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Francesca Bodin has a near-perfect life as an accomplished music teacher and professional flautist living in the country with her husband, Ben and their four-year old daughter, Addie. This ends suddenly when a snowmobiling accident traps the three of them in a frozen lake. Ben gets out, leaving her and Addie to die. Francesca believes she sees their dog pull Addie from the lake and drag her into the nearby woods. Desperate to help her daughter, she struggles to emerge from the icy waters, and follows them. Once she enters the forest, however, she finds herself trapped in a sinister dream-like world where night never ends, where Addie’s whereabouts remain hidden from her and where she encounters a group of women who, like Francesca, have been left to die and now seek to unleash their revenge on those who have harmed them. When they have Ben in their sights, Francesca realizes that if she is ever to escape this nightmare and save her daughter, she must first save the husband who abandoned them. Author: Susan Speranza Pub Date: May 24, 2022 -
2016 Best Book Award Winner, Fiction: African American “A laugh-out-loud look at growing up at any age told with honesty and warmth.” —Books & Life “Funny, smart and compulsively readable! Ginger McKnight has a hit on her hands. And Terry McMillan fans can rejoice that they can add a new favorite writer to their list!” —Heidi W. Durrow New York Times best-selling author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky Pitched as “a poor man’s Halle Berry,” forty-one-year-old soap star Jo Randolph, has successfully avoided waiting tables since she left Midland, Texas at eighteen. But then, in the span of twenty-four hours, Jo manages to lose her job, burn her bridges in Hollywood, and accidentally burn down her lover/director’s beach house—after which she is shipped home to Texas by her agent to stay out of sight while she sorts out her situation. The more Jo reluctantly reconnects with her Texas “roots” and the family and friends she left behind, the more she regains touch with herself as an artist and with what is meaningful in life beyond the limelight. The summer of 2007 is cathartic for Jo, whose career and lifestyle have allowed her to live like a child for forty years, but who now must transition to making grown-up decisions and taking on adult responsibilities. In the Heart of Texas is a wry, humorous commentary on the complexities of race, class, relationships, politics, popular culture, and celebrity in our current society. Author: Ginger McKnight-Chavers Publication Date: October 25, 2016 -
For fans of Emma Straub and Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeny, a debut contemporary women’s fiction novel about obsession, forgiveness, and friendship between two unlikely people. Style-guru Charlotte Oakes sells beautiful lifestyles, but her mentally ill daughter is an addict, her long marriage is dead, and she is pregnant with her ex-lover’s baby. Stunned after witnessing a hit-and-run in Chicago that leaves a child dead, Charlotte thinks she sees her Prius fleeing the scene. Her troubled daughter, Libby, is the only one who could have been driving. His partner and best friend killed in a drug bust, police officer Ed Kelly learns that forensics has found that the fatal bullet came from Ed’s gun. Under internal investigation, Ed copes by filming cars at the site of the recent hit-and-run, hoping to catch the child’s killer. There, he notices Charlotte’s pilgrimages to the makeshift memorial, and over the weeks, the two become unlikely friends sharing intimate stories. But Charlotte won’t trust him with her most vulnerable secret of all: her suspicions about her daughter’s involvement in the accident. When Ed finally learns the truth about the accident, he struggles with his beliefs and duties. If he keeps quiet, he has breached his commitment to the law. But if he does the right thing as an officer, he may send Libby to jail—and lose Charlotte. Author: Karen F. Uhlmann Publication Date: May 6, 2025 -
