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Featured on Indie Picks Magazine’s Breakout Novels of 2018 Featured on BookBub's "10 of This Summer's Creepiest Thrillers by Women "A vivid tangle of corporate intrigue, murder, friendship, and love gone wrong.” —Kirkus Reviews It only takes one moment to change everything. Long ago, Heather left her old life behind. Now, she has everything: a marriage to a handsome executive, a managerial human resources position in a powerful multinational, and a beautiful daughter. And she will do anything to keep it that way. But everything has a price. When a bullet ends the life of another woman—an ex-employee whom Heather helped fire—it sets off a chain of events that jeopardizes everything for which Heather has worked. Events of Heather’s past soon collide with her company’s wrongdoings, and she must risk everything to expose them. But all she’s ever known is the peril of being visible. Frightened and desperate, Heather calls upon her constant childhood friends—friends who long ago saved her from a life of pain—and, together, they will once again face the events of a traumatic night that each has sought to forget. Because sometimes the only ones who can save you are those with whom you share your deepest and darkest secrets—those who know that fear is the price of silence. Author: Elizabeth Campbell Frey Publication Date: June 12, 2018 -
2016 Next Generation Indie Book Awards: Finalist, Relationships 2016 International Book Awards: Finalist, Self-Help/Relationships National Indie Excellence Awards: Finalist, Sexuality Have you ever asked yourself the following questions: Are my desires normal? Can I share who I really am with my partner? Am I morally flawed because of my sexual fantasies? Is there something wrong with me sexually because I have low libido? In Erotic Integrity, Dr. Claudia Six leads readers through ten sexual themes―including garden-variety performance anxiety, sexual boredom, newly dating, coming out, and more―and reveals three simple steps to a more rewarding sex life: knowing who you truly are as a sexual being, embracing that knowledge, and living it authentically. Frankly presented and illustrated with candid case studies, these steps can be applied by individuals and couples of all ages and sexual orientations, with or without children. Based on Dr. Six’s twenty years experience as a clinical sexologist, this straightforward guide skillfully challenges readers to self-examine, self-accept, and self-actualize for a more fulfilling sense of eroticism. Author: Claudia Six Publication Date: May 10, 2016 -
“Interweaving a contemporary story with a rich and detailed glimpse into a little-known segment of famed French painter Edgar Degas’s life, Linda Stewart Henley invites readers into the intriguing art world of New Orleans through interlocking storylines set a century apart. An admirable debut!” —Ashley Sweeney, award-winning author of Eliza Waite When Edgar Degas visits his French Creole relatives in New Orleans from 1872 to ’73, Estelle, his cousin and sister-in-law, encourages the artist—who has not yet achieved recognition and struggles to find inspiration—to paint portraits of their family members. In 1970, Anne Gautier, a young artist, finds connections between her ancestors and Degas while renovating the New Orleans house she has inherited. When Anne finds two identical portraits of Estelle, she discover disturbing truths that change her life as she searches for meaningful artistic expression—just as Degas did one hundred years earlier. A gripping historical novel told by two women living a century apart, Estelle combines mystery, family saga, art, and romance in its exploration of the man Degas was before he became the artist famous around the world today. Author: Linda Stewart Henley Publication Date: August 25, 2020 -
Forward INDIEFAB Gold Medal for Literary Fiction and Bronze Medal for Historical Fiction Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal for Literary fiction IPPY (Independent Publishers Book Awards): Gold Medal for European Fiction Spanning a century and three continents, Even in Darkness tells the story of Kläre Kohler, whose early years as a dutiful daughter of a prosperous German-Jewish family hardly anticipate the often-harrowing life she faces as an adult—a saga of family, a lover, two world wars, a concentration camps and the unconventional life she builds in post-war Germany. As the world changes around her, Kläre makes boundary-crossing choicesin order to protect the people she loves—and to save herself. Based on a true story, Even in Darkness highlights the intimate experience of Kläre’s reinvention as she faces the destruction of life as she knew it, and traces her path beyond survival to wisdom, meaning, and—most unexpectedly—love. Author: Barbara Stark-Nemon Publication Date: April 7, 2015 -
