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“Infused with beauty, humor, and pain, The Alchemy of Noise is a modern American love story that asks if love can bridge the distance between two Americas.” —Laura Nicole Diamond, author of Shelter Us and Deliver Me In a world so full of lonely people and broken hearts, Chris Hawkins, a black sound engineer from Chicago’s south side, and Sidonie Frame, a white, suburban-raised head manager of one of the city's buzziest venues, feel lucky to have met and fallen in love; they’re convinced that happiness is theirs for the taking. Life, however, has other plans. Chris and Sidonie transcend a number of inevitable culture clashes and resistance from select family and friends—but it’s when a series of police encounters culminates in Chris being beaten and arrested that their world is turned upside down. He claims his innocence; she believes him. But as unforeseen events provoke increasing doubt and suspicion, the two are driven to question what they really know of each other and just who to trust, leading to a powerful and emotional conclusion. A timely and provocative love story that digs deep into the conundrum of “love vs. culture,” The Alchemy Of Noise illuminates themes of privilege, prejudice, and the search for empathy in a world where bias too often makes even love a political statement. Author: Lorraine Devon Wilke Publication Date: April 9, 2019 -
“Linda Ulleseit has written a heroic tale of family, friendship, loss, and redemption. With undeniable beauty, she captures the courage of a young woman and community stunned by unforgettable tragedy. She writes with humility, grace, and a quiet brilliance as she portrays young Dolores’s search for family and the generous, hardworking heart at the center of The Aloha Spirit.” —Milana Marsenich, author of Copper Sky and The Swan Keeper The spirit of aloha is found in Hawaii’s fresh ocean air, the flowers, the trade winds . . . the natural beauty that smooth the struggles of daily life. In 1922 Honolulu, unhappy in the adoptive family that’s raised her, Dolores begins to search for that spirit early on—and she begins by running away at sixteen to live with her newlywed friend Maria. Trying to find her own love, Dolores marries a young Portuguese man named Manolo His large family embraces her, but when his drinking leads to physical abuse, only his relative Alberto comes to her rescue—and sparks a passion within Dolores that she hasn’t known before. Staunch Catholics can’t divorce, however; so, after the Pearl Harbor attack, Dolores flees with her two daughters to California, only to be followed by both Manolo and Alberto. In California, Manolo’s drinking problems continue—and Alberto’s begin. Outraged that yet another man in her life is turning to the bottle for answers, Dolores starts to doubt her feelings for Alberto. Is he only going to disappoint her, as Manolo has? Or is Alberto the embodiment of the aloha spirit she’s been seeking? Author: Linda Ulleseit Publication Date: August 18, 2020 -
John and Erica Mason-Grey are hard-working artists and loving parents—but when John dies, their teenage daughter Mona’s casual drug use spirals into heroin addiction. She and her mother soon begin an anguished game of hide-and-seek leading to countless arguments, arrests, thefts, rehabs, and relapse, a recurring nightmare that seems to have no end. Ultimately, it’s only when each of them finds a way to accept their new reality—Mona by taking charge of her own recovery, and Erica by focusing on her own vitality—that each experiences the unexpected joy and renewal that await those who decide to stop living in the bad dream of addiction. Unflinching about the ways the disease of addiction can torpedo a family yet leavened with dollops of humor, The Bad Dream Notebook will resonate with anyone who has lived through the agony of a loved one’s drug dependency. Author: Linda Dahl Publication Date: August 1, 2017 -
Beth cherished her childhood summers on a pristine northern Canadian lake, where she reveled in the sweet smell of dew on early morning hikes, the loons’ evening trills across the lake’s many bays, every brush stroke of her brother’s paintings celebrating their cherished place, and their grandfather’s laughter as he welcomed neighbors to their annual Welsh harvest celebration. Theirs was an unshakeable bond with nature, family, and friends, renewed every summer on their island of granite and pines. But that bond was threatened and then torn apart, first as rights to their island were questioned and then by nature itself, and the family was forced to leave. Fourteen years later, Beth has created a new life in urban Chicago. There, she’s erected a solid barrier between the past and present, no matter how much it costs—until her grandfather asks her to return to the island to determine its fate. Will she choose to preserve who she has become, or risk everything to discover if what was lost still remains? The Best Part of Us will immerse readers in a breathtaking natural world, a fresh perspective on loyalty, and an exquisite ode to the essential roles that family, nature, and place hold in all of our lives. Author: Sally Cole-Misch Publication Date: September 8, 2020 -