This contemporary novel about a woman navigating love, loss, and the whispering call of her neglected artistic dreams will appeal to fans of Lily King and Jojo Moyes. Right after Sabina watches her rock star husband walk out on their marriage, a phone call reveals that her beloved grandmother is in the ICU in Santa Cruz, CA. So, Sabina hits the road with a tear-stained face, a duffel bag of clothes, and no plan for her future. In her grandmother’s seaside world, Sabina reconnects with several old passions: ocean swimming, process painting, and a long-lost summer love named Graham—all of which force her to confront the artistic dream she abandoned to support her husband. Meanwhile, a mysterious voice keeps calling to her. Sabina wonders if it’s a Selkie, one of the mythical shape-shifting seal folk from her grandmother’s stories. As both her marriage and her grandmother’s health deteriorate, Sabina wrestles with the choices she’s made. Is it too late to reclaim her dream? Must she choose between art and love? And is the voice she’s hearing a sign she’s lost it or a key to unlocking her true self? Author: Megan Walrod Publication Date: June 10, 2025 -
Twenty-four years old and newly employed in Manhattan, Jenna McGrath agrees to place herself under the dead body of a wealthy, prominent New Yorker—her boss—to hide the identity of his real lover. But why? Because she is half in love with him herself; because her only friend at Hull Industries asked her to; because she feared everyone around her; because she had no idea how this would spin out into her own, undeveloped life; because she had nothing and no one? Or just because? Deftly told and sharply observed, Jenna Takes the Fall is the story of someone who became infamous . . . before she became anybody at all. Author: A. R. Taylor Publication Date: September 1, 2020 -
“Jackson effectively represents the overwhelming nature of caring for a loved one with schizophrenia, which is seldom seen in fiction. She offers readers an expert understanding of the pitfalls of such a life: the revolving-door culture of caregivers, a mental health system that often leaves families at a loss, and the social stigma that constantly threatens to derail healing progress.” —Kirkus Reviews “Finally, finally, our culture is talking about mental illness and the suffering it brings to those it strikes and those who love them. In this addictively readable, well-written novel, based on her own true story, Joan Jackson humanizes―and even humorizes―the impact of schizophrenia.” ―Meredith Maran, author of The New Old Me Most of his adult life, the only place he felt at peace was at home in Silver Lake, Ohio with his parents—but after their sudden death, he is left on his own. Eager to help their brother, Steve’s siblings, Scott and Sylvia, who both live in Los Angeles, scramble to find someone reliable to live with Steve. The answer to their problem comes in the form of Sylvia’s sister-in-law, Nancy, who is desperate to find a place to live; within days, she moves in with Steve. This is the story of Steve and Nancy, who, as virtual strangers thrown together out of necessity, forge a way to live in fragile harmony. Sometimes dark, sometimes humorous, Just in Time is a hopeful, firsthand account of the day-to-day roller coaster of life with a schizophrenic. Author: Joan Jackson Publication Date: October 24, 2017
Jeanne Bridgeton, an unmarried executive in her late forties, discovers life doesn’t begin and end on a spreadsheet when her expected menopause instead becomes an unexpected pregnancy. Though accomplished at managing risk professionally, Jeanne realizes her skills don’t extend to her personal life, where she has allowed the professional and the personal to become intertwined. She’s not even sure which of two men in her life is the father. Worse yet, a previously undisclosed family secret reveals that she may carry a rare hereditary gene for early-onset Alzheimer’s―and it’s too late to get genetic tests. This leaves Jeanne to cope with her intense fear of risk without the aid of the mountain of data she’s accustomed to relying upon. Wrestling with the question of whether her own needs, or those of her child, should prevail takes Jeanne on an intensely emotional journey―one that ultimately leads to growth and enlightenment. Author: Joan Cohen Publication Date: August 13, 2019
It’s 1977 and Cassie Lyman, a graduate student in women’s history, is struggling to find a topic for her doctoral dissertation. When she discovers a trove of drawings, suffrage cartoons, letters, and diaries at Smith College belonging to Kate Easton, founder of the Birth Control League of Massachusetts in 1916, she believes she has located her subject. Digging deeper into Kate’s life, Cassie learns that she and Kate are related—closely. Driven to understand why her family has never spoken of Kate, Cassie travels to Cape Ann to attend her sister’s shotgun wedding, where she questions her female relatives about Kate—only to find herself soon afterward in the same challenging situation Kate faced. Publication Date: May 11, 2021 Author: Ames Sheldon
