-
Lady Isabel is just twelve years old when Lord Chetwynd rescues her from being raped by warriors in his company. When they meet eight years later, each has a good reason for entering an arranged marriage. Together, they embark on a perilous journey to the court of King Louis. On the way, danger from enemies on the journey brings them closer together; when they arrive at court, rivalry and intrigue nearly parts them. Ultimately, however, they survive these trials through their own native wit and charm—and gain new respect and love for one another. Rich with historical detail and drama, Song of Isabel is a compelling novel of love, sex, ambition, and intrigue. Author: Ida Curtis Publication Date: April 17, 2018 -
After five years’ absence from San Diego’s art community, Jennifer G. Spencer returned and began to photograph the artists she became acquainted with during her thirteen-year stint as an executive director of a visual arts organization—a project that became a ten-year journey. In The Artist Portrait Project, Spencer reveals the results of her adventure in portraiture after her retirement, and shares how this endeavor enlightened and shaped her opinion of these fifty artists and her art community. Engaging and visually stunning, The Artist Portrait Project is a book about self-discovery and the persistence of the creative spirit. Author: Jennifer G. Spencer Publication Date: July 10, 2018 -
“The Business of Being sets itself apart through engaging stories, actionable steps, and a dash of humor. Deftly closing the gap between business and spirituality, it encourages current or prospective business owners to live in alignment with inner values without compromising integrity. Those who take this book to heart will undergo a powerful transformation in both their personal and business lives.” —Stephen J. Hopson, the world's first deaf instrument-rated pilot and author of Obstacle Illusions: Transforming Adversity into Success This book isn’t just about being in business; it’s about the business of being. But when you stop to think about it, each of us is like a small business. Successful business owners implement strategies that improve their prospects for success. Similarly, as human beings, it serves us well to implement guiding principles that inspire us to live our purpose and reach our goals. The rich ganache filling that flows through the center of this book is the story of La Mandarine Bleue, a delicious depiction of how nine individuals used twelve steps of a business plan to find their vocation and undergo a transformation (with some French recipes thrown in for good measure). From a business plan and metrics to mission and goals with everything between—investors, clients and customers, marketing strategies, and goodwill development—this book clearly maps how to create personal transformation at the intersection of business and spirituality. Merging the language of business and self-help, The Business of Being will teach you how to enhance “profitability”—body, mind, and spirit. Author: Laurie Buchanan Publication Date: July 10, 2018 -
“The Odyssey and Dr. Novak is a profound, poignant, and important journey through history, lands, and times too powerful to forget. A Sensory delight.” —Kim Chinquee. Professor of Creative Writing, SUNY College at Buffalo. Author of Oh Baby and Pistol and Veer. One summer afternoon in northern England in 1946, when Ann Colley was a child, she met a man from Czechoslovakia named Dr. Novak. This encounter launched her lifelong fascination with Central and Eastern Europe, one that resulted in her spending two years, in 1995 and 2000, teaching at universities in Poland and Ukraine. In The Odyssey and Dr. Novak, Colley records personal experiences, interactions with colleagues, and descriptions of the landscape, creating a composite portrait of these countries at a time when each is struggling to chart its course after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. She recalls moments that are disturbing, absurd, discordant, frustrating, humorous, and endearing—a missing parrot flying in through the window; a robber on a train threatening her life; clouds of smoke from Chernobyl hanging over Kiev. Colley’s journey ends with her return to the figure of Dr. Novak when she searches in the archives of the Harvard Divinity School Library for letters sent from Prague in 1945—letters which, just like her memoir, speak of a past that pursues the present. Author: Ann C. Colley Publication Date: May 22, 2018 -
Her brother’s letter touched a match to the wick of Annie’s doused dreams. Dream enough for her, to stroll the length of a town without the abortive glances, the stilted greetings, the wider berth given her on the sidewalk. “I could use some help out here,” he wrote. “What’s holding you to Iowa anyway?” Annie Rushton leaves behind an unsettling past to join her brother on his Montana homestead and make a determined fresh start. There, sparks fly when she tangles with Adam Fielding, a visionary businessman-farmer determined to make his own way and answer to no one. Neither is looking for a partner, but they give in to their undeniable chemistry. Annie and Adam’s marriage brims with astounding success and unanticipated passion, but their dream of having a child eludes them as a mysterious illness of mind and body plagues Annie’s pregnancies. Amidst deepening economic adversity, natural disaster, and the onset of world war, their personal struggles collide with the societal mores of the day. Annie’s shattering periods of black depression and violent outbursts exact a terrible price. The life the Fieldings have forged begins to unravel, and the only path ahead leads to unthinkable loss. Based on true events, this sweeping novel weaves a century-old story, timeless in its telling of love, heartbreak, healing, and redemption embodied in one woman’s tenacious quest for control over her own destiny in the face of devastating misfortune and social injustice. Author: Ellen Notbohm Publication Date: May 8, 2018 -
