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2017 The Reader Views Literary Award: Winner, Romance 2017 Beverly Hills Book Awards: Winner, Romantic Comedy 2017 Reader Views Literary Awards Winner in Romance ER physician Elizabeth Hillman has been hurt by the men in her life far too often—which is why she spends her free time safely alone, reading the memoir of Giacomo Casanova, history’s most famous libertine. But when a child in Lizzy’s care dies, she flees to Venice, Italy for a much-needed break—and there, on a lovely rooftop, Casanova appears beside her. In 2016, Casanova is still Casanova. He seduces her friends, is arrested for child endangerment, and even boffs the cleaning lady. Although his antics upset Lizzy, she’s determined to enjoy his conversation and not fall victim to its legendary charm. But then she and Casanova travel to Paris seeking an answer to a question of love that would have changed his life, an incendiary love affair begins to unfold. Author: Melissa Rea Publication Date: June 7, 2016 -
“This is Raymond Chandler for feminists.” —Sharma Shields, author of The Cassandra Jane’s a very brave boy. And a very difficult girl. She’ll become a remarkable woman, an icon of her century, but that’s a long way off. Not my fault, she thinks, dropping a bloody crowbar in the irrigation ditch after Daddy. She steals Momma’s Ford and escapes to Depression-era San Francisco, where she fakes her way into work as a newspaper copy boy. Everything’s looking up. She’s climbing the ladder at the paper, winning validation, skill, and connections with the artists and thinkers of her day. But then Daddy reappears on the paper’s front page, his arm around a girl who’s just been beaten into a coma one block from Jane’s newspaper―hit in the head with a crowbar. Jane’s got to find Daddy before he finds her, and before everyone else finds her out. She’s got to protect her invented identity. This is what she thinks she wants. It’s definitely what her dead brother wants. Author: Shelley Blanton-Stroud Publication Date: June 23, 2020 -
Rachel likes to think of herself as a nice Jewish girl, dedicated to doing what’s honorable, just as her parents raised her to do. But when her husband, David, survives a plane crash and is left with severe brain damage, she faces a choice: will she dedicate her life to caring for a man she no longer loves, or walk away? Their marriage had been rocky at the time of the accident, and though she wants to do the right thing, Rachel doesn’t know how she is supposed to care for two kids in addition to a now irrational, incontinent, and seizure-prone grown man. And how will she manage to see her lover? But then again, what kind of selfish monster would refuse to care for her disabled husband, no matter how unhappy her marriage had been? Rachel wants to believe that she can dedicate her life to David’s needs, but knows in her heart it is impossible. Crash tackles a pervasive dilemma in our culture: the moral conflicts individuals face when caregiving for a disabled or cognitively impaired family member. Publication Date: April 27, 2021 Author: Rachel Michelberg -
Ever since Eve was banned from the garden, women have endured the oftentimes painful and inaccurate definitions foisted upon them by the patriarchy. Maiden, mother, and crone, representing the three stages assigned to a woman’s life cycle, have been the limiting categories of both ancient and modern (neo-pagan) mythology. And one label in particular rankles: crone. The word conjures a wizened hag—useless for the most part, marginalized by appearance and ability. None of us has ever truly fit the old-crone image, and for today’s midlife women, a new archetype is being birthed: the creatrix. In Creatrix Rising, Stephanie Raffelock lays out—through personal stories and essays—the highlights of the past fifty years, in which women have gone from a quiet strength to a resounding voice. She invites us along on her own transformational journey by providing probing questions for reflection so that we can flesh out and bring to life this new archetype within ourselves. If what the Dalai Lama has predicted—that women will save the world—proves true, then the creatrix will for certain be out front, leading the pack. Author: Stephanie Raffelock Publication Date: August 24, 2021 -
2017 Independent Press Awards Winner, Medical Mystery 2017 International Book Awards Finalist, Fiction: Mystery/Suspense While the federal government is launching a national investigation on the “equity” of organ distribution a female tech CEO flies across country to get a liver transplant. Soon, well-respected transplant nurse Sarah Golden and her best friend, Jackie, find themselves tangled up in an intense plot to uncover the answer to the question on everyone’s mind: Can you buy your way up to the top of the waiting list? Their pursuit of justice brings them to Miami, San Francisco, and Chicago—a sometimes fun, sometimes dangerous roller coaster ride from which they barely escape with their lives. Author: Amy Peele Publication Date: April 11, 2017 -
