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Valeria Vose: A Novel takes a reader deep inside the cultural and emotional life of a 1970’s southern woman. Privileged, approaching age forty, her “perfect” life is shattered. Determined to survive, she’s forced to confront all preconceived values and expectations in order to find a path toward creative, spiritual independence and her true identity. Author: Alice Bingham Gorman Publication Date: October 2, 2018 -
An evocative work of historical fiction, Vivian’s Decision is an all too relevant story of repeated history, female friendship, and the strength that it takes to make choices of one’s own. Vivian Jacobson is distraught to be pregnant again. Already drowning in the demands of her four young children, she can’t imagine adding a fifth to her brood. Her husband, Mel, is a devoted partner, but he works long days in his family’s Maxwell Street tavern—leaving Vivian isolated and overwhelmed in their suburban Chicago home. When Vivian pleads with Mel to let her ask her trusted obstetrician for an abortion, Mel reluctantly agrees. Her doctor won’t risk his license, but refers her to someone who will. Once she finds herself in the sleazy abortionist’s disgusting makeshift flat, she can’t go through with the procedure. As she flees, the man warns her that the clock is ticking: If she wants this abortion, she must return within one week. As Vivian struggles with what to do, she is buffeted by a series of revelations, including her Jewish immigrant mother's parallel secret. Ultimately, she must find the courage to make the decision that is best for her family—and her own fulfillment. Author: Della Leavitt Publication Date: April 14, 2026 -
Greece. Politics. Love. Danger. Reeling from a failed marriage and spurred on by a burgeoning sense of feminism, twenty-five-year-old Kate accepts a position as a speech therapist in a center for children with cerebral palsy in Thessaloniki, Greece. It is 1974, and the recent end of Greece’s seven-year dictatorship has ignited a fiery anti-American sentiment within the country. Despite this, as her Greek improves, Kate teaches communication to severely disabled children, creates profound friendships, and finds a home in the ancient and historied city. From a dramatic Christmas pig slaughter to a mesmerizing fire walking ceremony, her world expands rapidly—even more so when she falls in love with Thanasis, a handsome Communist. Through Thanasis, Kate meets people determined to turn a spotlight on their former dictators’ massacre of university students, as well as their record of widespread censorship and torture of dissidents. The more she learns, the more her loyalty to her country and almost everything she was taught in her conservative home state of Texas is challenged. Kate is transformed by her odyssey, but when her very safety is threatened by the politics of her lover, she must choose: risk everything to stay with Thanasis and the Greece that has captured her heart, or remove herself from harm’s way by returning to her homeland? Pub Date: June 13, 2023 Author: Kathryn Crawley -
A riveting journey through sacrifice, resilience, and love in the heart of the Civil War, readers follow Adrien Villere as he fights for love and honor with Terry’s Texas Rangers, while his family copes with hardship and tragedy at home. An epic tale of forbidden love and courage that transcends societal boundaries. Book 2 in the series continues to hook fans of Southern literature or Civil War history—while also having, as the Historical Novel Society North America says, “the potential to be an important part of the canon of LGBTQ+ literature.” Author: Karen Lynne Klink Publication Date: April 9, 2025 -
Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Finalist IndieFab Awards Finalist (Top 15) “Reed’s charming novel stars a neurotic singer with mother issues who has been avoiding auditions and attending frustrating therapy sessions instead. When Cecilia meets a homeless boy on the streets, however, her life takes a risky new direction. A well-written, endearing book that surprises . . . ” —Kirkus Reviews Approaching forty, unemployed but well-off, talented but unknown, functional but depressed, former musical actress Cecilia Morrison reluctantly starts therapy, hoping for a change in her life, but ultimately it's a runaway teenager who cons her out of sixty bucks, not therapy, that gives her the inspiration she's looking for. Author: Mary Hutchings Reed Publication Date: April 23, 2013 -
In 1991, Julia Wilkes, a zealous young reporter, covered the murder of a teenage girl in Fairbanks, Alaska. Julia’s stories relentlessly linked the girl’s boyfriend, Josh Harrison, to the crime—up to the day that the basketball star shot himself in the head. Twenty years later, Julia, now a Seattle journalism professor and syndicated columnist, comes back to Fairbanks on a sabbatical just in time to hear about a serial killer’s confession to the long-ago slaying. With Josh exonerated, Julia is haunted by whether her stories pushed him to end his life—and when a stalker begins to make attempts on her life, the stakes grow even higher. Suspects and motives abound: Julia’s enraged a pro-life group with a recent column; she’s drawn a jealous woman’s wrath; she’s unintentionally drawn the attention of a demented homeless person; and there’s always the possibility that someone from her past has come to collect vengeance for Josh’s death. Author: Patricia Watts Publication Date: March 19, 2013 -