2016 International Book Award Finalist in Best New Fiction “Spellbinding. Readers will feel they are watching an Alfred Hitchcock movie as they turn the pages of this vivid, fast-paced novel about how uncovering the past can lead to discovering oneself. You’ll never look at vintage clothes quite the same way again.” —Jennifer Coburn, author of We’ll Always Have Paris Twenty-eight-year-old struggling San Francisco artist Anne McFarland is determined to get a one-woman show, even though no one, including herself, believes she can do it. But when she buys a coat at a thrift shop with a key in its pocket, strange, even magical, occurrences begin to unfold, and she is inspired to create her best work ever. Fifty years before, the coat’s original owner, young heiress Sylvia Van Dam, is headed toward a disastrous marriage with a scoundrel. In a split-second reaction, she does the unimaginable, which propels her destiny out of alignment and forces her on a trip of self-discovery to nature-filled Northern Arizona. When Anne and Sylvia’s lives intersect, they are both forced to face their fears—and in the process, they realize their true potential. Author: Jill G. Hall Publication Date: October 6, 2015 -
Written by a former arms control negotiator turned historical novelist, this epic WWII tale of betrayal and second chances details how a woman trapped in occupied Russia fights the Nazis—and her own demons. For fans of Kate Quinn and Mark Sullivan, a haunting World War II novel of mistakes and second chances, of courage and the search for forgiveness, and of finding peace with oneself. Driven by a blind devotion to the Communist Party, self-centered Katya Karavayeva has broken the most important rule in Soviet society: never say anything that can be used against you. On the heels of that betrayal, Nazi Germany invades and the Soviet Union mobilizes. Katya hopes to halt her downward spiral by joining the volunteer militia, but within a few short weeks finds herself under attack. After escaping with another volunteer, Katya spends weeks on the run before landing in a town under Nazi occupation. There, she finds a place and a purpose and learns to fight a different kind of war, repaying German brutality with a harsh justice of her own. All the while she struggles against her inner demons and dreams of reunion with her daughter and forgiveness from her husband—the one she betrayed. Author: Suzanne Parry Publication Date: August 5, 2025 -
After escaping an abusive relationship, Elizabeth finds herself struggling with immense feelings of inadequacy. Stuck in a small-town, eight to five job, she dreams of characters and plot lines—when she’s not thinking about babies. She wants another. Gabe, her love, does not. When her writing coach praises her talent and encourages her to write, Elizabeth dives in, resolved to pursue her dream of publishing once again and put her ideas about pregnancy on the back burner. But then everyone around her, from her cousin to the couple-that-never-would, starts announcing their own pregnancies, and her baby obsession comes rushing back—accompanied by a deep depression. Frustrated with Gabe’s refusal to give her another child—as well as his questioning of her motives—Elizabeth finds herself considering a separation. Writing, meanwhile, becomes a tool for beating herself up over her inability to find her voice. Ultimately, she must face an abusive past to answer a complex question: Is having babies the answer, or simply a distraction from her immense feelings of inadequacy and fear—an elegant out? If she fails to uncover her truth, Elizabeth fears she might remain strangled, her voice squelched forever. Author: Elizabeth Bartasius Publication Date: April 23, 2019 -
International Book Awards 2016 finalist for literary fiction IPPY 2017 Gold Medal Winner in Autobiography/Memoir “Monica Starkman offers a penetrating look at the drastic capabilities of the obsessed mind. Written beautifully and carefully, at just the right pace, The End of Miracles is a thoroughly compelling piece of work.” —Roger Rosenblatt, New York Times bestselling author, literary editor of The New Republic, essayist for Washington Post and Time magazine When a pregnancy following years of infertility ends in premature labor, Margo Kerber’s grieving becomes intertwined with feelings of inadequacy and shame. An imaginary pregnancy shields her from despair until ultrasound images confront her with the truth—at which point Margo sinks into a depression requiring psychiatric hospitalization. There, her harrowing experiences magnify her sense of being abnormal. When an opportunity arises, she flees. But following her escape, a chance encounter with a mother and her briefly unattended baby evokes another fantasy: she can better nurture this infant than can its mother. This new self-deception propels Margo into a gripping, heartbreaking series of increasingly daring and dangerous actions—with profound consequences for herself and others. Author: Monica Starkman Publication Date: May 3, 2016 -