A mother’s love and persistence are put to the test when her teen daughter is stricken with a mysterious, debilitating illness. As time goes on, Dana's condition drives everyone away; everyone, that is, except for her mother. Finally, desperate to improve Dana’s health, the two hit the road in search of a cure. Dana’s chronic symptoms require endless supplements, pharmaceuticals, and dietary restrictions, evoking a heroine’s journey. Full of humor, blind hope and alternative medicine, Dancing in the Narrows is a poignant chronicle of Anna and Dana’s multiyear odyssey toward healing from trauma. Author: Anna Penenberg Publication Date: July 7, 2020 -
Set against the backdrop of the early American presence in Iran under the Shah, and the burgeoning years of Kuwait’s early oil boom, Dancing into the Light is Kathryn Abdul-Baki’s memoir of growing up within both the expatriate Western communities and the larger Middle Eastern society of Kuwait and Jerusalem. Hers is a story of belonging to two vastly different cultures and finding her place within both, and the search to find the inherent harmony in worlds at odds with each other. She is already caught in both the joys of and the struggle to be both Arab and American, yet not fully either, when her young life of promise is disrupted by tragedy. But instead of derailing her life, her mother’s death opens the door to deeper love and support from other places within Kathryn’s family. Dancing into the Light is a story of love, loss, and renewal, and of overcoming devastating early trauma through music, dancing, and the love and devotion of strong American and Arab women. Author: Kathryn Abdul-Baki Pub Day: September 5, 2023 -
2016 Next Generation Indie Book Awards: Winner, Memoirs (Other) 2016 IPPY: Silver medal, Sexuality/Relationships 2016 International Book Award Finalist in Self Help: Relationships Ann has two kids, two careers, two divorces, a pile of friends and sings soprano in the church choir. But after twelve years single, she is sick of celibacy. She’s been through enough to know that marriage is not what she was brought up to expect, and that love can be slippery and uncertain. With a re-awakened libido and a longing for adventure, she steps outside her comfort zone—embarking on a boundary-pushing, soul-searching journey into the world of online dating. Ranging from Montclair, New Jersey to Harare, Zimbabwe, Daring to Date Again: A Memoir is a compelling, often racy memoir of one woman’s late-life adventures with sex and dating in the modern world. As she rollicks (and bawls) her way through dozens of relationships, Evans tackles some touchy topics with humor and insight: the morality of dating married men, whether women over sixty should consider having children, what age difference is too much, and more. Daring, frank, and a little bit nutty, Daring to Date Again is a story about what happens when a lonely, sex-starved sixty-year-old woman decides to put herself on the market again—but on her own terms. Author: Ann Anderson Evans Publication Date: November 11, 2014 -
“Sweeping you away with its vivid, poetical writing, Dark Lady is a novel about a brilliant Elizabethan woman, a musician, commoner, and secret Jew who was barred from working as a musician because of her sex. Emilia Bassano Lanyer loves three very different men: the aging Lord Hunsdon who treasures her, the young Shakespeare who enchants her, and the man she marries, musician and soldier Lanyer. Her writing arises from her experience as a gifted woman in a world ruled by men. Dark Lady is a beautifully drawn portrait of an exceptional woman in a time of plague, war, and political danger.” —Stephanie Cowell, author of The Players, Claude and Camille, and Marrying Mozart Emilia Bassano has four strikes against her: she is poor, beautiful, female, and intelligent in Elizabethan England. To make matters worse, she comes from a family of secret Jews. When she is raped as a teenager, she knows she probably will not be able to make a good marriage, so she becomes the mistress of a much older nobleman. During this time she falls in love with poet/player William Shakespeare, and they have a brief, passionate relationship—but when the plague comes to England, the nobleman abandons her, leaving her pregnant and without financial security. In the years that follow, Emilia is forced to make a number of difficult decisions in her efforts to survive, and not all of them turn out well for her. But ultimately, despite the disadvantaged position she was born to, she succeeds in pursuing her dreams of becoming a writer—and even publishes a book of poetry in 1611 that makes a surprisingly modern argument for women’s equality. Author: Charlene Ball Publication Date: June 27, 2017 -
When Amy Daughters reconnected with her old pal Dana on Facebook, she had no idea how it would change her life. Though the two women hadn’t had any contact in thirty years, it didn’t take them long to catch up and when Amy learned that Dana’s son Parker was doing a second stint at St. Jude battling cancer, she was suddenly inspired to begin writing the pair weekly letters. When Parker died, Amy not knowing what else to do, continued to write Dana. Eventually, Dana wrote back, and the two became penpals, sharing things through the mail that they had never shared before. The richness of the experience left Amy wondering something: If my life could be so changed by someone I considered “just a Facebook friend,” what would happen if I wrote all my Facebook friends a letter? A whopping 580 handwritten letters later Amy’s life, and most of all her heart, would never, ever, be the same again. As it turned out, there were actual individuals living very real lives behind each social media profile, and she was beautifully connected to each of those extraordinary, flawed people for a specific reason. They loved her, and she loved them. And nothing, not politics, beliefs, or lifestyle could separate them. Author: Amy Weinland Daughters Pub Date: May 17, 2022 -