2015 IPPY: Gold: Contemporary Fiction, Winner After her farmhouse in Greenwich, Connecticut is destroyed, Lidia is thankful her teenage twins, Carly and Clarisse, are unharmed and that her friend Polly Niven has taken them in. Lidia, whose husband left her and the girls for another man, lost her job in the financial crisis. She fears more bad news and soon discovers a connection between her and Tina Calderara, the pilot who crashed into her home. In the midst of her troubles, she meets Harry Caligan, the FBI Special Agent assigned to her case. With Harry’s help, Lidia plunges into the family mystery linking her to Tina. Author: Jean P. Moore Publication Date: June 3, 2014 -
Barnaby Brown has had enough of freezing winters, a dead-end job, and his life alone with his parrot. He wants to start anew move to California, and reawaken his lost dream of becoming an artist. Then his car crashes into as now bank nixing his plan of driving West and his beloved parrot flies away, and suddenly California feels very out of reach. After a run-in with a former teaching colleague, Barnaby is shocked into an awareness of how low he has sunk. He vows to make changes, including kicking his drinking habit and settling his debts. With the help of some good friends, Barnaby starts taking steps toward a better life and finds romance and more than a few mysteries to unravel along the way. A heartwarming novel about ordinary people and their hidden talents, Waterbury Winter celebrates the importance of keeping promises and the restorative value of art. Author: Linda Stewart Henley Pub Date: May 3, 2022 -
A dazzling literary romance about a young socialite and a smooth-talking pilot who take a chance on each other against the extreme odds orchestrated by their peers and mother nature. In 1950s New England, being a marriageable young lady means following a certain set of rules. Nineteen-year-old Sabina knows them all too well, thanks to her imposing aunt Poppy, who has already decided how Sabina will spend the season at their summer home in Edgartown, where she’ll go to college in the fall, and the type of young man she’ll eventually marry. But Sabina has other ideas. And the island, it seems, does too. Sabina is about to meet the Vineyard’s most notorious bachelor: charter pilot Colin Hatch. With a cloudy history, a questionable income, and a reputation for charming every available girl at the yacht club, Colin isn’t exactly the traditional match her aunt had in mind. When Sabina takes a chance on him anyway, a complex love triangle emerges, setting Sabina’s summer on an entirely different path—not just for this vacation season, but maybe for the rest of her life. A coming-of-age story woven into a small coastal town’s various dramas, Ways of Virtue is Dirty Dancing meets Jane Austen—complete with a beautiful seaside setting, a high-society wedding in the making, a host of scheming, jealous neighbors, and a once-in-a-lifetime hurricane that’s barreling toward them all. Author:Liz O’Neill Publication Date: September 30, 2025 -
We Never Told is a page-turning novel about a glamorous family in the golden age of Hollywood. Set in suburban New York, it follows Sonya Adler's life from growing up in a "broken home," to the hippie sixties, and into the present with a shocking twist at the end. The story outlines a time when unmarried women were shamed into putting their newborns up for adoption and the consequences which have touched thousands of people. This fast-paced story is not just about sisters keeping a secret but is a heart-wrenching and funny tale about a not often talked-about part of American history: children finding their birth families fifty years later. Author: Diana Altman Publication Date: June 11, 2019 -
In this fast-paced coming-of-age novel we meet Fiona, an art student at a New Jersey college who is brilliant, beautiful, and struggling to find herself. Through her eyes we relive the turbulent culture of sex, drugs, and rock ’n roll, the first draft lottery since World War II, the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, the Kent State University shootings, and the harsh realities of war for Americans in their early twenties. Fiona’s best friend, Melissa, is in a dead-end relationship, pregnant, and going nowhere fast. After Melissa’s abortion, Fiona and Melissa spend a week in Florida, where they are introduced to tarot cards and the anti-war movement. Following this experience, Melissa becomes obsessed with the occult; Fiona, though intrigued, approaches the tarot cautiously, with the voice of her conservative Christian mother screaming in her head. After Fiona’s return from Florida, she begins dating Reuben—a journalism major and political activist. Reuben decides to move to Canada to avoid the draft and encourages Fiona to accompany him. But is that really what she wants? Caught between her feelings for Reuben and her own aspirations, Fiona struggles to define herself, her artistic career, and her future. Author: Susen Edwards Publication Date: November 15, 2022 -