Why is it easier for a woman to be a muse than to have one? Are security and inspiration mutually exclusive? Can one be fully creative—in art or life—without the inspiration of erotic love? These are the questions asked in THE GEOMETRY OF LOVE, a novel set in New York in the 1980s, then fast-forwarding to Northern California 20 years later. Julia, an aspiring poet, is living with her British boyfriend Ben, a restrained professor at Princeton, when she is thrown off-balance by a chance meeting in Manhattan with Michael, a long-ago friend. A complex and compelling composer, Michael was once a catalyzing muse for her, but now returns as a destabilizing influence. Julia longs to become involved with Michael, but feels enormous guilt at the thought of betraying Ben and giving up the security of that relationship. When Michael signals he is too wounded to make a commitment, Julia turns her triangular situation into a square by setting him up with a cousin. In the process she discovers, as Pascal once said, that “the heart has its reasons which reason does not know.” This deeply psychological tale explores the surprising ways we make romantic choices. Author: Jessica Levine Publication Date: April 8, 2014 -
Consumed by a myth about Zeus, a magic sword, and soul mates, Greek-American professor Thair Mylopoulos-Wright has spent much of her life searching for her Other Half. At thirty-one, she spends a summer in Greece; there, alone on a tranquil island, she begins writing stories about her grandmother’s experiences in 1940s Egypt, her mother’s youth in 1960s Greece, and finally, her own life in contemporary America—trying to make sense of her future by exploring the past. Spanning Thair’s life from thirty-one to thirty-six, The Greek Persuasion explores human sexuality, the complexity of mother-daughter relationships, and the choices women of different generations make when choosing—or settling—for “Mr. (or Ms.) Good Enough.” Will Thair ever find that missing part of her that Zeus chopped off with his magic sword? Or is the concept of The One just one big fairy tale that has left her searching for someone who doesn’t exist? Author: Kimberly K. Robeson Publication Date: April 30, 2019 -
Twenty-six-year-old Lavinia Lavinia is burdened by her unknown heritage—but her uncle Sal, who raised her in San Francisco, has always kept silent, refusing to reveal the devastating secret of her origin. And now, following the death of his wife, he’s left for Italy. In the wake of her uncle’s departure, Lavinia has quit school. Now she works as a personal laundress to a diverse cast of San Francisco residents—people with stories as complicated as her own. As time progresses, through the sacred ritual of washing clothes—and with the help of a friend and her nurturing, flamenco dancing mother—Lavinia begins to recover memories of her mother. Gradually, her gifts of receptivity multiply, and she communes with nature, finding messages from birds and the leaves of her garden’s fig tree. And when she recovers Raggedy, a beloved doll that accompanied her from Naples when she was four years old, she experiences a tangible connection to her mother. Even as Lavinia makes these discoveries, she is busy building new relationships—discovering healing dance with her lover, a barista in a North Beach coffee shop; learning to understand time and forgiveness with an elderly client; and even getting to know her father, a man who has never been a part of her life. Poetic and poignant, The Laundress is a coming-of-age story for anyone who’s ever sought to understand where they came from in order to figure out who they’re meant to become. Author: Barbara Sapienza Publication Date: May 19, 2020 -
Margaret Carlyle is searching for an epic love as she heads to college in 1979 after the loss of her beloved mother to cancer. When a charismatic boy named Anders rapes her on their first date, she wants nothing more than to forget it ever happened. But as the years pass, each life decision she makes seems driven by what happened that night. When Anders becomes famous as an actor, Margaret can no longer ignore her past—and she must make choices that will affect everyone around her, most notably her husband, Douglas, and Fitz, the man who has loved her patiently since college. This deeply moving novel is a window into class and privilege, the mysteries of marriage, and the destructive power of secrets—and an examination of what happens when we try to bury the past, as well as the consequences of confronting it. Publication Date: July 20, 2021 Author: Susan Schoenberger -