Nettie and Andy have been soul mates since childhood. While planning their wedding, Andy receives orders from the Army to deploy immediately to South Vietnam for a year. Anxious about Andy’s safety, Nettie dives into her work as a nursing intern in the hospital emergency room. When she inadvertently walks in on a nursing supervisor and surgeon during a late-night tryst, the vengeful lovers initiate a campaign to end her career before it starts. Nettie’s only respite is an elderly patient who has everything money can buy—except the one thing he wants. In Southeast Asia, Andy is leading a long-range reconnaissance squad in an unforgiving jungle when he receives orders to escort a high-ranking female freedom fighter, Bien, to a clandestine meeting with an enemy officer who wants to defect. Previously raped, beaten, and left for dead by North Vietnamese soldiers, Bien is suspicious of the enemy officer’s motives, but she also thinks he may be the younger brother her attackers conscripted into their army as a child. Andy, meanwhile, believes his unit is walking into a trap that could cost them everything. Struggling to survive in different worlds, Nettie and Andy navigate the best and worst of human nature as they try to find their way back to each other. Author: Pam Webber Publication Date: October 11, 2022
Once a promising young concert pianist, Camille Childs retreated to her mother’s Santa Barbara estate after an injury to her hand destroyed her hopes for a musical career. She now leads a solitary life teaching piano, and she has a star student: Graciela, the daughter of her mother’s Mexican housekeeper. Camille has been grooming the young Graciela for the career that she herself lost out on, and now Graciela, newly turned eighteen, has just won the grand prize in a piano competition, which means she gets to perform with the LA Philharmonic. Camille is ecstatic; if she can’t play herself, at least as Graciela’s teacher, she will finally get the recognition she deserves. But there are only two weeks left before the concert, and Graciela has disappeared—gone back to her family’s village in the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico. Desperate to bring Graciela back in time for the concert, Camille goes after her, but on the way there, a bus accident leaves her without any of her possessions. Alone and unable to speak the language, Camille is befriended by Alejandro, a Zapotec man who lives in LA but is from the same village as Graciela. Despite a contentious first meeting, Alejandro helps Camille navigate the rugged terrain and unfamiliar culture of Oaxaca, allowing her the opportunity to view the world in a different light—and perhaps find love in the process. Author: Jessica Winters Mireles Publication Date: April 21, 2020
The Texas Gulf: beautiful yet unpredictable. A beach town destroyed. Her mother’s candy store swept away. This is what Teddy Wainsworth faces when she returns to Bird Isle. Meanwhile, Jack Shaughness, owner of a popular barbecue restaurant chain and widower still grieving the death of his wife, receives permission to cross over to the island with a smoker full of brisket to feed hurricane survivors. Soon after arriving, he meets Teddy and immediately finds himself drawn to her—which makes him feel he is betraying his wife. When the two find a lost dog, Jack convinces Teddy to take the dog home while they attempt to find the owner, creating a bond that brings them closer. In the wake of the hurricane, Bird Isle residents fear the Aransas Wildlife Refuge will not be ready for the whooping cranes’ annual migration south. Seeing that Jack has important connections and a love for the island, they enlist him to help restore the habitat of the endangered cranes before they fly to Padre Island for the winter. With their rescued dog always nearby, Teddy and Jack work side by side to rebuild Bird Isle for the return of the whooping cranes. But Jack is harboring a secret that may ruin everything he and Teddy are creating—and he won’t be able to keep that secret forever. Author: Diane Owens Prettyman Publication Date: October 8, 2024