Deeply researched and perfect for fans of Jayne Anne Phillips’s Night Watch, this action-packed coming-of-age tale, set in post–Civil War Appalachia, is part suspenseful mystery, part incisive examination of this nation’s history of racial violence. Dora Minor, a quirky and fiercely courageous girl, grows up in a remote Virginia mountain community in a family of outliers, thanks to their Quaker beliefs that all people are born equal. After her mother’s death, her indomitable, pipe-smoking grandmother Alma—a revolutionary in her own right—becomes her primary caregiver and protector. With a fierce moral compass, Alma helps shape Dora’s worldview and guides her to question the status quo. When Dora’s father partners with formerly enslaved Ginny Dudley to open a school for Black children in a place where none would otherwise exist, it sparks a violent backlash. After her father’s death and then a lynching, Dora, with Alma at her side, are forced to look at their community in a new light. Alongside Ginny’s husband Randolph and her closest friend Watcher James, a preacher guided by Nature spirits, Dora confronts hard truths about her neighbors, her father’s death, and, finally, the mysteries of her mother’s life—all of which ultimately leads to healing. A post–Civil War novel that opens just as Reconstruction is falling apart, What the Trees Remember depicts a time of extreme social unrest and the birth of the Jim Crow era as experienced by strong women constrained by the limitations of the time they live in. Through the devastating loss of loved ones, the destruction of the comfortable life they’ve known, and Nature’s wrath, Dora and Alma strive to rise above their trials by drawing strength from the natural world and never losing faith in themselves. Author: Abigail Cutter Publication Date: June 16, 2026 -
When a young girl feels complicit in her own abuse, how does that thwart her attempts to build a happy life as an adult woman? When disturbing memories begin to surface, Marti returns to the small Vermont town she ran away from thirty years ago to face her demons. She drags her unwitting teenage daughter along on the journey—heightening already existing tension between mother and daughter. But Marti is determined to achieve what she’s returned home for: forgiveness for lies told, and revenge for secrets held. Exploring the vast social changes that took place between 1970 and 2000 and turning a critical eye on times before language such as #MeToo helped give voice to these all-too-common occurrences, What Was Lost is a raw, powerful tale of one woman confronting the ghosts of her past. Author: Melissa Connelly Publication Date: October 8, 2024 -
In 1967, Fay Stonewell, a water tank escape artist in Florida, leaves for Vietnam to join the Amazing Humans, a jerry-rigged carnival entertaining the troops, abandoning her teenage, disabled son, Dickie, in the care of an abusive boyfriend. Now forty-years-old, Dickie recalls the chaotic months after Fay left. His troubled home life ends in a surprising act of violence, forcing him to run away first to Manhattan, where he’s taken in by the eccentric artist Laurence Jones and later, by Spin, a gay man struggling with AIDS in a Massachusetts coastal town. Spin may offer Dickie what he’s always wanted: a home without wheels. But the farther Dickie runs, the tighter the past clings to him. Fay faces dangerous threats also. From the night her plane jolts onto a darkened Saigon runway, she confronts every bad decision she’s made as she struggles to return to her son. But the Humans owner is hellbent on keeping her in Vietnam, performing only for war-injured children at a hospital, daily reminders of the son she’s left behind. Ultimately, What We Give, What We Take is a deeply moving story of second chances and rising above family circumstances, however dysfunctional they may be. Author: Randi Triant Pub Date: April 12th, 2022 -
In 1947, war bride Ursula arrives in Minneapolis torn between guilt over leaving loved ones behind and her desire to start a new life—and a family—in this promised land. But the American dream proves elusive—she is struck with polio, and then shocked by the sudden death of her GI husband. Without a spouse or the child she so desperately wanted, Ursula must rely on her shrewd survival skills from wartime Berlin, and she takes in a boarder to help make ends meet. She soon falls in love with the Argentinean medical technician living in her spare bedroom, but his devotion to communism troubles her—and when she finds herself pregnant with his child, she is faced with a dilemma: how to reconcile her dream of motherhood with an America that is so different from what she imagined. Pub Date: July 25, 2023 Author: Christine Gallagher Kearney -