On November 5, 1917, Taylorville, Illinois native Clara Taylor stepped off a Trans-Siberian Railway train into a city then called Petrograd, Russia. Employed by the YWCA as an industrial expert, Clara had been sent to Russia to help establish Associations in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) and Moscow. Her main charge while in Russia was to survey and report on factory conditions, but Clara only spent a fraction of her stay in Russia visiting factories; due to the vagaries of the political, social, and economic revolution—the upheaval of an entire culture—Clara and her colleagues spent most of their first year in Russia teaching English, home economics, book keeping, literature, and basketball, and sponsoring lectures, dances and sing-alongs for Russian working women. Clara’s letters, collected in this book, tell of both the mundane and the extraordinary: what the YW staff ate for dinner; how the Bolshevik suppression of free speech impacted Americans’ ability to communicate with those at home; shootings in the streets; bartering for pounds of sugar; conversing with nobility, with intellectuals, and with workers; attending the opera; and sight-seeing at monasteries. Together, Clara’s letters to her family—her “dearest ones at home”—tell a compelling story of one American woman’s experiences in Revolutionary Russia. Author: Katrina Maloney and Patricia M. Maloney Publication Date: October 21, 2014 -
“. . . a survival story of the highest order, navigating the complex terrain of marriage, medical crisis, and a future reimagined.” —CAROLINE VAN HEMERT, award-winning author of The Sun is a Compass A marine biologist’s adventurous life as a professor and mother in Alaska is upended when her healthy husband is slammed by a rare type of stroke. His radical approach to recovery clashes with her instinct to keep him safe at home and sets them on a collision course as he insists on ambitious sailing expeditions with Beth and their young son in Alaska’s magnificent yet unforgiving waters. Author: Beth Ann Mathews Publication Date: May 2, 2023 -
Del Rio, California, a once-thriving Central Valley farm town, is now filled with run-down Dollar Stores, llanterias, carnicerias, and shabby mini-marts that sell one-way bus tickets straight to Tijuana on the Flecha Amarilla line. It’s a place you drive through with windows up and doors locked, especially at night—a place the locals call Cartel Country. While it’s no longer the California of postcards, for local District Attorney Callie McCall, her dying hometown is the perfect place to launch a political career and try to make a difference. But when the dismembered body of a migrant teen is found in one of Del Rio’s surrounding citrus groves, Callie faces a career make-or-break case that takes her on a dangerous journey down the violent west coast of Mexico, to a tropical paradise hiding a terrible secret, and finally back home again, where her determination to find the killer pits her against the wealthiest, most politically connected, most ruthless farming family in California: her own. Publication Date: May 18, 2021 Author: Jane Rosenthal -
When Adrienne Rubin enters into the jewelry business in 1970s Los Angeles, she is a maverick in a world dominated by men. She soon meets a young hotshot salesman who doesn’t seem to struggle at all, and when he asks her to be his partner, she is excited to join him. She doesn’t know him well, but she does know his father, and she believes he is as trustworthy as the day is long . . . Diamonds and Scoundrels shows us how a woman in a man’s world, with tenacity and sheer determination, can earn respect and obtain a true sense of accomplishment. Following Rubin’s experiences in the jewelry industry through the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s—with the ups and downs, good guys and bad—this is a tale of personal growth, of how to overcome challenges with courage and resilience. It’s a story for the woman today who, in addition to a rich family life, seeks a self-realized, fulfilling path toward a life well lived. Author: Adrienne Rubin Publication Date: September 17, 2019 -
Leora, a juvenile court judge, wife, mother, and daughter, is caught in the routine of work, taking care of her family and aging parents, and playing it safe. But she’s also a second-generation Holocaust survivor. It’s an identity she didn’t understand was hers until she accidentally discovered a secret file of handwritten notes addressed to her father. A further discovery of a seemingly random WWII postcard in a thrift store sets her on a collision course with the past in this lyrical memoir about secrets hidden within secrets, both present-day and buried deep within wartime Europe. Author: Leora Krygier Publication Date: August 24, 2021 -