In her second novel, Jill G. Hall, author of The Black Velvet Coat, brings readers another dual tale of two dynamic women from two very different eras searching for fulfillment. San Francisco artist Anne McFarland has been distracted by a cross-country romance with sexy Sergio and has veered from her creative path. While visiting him in New York, she buys a pair of rhinestone shoes in an antique shop that spark her imagination and lead her on a quest to learn more about the shoes’ original owner. Almost ninety years earlier, Clair Deveraux, a sheltered 1929 New York debutante, tries to reside within the bounds of polite society and please her father. But when she meets Winnie, a carefree Macy’s shop girl, Clair is lured into the steamy side of Manhattan—a place filled with speakeasies, flappers, and the beat of “that devil music”—and her true desires explode wide open. Secrets and lies heap up until her father loses everything in the stock market crash and Clair becomes entangled in the burlesque world in an effort to save her family and herself. Ultimately, both Anne and Clair—two very different women living in very different eras—attain true fulfillment . . . with some help from their silver shoes. Author: Jill G. Hall Publication Date: June 19, 2017 -
Thirty-five-year-old Rae Sullivan owns a thriving home décor shop in the San Francisco Bay area, near majestic Mt. Tamalpais (to locals, The Sleeping Lady). But when her business partner, Thalia, confides that she has a lover in France, Rae’s comfortable life start to unravel. Soon, an anonymous note-writer threatens to reveal the affair, and Thalia—who, unswayed by Rae’s warnings, insists on confronting the blackmailer—turns up dead in Golden Gate Park. The police, convinced the crime was a random mugging, are dismissive of Rae’s story of blackmail. Then a scandal from Rae’s past job comes to light, and the police start to eye her as a suspect. To clear her reputation and ensure justice for Thalia, Rae decides it’s up to her to unmask the murderer—despite her husband’s objections. Rae’s sleuthing leads her to France, where she enlists the help of Thalia’s handsome half brother. As they collaborate to catch the killer, sparks fly between them, and Rae has to contend with these newly aroused feelings—even as she strives to outmaneuver a cold-blooded murderer who wants to silence her. Author: Bonnie C. Monte Publication Date: June 12, 2018 -
When Linda I. Meyers was a little girl in the 1940s, she had a recurring dream: she was an astronaut, accidentally separated from the mothership, and doomed to float alone in the darkness of space until she died. Years later, when she became a psychologist, she realized that the dream harbored both the wish to detach from her mother and the fear that such a separation would mean death—a fear that was worsened by her mother’s constant threats that Linda and her father would be “the death of her,” and accusations that they “wouldn’t be happy until she was six feet under.” On December 17, 1970, Linda’s mother, for the fifth time that day, called her. Now twenty-eight and busy raising three little boys of her own, Linda began to feel like she was being dragged once again into the undertow of her mother’s depression, she did something she had never done before: she begged her to please let her go. The next day, her mother killed herself. Severed from the mothership, staggered by conflicting feelings of relief and remorse, and determined to give meaning to her mother’s death, Linda realized it was time to change her life—and she set out to do just that. Written with irony and humor as a series of stand-alone essays that build upon one another, The Tell is one woman’s touching, inspirational, and often funny story of Before and After—and, ultimately, of emancipation and purpose. Author: Linda I. Meyers Publication Date: June 19, 2018 -
In The Trail to Tincup: Love Stories at Life’s End, a psychologist reckons with the loss of four family members within a span of two years. Hocker works backward into the lives of these people and forward into the values, perspective, and qualities they bestowed before and after leaving. Following the trail to their common gravesite in Tincup, Colorado, she remembers and recounts decisive stories and delves into artifacts, journals, and her own dreams. In the process the grip of grief begins to lessen, death braids its way into life, and life informs the losses with abiding connections. Gradually, she begins to find herself capable of imagining life without her sister and best friend. Toward the end of the book Hocker’s own near-death experience illuminates how familiarity with her individual mortality helps her live with joy, confidence, and openness. Author: Joyce Lynnette Hocker Publication Date: May 15, 2018 -
"In addition to being one of the finest pianists of her generation, Carol Rosenberger is also one of the most eloquent―as her new book triumphantly attests. Hers is an important and inspiring story, and she tells it superbly.” —Jim Svejda, commentator on KUSC radio, called “The High Priest of Classical Music” by the Los Angeles Times At age twenty-one, while she was working with the legendary Nadia Boulanger in France, concert pianist Carol Rosenberger was stricken with paralytic polio―a condition that knocked out the very muscles she needed in order to play. But Rosenberger refused to give up. Over the next ten years, against all medical advice, she struggled to rebuild her technique and regain her life as a musician―and went on to not only play again, but to receive critical acclaim for her performances and recordings. Beautifully written and deeply inspiring, To Play Again is Rosenberger’s chronicle of making possible the seemingly impossible: overcoming career-ending hardships to perform again. Author: Carol Rosenberger Publication Date: April 17, 2018 -