“A witty and thoughtful account that’s a portrait of a mother-daughter bond as much as it is a search for love. The drama alone (a broken engagement, angry creditors, infidelity) keep the reader engaged . . . ” —Kirkus Reviews “One woman’s challenging tale to find herself is full of emotion and stark, uncomfortable truths . . . revealing a vulnerability that is as painful as it is endearing. The conversational, relatable writing style is enough to captivate readers and keep the pages turning.” —BookLife Life in a middle-class Italian American-Catholic neighborhood in the 1950s Bronx was not supposed to include divorce, Judaism, classical music, political discourse, or poverty in the social construct. So, in the absence of friends, young Barbara takes comfort in the minutiae, the small details available to her in her everyday life that seem to be overlooked by others. But that appreciation for the inanimate world leads her on a path to the acquisition of objects and a quest for identity that dominates her choices—from her marriage and family life to her constant striving for more and more. Barbara’s chosen nursing career offers validation and some affirmation, but falls short of providing her what’s most elusive—self–esteem—until finally, at age fifty, she abruptly abandons her conventional role of mother, wife, nurse, and neighbor to attempt a three-hundred-mile bike ride from Boston to New York. Poorly prepared, she takes only what she needs to flee her life, and a fierce determination that finally allows her to discover her place in the world—and to find true belonging. Author: Barbara Santarelli Publication Date: September 12, 2017 -
Tracey Carisch thought she had it all. As a wife, mother, and successful executive, she seemed to be living the modern American dream. But one night, a panic attack sent her tumbling into a midlife crisis and questioning everything about her life. That’s when she and her husband made a decision that shocked their family and friends: they sold everything they owned, pulled their three young daughters out of school, and became a family of wandering globetrotters. Loaded with hilarious mishaps as well as deeply meaningful revelations, Excess Baggage chronicles the Carisch family’s extraordinary, eighteen-month adventure across six continents. As they navigate the trials and tribulations of international travel, the family encounters unique people and bizarre situations that teach them about the world―and themselves. Carisch’s candid and insightful account of her family’s journey will have you laughing out loud, shedding a few tears, and bringing the lessons of family travel into your own life . . . without ever having to leave home. Author: Tracey Carisch Publication Date: August 14, 2018 -
IndieReader Discovery Awards: Women's Issues, First Place Royal Dragonfly Book Award Winner in Women's Interests 2017 Canada Book Award Winner After her son, Zachary, dies in her arms at birth, visual artist and author Alexis Marie Chute disappears into her “Year of Distraction.” She cannot paint or write or tap into the heart of who she used to be—too caught up in mourning not only for Zachary but also for the future they might have had together. It is only when Chute learns she is pregnant again that she sets out to find healing and rediscover her identity—just in time, she hopes, to welcome her next child. In the forty weeks of her pregnancy, Chute grapples with her strained marriage, shaken faith, and medical diagnosis, with profound results. Glowing with riveting and gorgeous prose, Expecting Sunshine chronicles the anticipation and anxiety of expecting a baby while still grieving for the child that came before—enveloping readers with insightful observations on grief and healing, life and death, and the incredible power of a mother’s love. Author: Alexis Marie Chute Publication Date: April 18, 2017 -