We live in a critical and oftentimes violent world. People are afraid to talk about what they feel, think, or believe. They withhold energy for fear of being ridiculed, punished, or excluded. They hide their deepest dreams and desires away and cover them up with doubt, insecurity, old experiences, and fears. Cynthia James know this—because that was her experience. Covering seven decades of living, traveling, and growing, Does My Voice Matter? follows James’s journey of self-discovery and authenticity as she gradually recognizes that she has a voice—and learns how to use it. She uses her own life experiences as a backdrop for her exploration of how the voice is used as a tool of engagement; how a singular or collective voice can enhance empowerment, transparency, and accountability; and, finally, how expression can develop new ideas, shift cultures, political views, transform organizations, create laws, and improve lives. Written for anyone who wants to discover the power within that makes them special, Does My Voice Matter? has a vital message: Uniqueness is your own glorious imprint on this planet, and it is calling you to come out. It doesn’t matter if your awakening is large or small, it doesn’t matter what your age, race, religion, or history is—anyone can begin right where they are, right now. Author: Cynthia Jones Publication Date: September 27, 2022 -
2017 International Book Awards Winner in Animals/Pets 2017 Living Now Awards Gold Medal Winner in Animals/Pets Written for the dog and cat lover, animal advocate, and fan of natural medicine, Dog as My Doctor, Cat as My Nurse reveals how our timeless relationships with our beloved animal friends hold the keys to our optimal health. Acupuncturist, plant-based nutritional consultant, and animal advocate Carlyn Montes De Oca weaves together an insightful tapestry of prescriptive advice, personal stories about her lively “six-pack” of rescue dogs and cats, and testimonials from other dog and cat lovers, including best-selling author Jack Canfield. In an age when most people will suffer from a preventable chronic disease, Dog as My Doctor, Cat as My Nurse opens readers eyes’ to the fact that our beloved companion animals can be some of the most powerful allies we will ever have on the journey towards a healthier, happier, and more extraordinary life. Author: Carlyn Montes De Oca Publication Date: April 18, 2017 -
"In this new edition of her memoir, Linda Joy Myers illustrates just how powerful the combination of memory confronted, forgiveness offered, and new love expressed, can be. What I admire most about this book is the way the author takes you to her most sustaining love -- the prairie land of the Midwest -- and concludes her story as a return to that place where forgiveness becomes "a feather on my heart, as natural as the plains wind." -Shirley Showalter, former president of Goshen College, author of the blog I Have a Story. “I wanted to tell the secret stories that my great-grandmother Blanche whispered to me on summer nights in a featherbed in Iowa. I was eight and she was eighty . . .” At the age of four, a little girl stands on a cold, windy railroad platform in Wichita, Kansas, watching a train take her mother away. For the rest of her life, her mother will be an only occasional—and always troubled—visitor who denies her the love she longs for. Linda Joy Myers’s compassionate, gripping, and soul-searching memoir tells the story of three generations of daughters who, though determined to be different from their absent mothers, ultimately follow in their footsteps, recreating a pattern that they yearn to break. Accompany Linda as she uncovers family secrets, seeks solace in music, and begins her healing journey—ultimately transcending the prison of her childhood and finding forgiveness for her family and herself. This edition includes a new afterword in which Myers confronts her family’s legacy and comes full circle with her daughter and grandchildren, seeding a new path for them. Author: Linda Joy Myers Publication Date: February 1, 2013 -
As a young girl in the Midwest, Constance Hanstedt was consumed by fear—of her parents, especially her disapproving mother, of social situations, and of people in general. Unable to connect with those around her, she embraced perfectionism as a substitute for love. Raising her own family eased some of Hanstedt’s self-doubt, but even as an adult, she remained guarded around her mother, avoiding conflict with her at all costs. Still, when her mother developed Alzheimer’s, Hanstedt did what the perfect daughter she’d always struggled to be would do: she returned to the Midwestern town where she was raised to care for a mother who could no longer care for herself. In Don’t Leave Yet, Hanstedt recounts her journey toward facing her fears and rising above the past; her mother’s unrelenting bitterness toward life, even as she loses her memories of it; and her unexpected discovery of an emotion that reaches beyond familial duty: compassion. Author: Constance Hanstedt Publication Date: April 21, 2015 -
In the aftermath of World War II, the members of the Sutton family are reeling from the death of their “golden boy,” Eddie. Over the next twenty-five years, they all struggle with loss, grief, and mourning. Daughter Harriet and son Nat attempt to fill the void Eddie left behind: Harriet becomes a chemist despite an inhospitable culture for career women in the 1940s and ’50s, hoping to move into the family business in New Jersey, while Nat aims to be a jazz musician. Both fight with their autocratic father, George, over their professional ambitions as they come of age. Their mother, Eleanor, who has PTSD as a result of driving an ambulance during the Great War, wrestles with guilt over never telling Eddie about the horrors of war before he enlisted. As the members of the family attempt to rebuild their lives, they pay high prices, including divorce and alcoholism―but in the end, they all make peace with their losses, each in his or her own way. Author: Ames Sheldon Publication Date: August 27, 2019 -