A birch tree grows tall and arabesque in the front yard of Nancy Chadwick’s childhood home. Over time the tree becomes her buddy and first learned connection, synonymous with home— and one spring morning, she makes a discovery under its boughs that foreshadows the many disconnections within her family, relationships, jobs, and home that are to come. Through the chapters in her life, Chadwick’s search for home carries her through with unflinching honesty, but in the end, it is a story of survival and triumph over adversity. She does not wallow in selfpity but remains tenacious as she examines her life. An exploration of what it means to belong, Under the Birch Tree is a success story of finding home. Author: Nancy Chadwick Publication Date: June 19, 2018 -
“Theater fans will love the insiders’ stories culled from Sandra’s years on Broadway—but absolutely anyone, regardless of their familiarity with theater, can and will benefit from the lessons contained in these pages. It’s impossible to read this book and come out on the other side feeling anything but awakened.” —Jack Canfield, Coauthor of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series and The Success Principles™: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be Living a meaningful, satisfying life is an enigma for most people today. We feel stuck, small, without the self-confidence to move in the direction of what we really want. Or, if we do muscle through our fear in pursuit of our dreams, we exhaust ourselves working and striving and achieving and yet somehow, no matter our level of outer-world success, are left dazed and disheartened, asking ourselves, “Is this all there is?” After ten years on Broadway, Sandra Joseph—the longest-running leading lady in Broadway’s longest-running show, The Phantom of the Opera—knows one thing for sure: the only way to have a truly fulfilling life and achieve success that satisfies is to recognize that the journey up is no substitute for the journey in. In Unmasking What Matters, Joseph uses lessons learned on the road to Broadway, during her decade as Christine, and through the challenges she faced after walking away from the business to show readers how to courageously bring their inner voice to the outer world, stop seeking success for achievement’s sake and start creating the life they truly desire. With her hard-won wisdom, poignant personal stories, and practical, experiential exercises to guide them, readers will learn to shed their limiting masks, mindfully work through their fears, stand in their authentic power, and build a life rich with satisfaction, meaning, and significance. Warm, humble, encouraging, and inspiring, Unmasking What Matters can help anyone move from stuck, fearful, and playing it safe to embracing their passions, gifts, and opportunities and living life “full-out” today. Author: Sandra Joseph Publication Date: January 23, 2018 -
As a little girl, Trudy Herman is taught to stand up for truth by her much-loved grandfather. Then in 1943, Trudy’s childhood drastically changes when her family is sent to a German-American Internment Camp in Texas. On the journey to the camp, Trudy meets Ruth, who tells her and her friend Eddie the legend of the Paladins—knights of Emperor Charlemagne who used magic gifted to them by the heavens to stand up for virtue and truth. Ruth insists both Trudy and Eddie will become modern-day Paladins—defenders of truth and justice—but Trudy’s experiences inside the camp soon convince her that she doesn’t have what it takes to be a knight. After two years, her family is released from the camp and they move to Mississippi. Here, Trudy struggles to deal with injustice when she comes face to face with the ingrained bigotries of the local white residents and the abject poverty of the black citizens of Willow Bay. Then their black housekeeper—a woman Trudy has come to care for—finds herself in crisis, and Trudy faces a choice: look the other way, or become the person her grandfather and Ruth believed she could be? Author: B. E. Beck Publication Date: May 8, 2018 -
"A compelling, poignant, and necessary rebuttal to a culture that devalues people as they age. Dr. Stewart reveals the untapped resources of our human family through a framework rooted in science and ancient wisdom that helps us intentionally embrace the cycles of nature, and one another.” —Dr. Kristen Lee, Lead Faculty, Behavioral Science, Northeastern University, Boston, and author of Mentalligence: A New Psychology of Thinking Filled with unexpected good news about growing older, Winter’s Graces highlights eleven qualities that ripen with age— including audacious authenticity, creative ingenuity, necessary fierceness, self-transcending generosity, and a growing capacity to savor life and to ride its ups and downs with humor and grace. Decades of research have established that the catastrophic conditions often associated with late life, such as severe dementia and debilitating frailty, are the exception, not the rule. Still, the mistaken idea that aging equals devastating decline persists, causing enormous and unnecessary suffering, especially for women. Drawing on decades of experience as a psychology professor and psychotherapist, Susan Stewart, PhD, weaves together inspiring folk stories that illustrate the graces of winter and recent research that validates them, along with a wealth of user-friendly tools and practices for amplifying these graces and bringing them to life. Written primarily for women over 50 seeking good news about growing older, Winter’s Graces offers adults of all ages a compelling vision of aging that celebrates its many gifts, acknowledges its challenges, and reveals how the last season of life can be the most fulfilling of all. Author: Susan Stewart Publication Date: July 17, 2018