Shortlisted for the 2016 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing “Faint Promise of Rain is a gorgeous book, a story that is at once spare and lush, wrenching and restoring. The characters are so fully realized, so keenly nuanced, that they linger with you long after the last page, like the sweet smell of a recent storm.” —Bret Anthony Johnston, author of Remember Me Like This and Director of Creative Writing at Harvard University It is 1554 in the desert of Rajasthan, and a new Mughal emperor is expanding his territory. In a family of Hindu temple dancers a daughter, Adhira, must carry on her family’s sacred tradition. Her father, against his wife and sons’ protests, insists Adhira “marry” the temple deity and give herself to a wealthy patron. But after one terrible evening, she makes a brave choice that carries her family’s story and their dance to a startling new beginning. Told from the perspective of this exquisite dancer and filled with the sounds, sights and flavors of the Indian desert, Faint Promise of Rain is the story of a family and a girl caught between art, duty, and fear in a changing world. Author: Anjali Mitter Duva Publication Date: October 7, 2014 -
2016 Best Book Award Finalist in Self Help: General 2016 Next Generation Finalist in Inspiration 2016 Next Generation Finalist in Motivational 2017 Human Relations Indie Book Awards Director's Choice Award Winner for Outstanding 'Life Adjustment Book' 2017 Human Relations Indie Book Awards Silver Winner in Self-Help and Wellness 2017 Human Relations Indie Book Awards Silver Winner in Motivational 2017 Human Relations Indie Book Awards Silver Winner in Life Challenges 2017 Human Relations Indie Book Awards Silver Winner in Life Journey There are times in life that shake us to our very foundations. We wish for things to get better, fast. But the truth is that moments of “falling apart” are also our most powerful catalysts for growth and change. In Falling Together, Donna Cardillo, a registered nurse, Dr. Oz blogger, and beloved public speaker, reflects on the overwhelming challenges that fall into every life, and the renewal that comes when we are able to meet them with courage. A funny, big-hearted self-help memoir that takes on issues like divorce, caregiving, and burnout—and many women’s biggest enemies of all, fear, insecurity, and self-doubt—Falling Together shows how to turn the challenges that threaten to knock us to the ground into the building blocks we need to become more successful, more joyful, and ultimately, more alive. Author: Donna Wilk Cardillo Publication Date: April 5, 2016 -
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 -
Loner James Malloy is a ferry captain—or used to be, until he was unceremoniously fired and replaced by a girl named Courtney Farris. Now, instead of piloting Brenton Island’s daily lifeline to the glitzy docks of Newport, Rhode Island, James spends his days beached, bitter, and bored. When he discovers a private golf course staked out across wilderness sacred to his dying best friend, a Narragansett Indian, James is determined to stop such “improvements.” But despite Brenton’s nickname as “Cooperation Island,” he’s used to working solo. To keep rocky bluffs, historic trees, and ocean shoreline open to all, he’ll have to learn to cooperate with other islanders—including Captain Courtney, who might just morph from irritant to irresistible once James learns a secret that’s been kept from him for years. This salt-sprayed fourth novel by 2004 Olympic Sailor Carol Newman Cronin celebrates wilderness and water, open space and open-mindedness, and the redemptive power of neighborly cooperation. Author: Carol Newman Cronin Publication Date: June 16, 2020 -
"Skip Sunday School and read this book instead! Join Bella LaVey on her unflinching journey through the underworld of sex, where the mingling of pleasure and pain reopen the childhood wound of love withheld and eventually lead to healing. Defined by compassion, humor, and violence, Fetish Girl proves that the spiritual path can be one of adventure, startling discovery, and large men in pink tutus. A moving and courageous book, full of outcasts and deviants--the kind of folks Jesus called friends.” —Donna M. Johnson, author of Holy Ghost Girl: A Memoir Fetish Girl is a kinky roller coaster ride through addiction, violence, motherhood, sex, and the creation of Evil Kitty, Bella LaVey’s larger-than-life dominatrix persona. It is a singular memoir that shows that a heavily tatted BDSM sex worker can be courageous enough to come to terms with her painful truths and raise a healthy, loving child, even as she remains boldly sexual and authentic. It’s the story of a woman attracted to extremes who is willing to go to great lengths to uncover and make peace with her true nature. Author: Bella LaVey Publication Date: November 13, 2018 -