For fans of Jennifer Weiner and Helen Fielding, a debut contemporary women’s fiction novel about a woman in the country music industry navigating the ins and outs of friendship, love, jealousy, and life on tour. Who knew a broken heel can change your life? Though she has her dream job—finding new songs for singers in the booming country music industry—music executive Christine Matthews lives an unexciting life. That is, until a broken shoe sends her sprawling on the street right in front of Nashville singing sensation Austin Garrett’s tour bus, and Austin himself comes to her aid. When Austin recognizes Christine as the woman who pitched him his recent number one hit, he invites her to be his date at the CMT Awards that night, and like that, Christine is catapulted from a life of solitude to the spotlight. Suddenly, she’s the subject of much speculation—and criticism. Some jealous fans think she’s not pretty or thin enough, and they begin to cyber-bully and body shame her. But that’s not the only reason Christine thinks accepting Austin’s invitation to join him on tour and help him find another big hit might be a bad idea. She’s also developing feelings for his tour manager, Matt. And one of her online bullies has turned threatening, bringing up trauma from Christine’s past. Is the turmoil worth it? Or is her only real solution to walk away from all of it—even the man who might just be the love of her life? Author: Lee Adams Publication Date: June 17, 2025
2015 Saints and Sinners Emerging Writer Award Winner 2016 American Library Association’s Stonewall Awards Winner of the Barbara Gittings Honor Book Award 2016 IPPY Gold Medal Winner in Gay/Lesbian/Bi/Trans Fiction Lum has always been on the outside. At eight, she was diagnosed with what we now call an intersex condition and is told she can’t expect to marry. Now, at thirty-three, she has no home of her own but is shuttled from one relative’s house to another—valued for her skills, but never treated like a true member of the family. Everything is turned upside down, however, when the Blue Ridge Parkway is slated to come through her family’s farmland. As people take sides in the fight, the community begins to tear apart—culminating in an act of violence and subsequent betrayal by opponents of the new road. But the Parkway also brings Lum an unexpected opportunity—one that ultimately gives her the courage to break away from her family’s expectations. Author: Libby Ware Publication Date: October 20, 2015
“A smart and uplifting tale of personal and musical renewal; an impressive debut.” —Kirkus Reviews “Magic Flute is a beautifully constructed inside-look at the world of grand opera, and the passion that accompanies the power of art.” —Bookstr Liz Morgan is a talented, ambitious flutist headed for a brilliant career. But before she can achieve the world-class recognition she craves, an accident puts an end to her dreams. Desperate to fulfill her mother’s musical legacy, she fights to reinvent her path, and settles on a new passion: singing. She even leaves San Francisco and returns to the town in Wales where she spent her early childhood to do it. But as Liz works to perfect her voice and launch a new career, she is confronted with her mother’s other legacy: the choice between the seduction of fame and the constancy of an ordinary life. Magic Flute is an intimate exploration of the world of grand opera. Amid the backstage detail is a story of passions and choices that explores the humanity behind the most dramatic of art forms. Author: Patricia Minger Publication Date: November 15, 2016
Orphaned at age eight, JoAnna Wilson was raised by her eccentric aunt in the bucolic southern community of Mt. Moriah. Now a twenty-six-year old would-be writer, JoAnna faces several crossroads: in her marriage, in her career, and in her faith. She left home for Chicago in 1997 immediately following the murder of her best friend, Grace. Now she comes back to Mt. Moriah for the first time in four years to attend her aunt’s funeral—and realizes that she must confront both the profound sorrow she feels over Grace’s death and the mysterious guilt she carries. She must finally grieve. A hauntingly sweet story of love and loss that alternates between JoAnna’s childhood in Mt. Moriah, her life in Chicago and her present encounters upon returning home, Mt. Moriah’s Wake ponders deep questions: When we experience unspeakable tragedy, do we see ourselves as victim or survivor? Is it possible to regain happiness in the face of such? And how do we find our faith again, once it is lost? As her past and present worlds collide, JoAnna grapples with these questions—and her journey moves toward an unexpected conclusion. Publication Date: July 27, 2021 Author: Melissa Norton Carro
On her 30th birthday, Yale-educated Zoe Greene was supposed to be married to her high-school sweetheart, pregnant with their first baby, and practicing law in Chicago. Instead, she’s planning an abortion and filing for divorce. Zoe wants to understand why her plans failed—and to move on, have sex, and date while there’s still time. As she navigates dysfunctional penises, a paucity of grammatically sound online dating profiles, and her paralyzing fear of aging alone, she also grapples with the pressure women feel to put others first. Ultimately, Zoe’s family, friends, incomparable therapist, and diary of never-to-be-sent letters to her first loves, the rock band U2, help her learn to let go—of society’s constructs of female happiness, and of her own. Author: Emily Wolf Publication Date: August 2, 2022