Kassie O’Callaghan’s meticulous plans to divorce her emotionally abusive husband, Mike, and move in with Chris, a younger man she met five years ago on a solo vacation in Venice, are disrupted when she finds out Mike has chronic kidney disease—something he’s concealed from her for years. Once again, she postpones her path to freedom—at least, until she pokes around his pajama drawer and discovers his illness is the least of his deceits. But Kassie is no angel, either. As she struggles to justify her own indiscretions, the secret lives she and Mike have led collide head-on, revealing a tangled web of sex, lies, and DNA. Still, mindful of her vows, Kassie commits to helping her husband find an organ donor. In the process, she uncovers a life-changing secret. Problem is, if she reveals it, her own immorality will be exposed, which means she has an impossible decision to make: Whose life will she save—her husband’s or her own? Author: Valerie Taylor Publication Date: September 15, 2020 -
In her second novel, Valerie Taylor—award-winning author of What’s Not Said—gives readers another romantic comedy interwoven with forbidden love, infidelity, and family. With the court date set for her divorce and the future she’d planned with a younger man presumably kaput, Kassie O’Callaghan shifts attention to reviving her stalled marketing career. But that goal gets complicated when she unexpectedly rendezvous with her former lover in Paris. After a chance meeting with a colleague and a stroll along Pont Neuf, Kassie receives two compelling proposals. Can she possibly accept them both? Kassie’s decision process screeches to a halt when her soon-to-be ex-husband has a heart attack, forcing her to fly home to Boston. There, she confronts his conniving and deceitful fiancée—a woman who wants not just a ring on her finger but everything that belongs to Kassie. In the ensuing battle to protect what’s legally and rightfully hers, Kassie discovers that sometimes it’s what’s not true that can set you free. Author: Valarie Taylor Publication Date: August 24, 2021 -
When Diana quit her job and followed her husband to Manila, she believed the move would work for both of them: Jay would finally have his dream job, and she would take time off from her accounting career to start a family. Four years later, however, she’s still not pregnant. Her fertility doctor advises her to relax—an undertaking that is easier said than done in one of the noisiest, most crowded cities in the world. Nevertheless, Diana tries. She takes up yoga and meditation. She buys goldfish. Then one day, while Jay is away on business, a violent coup d’état erupts. The rebels bomb the presidential palace and occupy parts of the city. Clearly, Diana decides, something needs to change. Determined to have a baby while she’s still young enough, she convinces Jay to transfer to the small South Pacific nation of Vanuatu, said to be “the most relaxing place on earth.” It isn’t long before she realizes that the island’s tropical beauty hides dangers and disappointments that will test her courage, her marriage, and her ability to open herself up to new possibilities. Publication Date: April 27, 2021 Author: Nicki Chen -
“Lena’s beautifully developed character, Ridley’s commanding sense of place, and a well-drawn supporting cast bring this intricate historical fiction vividly to life.” —Barbara Stark-Nemon, author of Even in Darkness Coming of age in Prague in the 1930s, Lena Kulkova is inspired by the left-wing activists who resist the rise of fascism. She meets Otto, a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, and follows him to Paris to work for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. As the war in Spain ends and a far greater war engulfs the continent, Lena gets stuck in Paris with no news from her Jewish family, including her beloved baby sister, left behind in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Otto, meanwhile, has fled to a village in England, and urges Lena to join him, but she can’t obtain a visa. When Lena and Otto are finally reunited, the safe haven Lena has hoped for doesn’t last long. Their relationship becomes strained, and Lena is torn between her loyalty to Otto and her growing attraction to Milton, the son of the eccentric Lady of the Manor. As the war continues, she yearns to be reunited with her sister, while Milton is preoccupied with the political turmoil that leads to the landslide defeat of Churchill in the 1945 election. Based on a true story, When It’s Over is a moving, resonant, and timely read about the lives of war refugees, dramatic political changes, and the importance of family, love, and hope. Author: Barbara Ridley Publication Date: September 26, 2017 -