What does a free-spirited, fifty-something professional do when she breaks up with her non-committal Buddhist boyfriend and longs for a life partner? She holds a ‘letting go’ ceremony with the boyfriend, challenges herself to go on 50 dates, takes a few lovers, and voila! Finding Mr. Right becomes a sexy dating project. Set in the SF Bay Area world of personal growth workshops and spiritual ceremonies, Fifty First Dates after Fifty traces the adventurous path of Carolyn’s universal quest for love. The goal of fifty pulls her forward through the highs and lows of dating—magical and ecstatic, pining and painful—while her heart soars, falls, and keeps on going. Buoyed by her dating project, she avoids settling for the wrong guy, discovers the type of man she wants, reconciles a love of independence and sex with her desire for commitment and emotional connection, and finds the unique partner for her. This upbeat memoir about the search for a partner in midlife is also a celebration of a woman’s unabashed sexuality. Erotic in places, funny in others, it offers a positive view of dating as an enjoyable journey of self-discovery and self-love along the way to one’s own Mr. Right. Author: Carolyn Lee Arnold Publication Date: November 2, 2021 -
“Fasbinder writes with a graceful honesty that is both refreshing and timeless. Hers is a hopeful, heartfelt journey where deep laughs alternate with moments of profound loss. A beautiful and inspiring testament to the resilience and healing power of family.” —Booklist On the day that she decided to marry a widower—also a long-time friend—Betsy Graziani Fasbinder knew that she wasn’t only gaining a husband, she was inheriting a son. Unlike many stepmothers, Betsy didn’t have to struggle with an ex, or court battles, or the weekend shuffle between houses—but she did have to navigate living in the shadow of a young mother taken too soon, to honor the memory of her son’s first mother, and to become the kind of parent and partner she herself wanted to be. Over time this family would learn how love’s roots were formed in their shared losses, and how the new family love and joy they created together would become the richest kind of inheritance. Author: Betsy Graziani Fasbinder Publication Date: May 9, 2017 -
"Finding my Badass Self is like a cozy catch-up chat with a zany friend. Stanfa-Stanley’s writing is conversational, peppered with juicy encounters, honest insights, and lots of laughs. Most would be hard-pressed to duplicate her energetic and courageous Badass Year, but it is encouraging to have her reminder about how rewarding it can be to push one’s self-imposed limitations." —Foreword Reviews Fighting midlife inertia, Sherry Stanfa-Stanley chose to stare down fear through The 52/52 Project: a year of weekly new experiences designed to push her far outside her comfort zone. These ranged from visiting a nude beach with her seventy-five-year-old mother in tow to taking a road trip with her ex-husband—and then another one with his girlfriend. She also went on a raid with a vice squad and SWAT team, exfoliated a rhinoceros (inadvertently giving him an erection), and crashed a wedding (where she accidentally caught the bouquet). While finding her courage in the most unlikely of circumstances, Sherry ultimately found herself. For midlifers, fatigued parents, and anyone who may be discontent with their life and looking to shake things up, try new things, or just escape, Finding My Badass Self is proof it’s never too late to reinvent yourself—and that the best bucket list of all may be an unbucket list. Author: Sherry Stanfa-Stanley Publication Date: August 15, 2017 -
With its delightful adaptation of Napoleon Bonaparte’s real attempt to write romantic fiction, Finding Napoleon: A Novel offers a fresh take on Europe’s most powerful man after he’s lost everything—except his last love. A forgotten woman of history—the audacious Countess Albine—helps narrate their tale of intrigue, desire, and betrayal. After the defeated Emperor Napoleon goes into exile on tiny St. Helena Island in the remote South Atlantic, he and his lover, Albine de Montholon, plot to escape and rescue his young son. Banding together enslaved Africans, British sympathizers, a Jewish merchant, a Corsican rogue, and French followers, they confront British opposition—as well as treachery within their own ranks—with sometimes subtle, sometimes bold, but always desperate action. Amid his passions and intrigues, Napoleon finishes his real novel Clisson that he started writing as a young man. Now it's a father's message to the young son whom his enemies took from him, but how can they get it to the boy? When Napoleon and Albine break faith with one another, ambition and Albine’s husband threaten their reconciliation. To succeed, Napoleon must learn whom to trust. To survive, Albine must decide whom to betray. This elegant, richly researched novel reveals the Napoleon history conceals and the Countess Albine history has forgotten. Publication Date: April 6, 2021 Author: Margaret Rodenberg -