Billie Campbell, a Massachusetts adoption specialist grappling with fertility issues, dreams of adopting a baby, but not just any baby—her pregnant client’s baby. While her longing threatens to send her down a dark path, her husband, Tyler, is keeping secrets: he’s full of doubts about becoming a father, and he’s also trying to figure out who is sending him upsetting anonymous texts and photos. On the other side of town, Anne, a woman scarred by childhood abuse, obsesses with a second chance at becoming a family with the two people she regrets ever having let go of: the baby she gave up for adoption twenty years ago and the man of her dreams. Their lives become entangled when the client’s newborn is abducted, and Billie becomes a prime suspect. Amid the chaos unleashed by the abduction, Tyler uncovers a link between the person tormenting him and the abduction—but now Billie has disappeared too. The race to find both her and the baby is on; but will they find them before it’s too late? Author: Zelly Ruskin Publication Date: October 8, 2024
When Anna, now living in California, is contacted by the Italian lover she knew decades before, she recalls their affair and the child she gave up for adoption. As the episode returns to haunt her—threatening the life she’s built, including her marriage—the story moves back in time to her youth in Europe. Rome, 1979. Anna, twenty-two and living abroad, is involved with a man already engaged to be married. When she meets and befriends his fiancée, she is forced to confront the moral consequences of her actions. But an unexpected pregnancy, an anonymous letter, and threatening relatives complicate the picture. A novel in which an unconventional heroine, far from home, is forced to reckon with the judgment of others. Author: Jessica Levine Publication Date: April 10, 2018
“Dianne Beeaff has a keen eye for specific settings and an uncanny ability to express the unique concerns of people from a broad spectrum of humanity. On Tràigh Lar Beach deeply satisfies because its vivid descriptions pulled me into the characters’ experiences and kept me wondering until I reached each of her stories’ unexpected, but not illogical, conclusion.” —Carol Sletten, author of Three Strong Western Women and Story of the American West: Legends of Arizona Erica Winchat, a young writer overwhelmed by the stress of her first book contract, discovers thirteen curious items tangled in the flotsam on the Scottish beach of Tràigh Lar. Erica tells the intriguing story of the owner of each of these items, uncovering a series of dramatic events—from a Chicago widow’s inspiring visit to Quebec City to a shrimper’s daughter facing Tropical Storm Ruby in North Carolina. The thirteenth item, a concert laminate badge, inspires Erica’s novella Fan Girls, in which the separate stories of four fans of the Scottish rock band Datha unfold in first person, culminating in their reunion at a concert in Chicago—a show where a shooting takes place. Author: Dianne Ebertt Beeaff Publication Date: October 13, 2020
Vene feels like she and her mother have always been at odds—since she was a child, the first word she used to describe Olivia was “cold.” When news of her mother’s imminent death comes, Vene returns to her family’s home in Napa to see if their strained relationship can be mended, only to find Olivia as harsh as ever and their reconciliation seemingly unreachable. But when Vene stumbles upon Olivia’s old cookbook, she discovers a passion within her mother she didn’t know existed. The clipped tone and quick judgments of her dying mother don’t match the young woman whose voice she finds between the pages—one that tells a story of romance, longing, duty, and aching heartbreak. Curiosity consumes Vene, and she embarks on an intimate journey to learn about the Olivia she never got to meet—before it’s too late. A captivating story told in alternating perspectives a half-century apart, One Friday in Napa explores the pains and joys of devotion as two women learn the price of loyalty, the power of secrets, and the meaning of sacrifice. Author: Jennifer Hamm Pub Date: August 29, 2023
