronica, eight, was the only one who was truly panicked by what was happening around them—and she recognized instantly that she and her siblings would have to stick together in order to survive. In that moment, her childhood ended and the warrior within her emerged.   Moving from state to state and school to school, avoiding the law, looking over their shoulders at every turn, the four Slaughter children found themselves fighting not only the heartbreak of separation from their loving mother but also poverty, discrimination, and abuse. Their only weapons were their deep love for one another and an unwavering determination to survive the trials they faced—and find their way back to their mother.  Author: Veronica Slaughter Publication Date: August 4, 2020  

Even the most integrative, supportive doctor can only do so much for an individual during the worst period of healing from Lyme. The process looks different for everyone, but a patient must feel significantly worse before they begin to recover. When Lyme bacteria (or other coinfections) are first attacked by antibiotics, herbs, or other treatment, they release toxins into the body quicker than they can be dispelled. This is called a Jarisch-Herxheimer (Herx) reaction, and it can often include panic attacks, brain fog, paranoia, depression, pain, affected vision, racing heartrate, dysfunctional thyroid, disrupted digestion, severe confusion, and amnesia among many other symptoms. Herxing, in other words, is a complete—and sometimes seemingly unending—nightmare. When you’ve fretted about that frustrating doctor all night and Herxed all day, these autobiographical poems may go down smoother than a pill. Arranged chronologically in the order that they were written, they move from devastation to determination, addressing the various frustrations and dynamics of living with chronic Lyme disease—the isolation, the trauma, the fear—and also providing a voice of solidarity and inspiration for those suffering from this devastating illness. Written as a love letter for Lyme patients who are running out of patience, as well as for their family and friends, Not If, When is a clear-eyed, defiant, and poignant exploration of what it means to live—and sometimes even thrive—with Lyme. Author: Gail Tierney Publication Date: August 25, 2020