Today’s world urges us to look outward for life’s meaning and purpose―but our inner lives are the true source of the deeper knowing that gives life meaning. In Finding the Wild Inside, Marilyn Hagar encourages readers to discover that creative place inside us that knows there is more to life than we are currently living―the less rational part of ourselves that she calls our “wild inside,” a place most of us have not been taught to navigate. Using stories from her own life―from infancy through caring for her elderly parents as an adult―Hagar shows us how, through playing in the arts, contemplating our nightly dreams, fostering our intuition, and reconnecting to Mother Nature, we can discover our own authentic wild self. Opening to this part of ourselves, she teaches, isn’t so much a search as it is a listening, a curiosity, a playfulness, and a learning how to think symbolically, all of which can be cultivated. Most of all, it takes a willingness to lay down our egos and open ourselves to the awe and wonder of the wild universe of which we are a part. Instructive and inspiring, Finding the Wild Inside is a blueprint to living life from the inside out―and, in doing so, walking a path of authenticity and belonging. Author: Marilyn Kay Hagar Publication Date: October 22, 2019 -
When Cindy moves to Thailand with her husband and teenage son, she finds herself strangely adrift in a foreign culture, unprepared for the challenges she encounters there. On an impulse she signs up for a conference where she unexpectedly meets a Thai Buddhist nun, Venerable Dhammananda Bhikkhuni, who leads her on a spiritual journey from which there is no turning back. Along the way she discovers the beauty of the Thai people and culture. This soulful and engaging memoir is the story of one woman’s journey of physical, emotional, and spiritual healing through her connection to a loving Buddhist teacher who fully accepts and nurtures her in a way her own mother never did. Finding Venerable Mother is a testimony to the power of faith, forgiveness, and love. Author: Cindy Rasicot Publication Date: May 12, 2020 -
“Fire & Water is simply a wonderful read. From the very first page, story and characters urge the reader forward. Yet even as the plot rises and tangles, vital issues are examined: Can a surgeon, who thinks she can fix anything, fix a broken heart? A broken mind? Art, like life, is transient. With a discerning eye for detail, and some truly beautiful love scenes, Fasbinder takes the reader on a most compelling and satisfying ride, all the way to the final four words.” —Sands Hall, author of Catching Heaven and Tools of the Writer’s Craft Only in the glaring light of hindsight does aspiring surgeon Kate Murphy understand that she was groomed for the path she’s taken. Raised by a widowed dad and a misshapen, sometimes comical trio of parental surrogates from Murphy’s Pub, her father’s Irish bar in San Francisco, Kate has never understood how protected she is—but when she learns that her well-meaning family has hidden bitter truths about her mother’s mental illness and death, the rest of her family history unravels. Author: Betsy Graziani Fasbinder Publication Date: February 14, 2013 -
Who would you be if you lost everything? Hollye Dexter and her husband Troy woke one night to find their house ablaze. To escape the fire, they had to jump from their second-story window with their toddler son—and then watch their house and home-based businesses burn to the ground. Over the next two years, the family went bankrupt, lost their cars and another home, and got dropped by their best friends. As the outer layers of her life were stripped away, Dexter began to unravel emotionally; but then she found herself on the brink of losing her marriage, and she realized that if she was going to save her family, she would have to pull herself back together somehow. As she fought to reassemble the pieces of the life she’d had, Dexter discovered that a shattered heart has the ability to regenerate in a mighty way; that even in the midst of disaster, you can find your place; and that when everything you identify with is gone, you are free to discover who you really are. Poignant and inspiring, Fire Season is a story for anyone who has ever lost hope—and found it again. Author: Hollye Dexter Publication Date: April 14, 2015 -