For fans of Connie Willis, Lucy Lyons, and Janet Evanovich, a debut cozy mystery with a speculative bent, set in Ann Arbor, that’s replete with wormholes, incorrigible pets, and delightfully quirky characters. When Allie Caldwell gets a rambling middle-of-the-night call from her very excited aunt Mel, she initially curbs her concern; her aunt has always been a bit eccentric, after all. But when Mel disappears before telling anyone what has her so worked up, Allie drops everything –even her better judgement—to fly to Ann Arbor and find her. In the ensuing days, Allie inexplicably ignores her gut instincts (and some weird dream-based warnings from angry flying squirrels) and accepts help in the search from her aunt’s handsome, enigmatic neighbor George Bennet. In order to discern how virtual reality goggles, innovative migraine research, hidden treasure, attack drones, and a neighborhood trellis are all connected to the case, they’ll need to survive bungled bids of help from Allie’s well-meaning brother, hidden agendas from multiple neighbors, constant interruptions from Mel’s itinerant Chihuahua and his exuberant pit bull puppy pal—and even some attempts on their lives. Author: D. E. Carr Publication Date: July 28, 2026 -
For fans of L. M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle, a contemporary retelling of the beloved romance that follows a sheltered young woman’s quest for love in New York City—and her search for a rare and elusive bird in the deep Arkansas forest. What if the life you were meant to live was waiting just outside your door? New York City, 2013. Emma Jablonski’s life is as dry as the day-old bread at her family’s bakery. Living with her parents and grandmother, she clings to the only escape she knows: a recurring dream that feels more real than her waking world. But when Emma’s eyes are open, she’s reminded of what’s out of reach—Jake, the enigmatic boy-next-door. After a life-changing diagnosis forces her to face her fears, Emma decides it’s time to truly live—before it’s too late. With Jake and his vibrant friend Vee, she dives into a whirlwind of experiences: a fake engagement, dazzling parties, and an obsession with the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird that may not even exist. But as her daring adventure is coming to an end, Emma begins to embrace a future she never thought possible. Dreams and reality aren’t supposed to mix . . . are they? A modern retelling of L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle, this gentle story of love, resilience, and the beauty of the unknown reminds us to seek joy in the most unexpected places. Author: Andrea Ezerins Publication Date: May 26, 2026 -
It’s 1976, and Shelley Ilillouette, unemployed and without prospects, has never heard of the Kingdom of Tonga—but when an artist offers her a job in this South Pacific kingdom, she takes it. She arrives in Tonga to discover that her employer has vanished. Alone in a bewildering world where ancient Polynesia mingles with missionaries, Peace Corps, and yacht dwellers, she is adopted by Foeata, a genial Tongan who decides that a mafu—a sweetheart—will solve Shelley’s problems. Foeata favors the Peace Corps doctor, Skip, but he is smitten with Lily, a mysterious half-Tongan actress. Then Shelley’s first and only lover, Jackson, follows her to the islands, and life only get more complicated. When Lily goes missing, too, and Jackson’s visit proves disastrous, Shelley has to admit that she has not escaped from anything; she has just brought all the confusion of life with her. Why, Foeata wonders, are Americans so bad at love? Amidst encounters with sharks and one octopus (meetings far less harrowing than those she has with missionaries and ex-lovers over the course of her adventure), Shelley untangles a web of stories reaching back decades, leading her to conclude that Tonga may indeed be what its king has proclaimed: the place where time begins. Author: Sasha Paulsen Pub Date: July 5, 2022 -
A writer at Dateline NBC tries her hand at a different kind of mystery, perfect for fans of Chandler Baker’s Whisper Network, where a cynical TV news producer sells out her principles to rise to her network’s top job, and comes face-to-face with what appears to be her idealistic teenage self. Everleigh Page is on the cusp of greatness. Executive producer of an award-winning primetime news magazine, she’s just been offered a role never attained by a woman at her network: president of the news division. It will be her job to shape coverage of world events and mold the journalists of tomorrow. Too bad in order to get here she’s sold out most of the principles she held as an idealistic young reporter. Too bad she’s just, at the direction of her boss, fired two of her best staffers and killed an important investigative story that could save lives. As a woman, she knows, you have to play ball to get to the top. Even if it means bending your moral code or breaking up with your boyfriend. Sean may be the love of her life, but his large, complicated family has started taking up too much of her time. Her younger self wouldn’t recognize her. Or will she? When a college reunion takes a mystical twist, Everleigh finds herself defending her choices to the toughest critic in the world and confronting a crucial question: can she possibly right all the wrongs she was willing to tolerate just an hour ago? Author: Lorna Graham Publication Date: May 13, 2025 -
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