“Parrish weaves linked, darkly humorous tales of aging, death, love and alcoholism using the gothic tropes of Southern literary fiction.” —Kirkus Reviews The 2013 International Books awards named Our Love Could Light The World a Finalist in the short story category. Our Love Could Light the World has been named on the Kirkus list of recommended books in the “Indie” category. You know the Dugans. They’re that scrappy family that lives down the street. Their yard is overgrown, they don’t pick up after their dog, their five children run free—leaving chaos in their wake—and the father hasn’t earned a cent in years. The wife holds them together on her income alone. You wouldn’t want them for neighbors—but from a distance, they’re quite entertaining. Set in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, the twelve linked stories of Our Love Could Light The World depict a dysfunctional family that’s messy and rude, cruel and kind, and loyal to the end. Author: Anne Leigh Parrish Publication Date: June 3, 2013
2016 USA Best Book Awards: General Fiction, Finalist 2016 USA Best Book Awards: Literary Fiction, Finalist Broken by their unorthodox Midwestern childhood, sisters Catherine, Anne, and Jessica Mathers search for love, acceptance, and worth – often in the most unlikely places. Catherine, the oldest of the Mathers sisters, is an English professor battling breast cancer with Cytoxan, red wine, and profanity. Anne is a wife and stay-at-home mother of two, struggling to make ends meet in a suburban existence that both suffocates and confounds her. Jessica, the youngest by ten years and estranged – by choice – from her family, is an exotic dancer who feels safer on stage than in a relationship. But when the sisters are faced with an incomprehensible loss, they are forced to reevaluate themselves, their damaged bonds, and their fragile future. Overwhelmed by their shared and sacred grief, Catherine, Anne, and Jessica must now face the questions that have been their silent, lifelong companions: How long must the sins of the parents define the lives of the children? When do the choices we make become ours and ours alone? What does it take to begin anew? Parting Gifts illuminates one highly dysfunctional family’s tentative, desperate crawl toward a life of meaning and worth. Author: Katrina Anne Willis Publication Date: April 19, 2017
2015 Indie Excellence Awards Finalist in General Fiction 2015 USA Book Awards Finalist in Women’s Fiction 2016 International Book Award Finalist in Fiction: Literary It happens without warning: At a folk-rock show at her son’s college, Lily becomes transfixed by the guitarist’s unassuming onstage presence and beautiful playing—and with his final note, something within her breaks loose. After the concert, Lily returns to her comfortable life—an Upper West Side apartment, a job as a videographer, and a kind if distracted husband—but she can’t stop thinking about the music, or about the duo’s guitarist, JJ. Unable to resist the pull of either one, she rashly offers to make a film about the band in order to gain a place with them on tour. But when Lily dares to step out from behind her camera, she falls deep into JJ’s world—upsetting the tenuous balance between him and his bandmate, and filling a chasm of need she didn’t know she had. Captivating and provocative, Play for Me captures the thrill and heartbreak of deciding to leave behind what you love to follow what you desire. Author: Céline Keating Publication Date: April 21, 2015
Some truths can do more harm than good. This is what Isa comes to believe at the tender age of nine when she first has a dream about kissing a girl—an act that would never be acceptable to her family. By her late twenties, Isa has left her hometown in South Texas, so her conservative family won't discover that she’s gay, and immersed herself in the workaholic routine of law school. One fateful night, she experiments with a man, and subsequently ended up with an unwanted pregnancy. Meanwhile, Isa’s only sister, Cristina, loses the infant she spent years trying to conceive. Moving forward with her own pregnancy and giving the baby to Cristina seems like the perfect solution—until Isa bonds with the newborn. Still, the sisters move forward with the family adoption. Now everyone in the family has a secret. Twelve years later, after much deceit and loss has passed between the sisters, Isa decides to reveal both her sexuality and her niece’s true parentage to their family, against Cristina’s wishes—but before all can be exposed, tragedy strikes. Timely and gripping, Profound and Perfect Things is a story of two first-generation Mexican-American sisters striving to build a meaningful existence outside their traditional parent’s approval and ways of life—and an exploration of the boundaries of our responsibilities to those we love. Author: Maribel Garcia Publication Date: May 14, 2019