Ellen meets Jim at a posh restaurant, hoping for an evening of fine wine and better conversation. Maria sets out on a walk with a man she's been looking forward to meeting. In First Date Stories, these women, and others, enter into initial liaisons with well-honed expectations—and come out on the other side with extraordinary tales to tell. Chances are, every woman in her mid-thirties and over who is seeking a loving companion has a first date tale of triumph or disaster. Each of the candid and memorable stories Jodi Klein shares here imparts a bit of wisdom—with the help of takeaway tips and inspirational quotes—to guide readers through what can be a baffling, intimidating, and sometimes lonely journey. Before a promising first date, or after an awful one, First Date Stories offers readers the reminder that being single should be celebrated, that not all first dates are created equal, and that every initial encounter has the possibility to become something long-lasting and wonderful. Author : Jodi Klein Publication Date: September 14, 2021 -
On the advice of a five-dollar psychic, Tina Martin, a zany, overworked mother of two, quits her high-powered job and moves her family to Shanghai. Tina yearns for this new setting to bring her the zen-like inner peace she’s always heard about on infomercials. Instead, she becomes a totally exasperated fish out of water, doing wacky things like stealing the shoes of a shifty delivery man, spraying local women with a bidet hose, and contemplating the murder of her new pet cricket. It takes the friendship of an elderly tai chi instructor, a hot Mandarin tutor, and several mah-jongg-tile-slinging expats to bring Tina closer to a culture she doesn’t understand, the dream job she never knew existed, and the self she has always sought. Fish Heads and Duck Skin will resonate with anyone who has ever wondered who they are, why they were put here, and how they ever lived before eating pan-fried pork buns. Publication Date: July 20, 2021 Author: Lindsey Salatka -
The secrets, lies, and layers of deception about Diane Dewey’s origins were meant for her protection—but eventually, they imploded. Living with her family in suburban Philadelphia, Diane had grown up knowing she was born in Stuttgart and adopted at age one from an orphanage. She’d been told her biological parents were dead. Then, in 2002, when she was forty-seven years old, Diane got a letter from Switzerland: her biological father, Otto, wanted to bring her into his life. With that, her world shifted on its axis. In the months that ensued, everybody had a different story to tell about Diane’s origins, including Otto when they met in New York City. She struggled to understand what was at stake with the lies. Like a private eye, she sifted through competing versions of the truth only to find that, having traveled throughout Europe and back, identity is a state of mind. As more information surfaced, the myths gave way to a certain elusive peace; Diane discovered a tribe in her mother’s family, found a Swiss husband, gained a voice, and, for the first time, began to trust in the intuition that had nudged her all along. One-part forensic investigation, one-part self-discovery, Fixing the Fates is a story about seeing behind artifice and living one’s truth. Author: Diane Dewey Publication Date: June 4, 2019 -
The collection of essays in Flip-Flops After Fifty will immediately amuse, enlighten, and provoke the reader to think about the topics that affect all of us. This writer has experienced some of life’s painful jabs and has come through it all with strength, humor, and having learned a lesson or two. And she’s happy to share these lessons with others. Who hasn’t dealt with the emotions from family events, stress from lousy jobs, or the bittersweet feelings when the kids leave home? Not to mention body image, high school reunions, and parenting. It’s all covered here in this first collection of personal and insightful essays. Chapters include: “Family”, “The Holidays” and “Fifty.” Eastman’s conversational style and easy humor tackle the sublime and the ridiculous, the sacred and the profane. After a certain age, and it’s no secret that it’s fifty, Eastman’s essays argue that attitudes change for the better. Making decisions gets easier, although there’s no guarantee that life does. Even so, her writing allows us to take a look at our own issues with the reassuring handholding of a confidante. This is a collection that you will want to keep for yourself as well as give to a friend. Author: Cindy Eastman Publication Date: April 8, 2014