“Why is this moment happening in my life and what can I learn from it?” Michelle Douglas asked and answered this question almost every day for ten years, writing down one thing she learned each day from ages twenty-one to thirty-one. In these pages, she shares her experiences and learnings from the adventures that lie ahead for young adults—moving, working, loving, losing, quitting, building, and more, all while attempting to maintain a strong sense of self. Written for anyone just starting out or suddenly starting over, this field guide—part advice book, part journal—will help you discover the very important yet not-so-obvious lessons to be learned in your own life right now. Things like . . .- the weakness isn’t necessarily where the leak is
- surround yourself with people who are willing to lift while they climb
- you can’t change the shape of a piece to force it into your puzzle
- don’t go looking for love, go looking for things you love to do
- it’s what you bring to the table, not how long you’ve been sitting at it
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Edna and Leo, a perpetually waring, tyrannical pair in their 80s, begin wintering In Mexico, where they abandon their usual prudence to embrace adventure and a bevy of sketchy new friends. Soon, Edna adopts a pair of wacky, shyster builders whom she trusts over her own architect-daughter Elizabeth, and a farcical house results. Blithely indifferent to the calamities that result, the pair refuse all help from their too-compliant only child. Later, following her mother’s sudden death, Elizabeth’s wise, principled father attempts to fill his late wife’s shoes with a string of loopy, live-in housekeepers—with privileges, he hopes. Before it is over the Mexican escapade will bring down the kind of disasters commonly found in pulp fiction. Why can’t Elizabeth stop any of this from happening? No matter the madness, she cannot confront her parents any more than she ever could. In the end, the surprising way in which they come undone reveals just what they spent their lives trying to hide, thereby setting her free. Though unique in its loony details, Don’t Say A Word! will resonate with beleaguered adult-children everywhere who will recognize the special misery of watching, helpless, as stubborn, diminished parents careen precariously toward the end of life. Publication Date: May 11, 2021 Author: Elizabeth Roper Marcus -
“…Animal antics are on full, delightful display throughout these pages—and so is the pain of losing them, always affectingly related by the author.” —Kirkus Reviews Mary Carlson didn't start out to become a veterinarian, let alone the owner and caretaker of cats (many), dogs (two, both huskies), and horses (some with manners, some without) in Colorado. She was a suburban Chicago girl; all she knew of the American West came from the stories her uncle, who had settled in northern Colorado, told her during his annual visits. But thanks to him, she ended up moving to Fort Collins, Colorado for college―and after falling in love with a man she'd become friends with in her final year of college, when he was a student at the CSU School of Veterinary Medicine, she remained there. Watching the work Earl did as a veterinarian inspired Mary to eventually leave her tenured teaching position and enter vet school, after which she opened her own, feline-exclusive clinic. Along the way, there were numerous pets, grueling years of vet school, a shattered hip, an enduring love, illness, and death―and the rediscovery that life, especially a life full of delightful animals, is worth living. Author: Mary Carlson, DVM Publication Date: August 28, 2018 -
Have you ever driven home from work wearing nothing but a pair of rubber boots? For Dr. Melinda McCall, a large animal veterinarian in rural Virginia, this is living the dream. Caring for cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, llamas, and the occasional alpaca, unusual mishaps and mind-blowing adventures abound. Getting caught driving home naked after a tough day at work is just another day at the office for Dr. Melinda. Ride along in the vet truck as this fearless vet confronts every obstacle that crosses her path while building a thriving veterinary practice with an all-female foundation. She prevails through a fractured skull, back surgery, rare zoonotic diseases, and other extreme challenges. With stubbornness and grit, she surpasses the expectations of adversaries, including her own father, to become the owner of a successful veterinary business and mother of an inquisitive, spirited young daughter. Offering a firsthand glimpse into the fascinating world of veterinary medicine, Driving Home Naked is a smart, riveting, and heartfelt memoir that will captivate animal lovers and inspire people to follow their dreams on any scale. Buckle up for a wild ride. Author: Melinda G. McCall, DVM Pub Date: August 8, 2023