Brenda Lockhart’s family has been living well beyond their means for too long when Brenda’s husband leaves them—for an older and less attractive woman than Brenda, no less. Brenda’s never worked outside the home, and the family’s economic situation quickly declines. Oldest daughter Peggy is certain she’s heading off to a university, until her father offers her a job sorting mail while she attends community college instead. Younger daughter Allison, a high school senior, can’t believe her luck that California golden boy Kevin has fallen in love with her. Meanwhile, the chatter about the O. J. Simpson murder investigations is always on in the background, a media frenzy that underscores domestic violence against women and race and class divisions in Southern California. Brenda, increasingly obsessed with the case, is convinced O. J. is innocent and has been framed by the LAPD. Both daughters are more interested in their own lives—that is, until Peggy starts noticing bruises Allison can’t explain. For a while, it feels to everyone as if the family is falling apart; but in the end, they all come together again in unexpected ways. Publication Date: June 1, 2021 Author: Mary Camarillo -
2016 Best Book Award Winner in Fiction: New Age Depression has haunted twenty-five-year-old Max Dorigan her entire life. After years of unsuccessful treatment and a failed suicide attempt, Max agrees to join “The Lucidity Project,” a program at a mysterious health and wellness resort in the Caribbean—where, she soon finds, the people are just as troubled as she is, only in a different way. They claim to have psychic powers. They claim they can see ghosts. They claim Max is one of them. Max refuses to pay much attention until Dr. Micah McMoneagle, the charismatic head of the project, reveals he’s found a way to allow people to enter each other’s dreams. Now, instead of discussing their issues in talk therapy, Max and her new gifted friends can symbolically work through their problems on the astral plane. Together they embark on a magical, transformational journey through dreamtime to reveal the causes of the things that are holding them back—an adventure that ultimately awakens them to who they really are, and what they came to earth to do. Author: Abbey Campbell Cook Publication Date: May 31, 2016 -
Featured as a Goodreads Most Popular Book of May 2023 and Top 6 Jewish Books This Year, The Jewish Chronicle Casey Cohen, a Middle Eastern Jew, is a sixteen-year-old in New Orleans in the 1970s when she starts hanging out with the wrong crowd. Then she gets in trouble and her parents turn her whole world upside down by deciding to return to their roots, the Orthodox Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn. In this new and foreign world, families gather weekly for Shabbat dinner; parties are extravagant events at the Museum of Natural History; and the Marriage Box is a real place, a pool deck designated for teenage girls to put themselves on display for potential husbands. Casey is at first shocked by this unfamiliar culture, but after she meets Michael, she’s enticed by it. Looking for love and a place to belong, she marries him at eighteen, believing she can adjust to Syrian ways. But she begins to question her decision when she discovers that Michael doesn’t want her to go to college; he wants her to have a baby instead. Can Casey integrate these two opposing worlds, or will she have to leave one behind in order to find her way? Author: Corie Adjmi Publication Date: August 2, 2022 -
In 1998, fiery Eleanor “Els” Gordon thought the new century would find her married to her childhood soul mate, rejuvenating her family’s Scottish Highlands estate, and finally earning a managing director title at her investment bank. Maybe she’d even have the courage to discover why her estranged mother ran home to Italy thirty years earlier. But when 2000 dawns, Els is mourning her fiancé and her father, and she’s unemployed, broke, and sharing an antique plantation house on the Caribbean island of Nevis with the ghost—or “jumbie”—of Jack Griggs, the former owner. Jack’s jumbie wangles Els’s help in making amends for wrongs committed during his Casanova life, and in exchange he appoints himself Cupid on behalf of a charter captain who’s as skittish about vulnerability as Els. Meanwhile, Els lures her mother to Nevis in hopes of unraveling the family secrets—but will the shocking truth set her free, or pull her fragile new happiness apart? A moving and lyrical novel that transports readers from lush tropics to rugged highlands and back again, The Moon Always Rising explores how the power of forgiveness can help even the most damaged person fix whatever is broken. Author: Alice C. Early Publication Date: April 21, 2020 -
In 1983, two outcasts are brought together by circumstance: nine-year-old Michael Nygaard, a Minnesota farm boy transplanted to suburban Chicago after his father dies, and Julia Parnell, a woman trying to begin again after a failed attempt to live openly. Michael doesn’t understand the new people around him: the wild girl across the street nurtures their friendship and then undermines it; her alcoholic father rockets between affability and rage; the bullies at school taunt him; and he adores his teacher, Miss Parnell, but knows she’s living a false life. When Julia’s secret is exposed, she faces a choice: accept herself for who she is or deny her true nature. Meanwhile, Michael must also choose whether to simply endure his new situation or fight back. Coming of age will take bravery from these two lost souls—and if they can’t find the strength to change, neither will have the life they long for. Author: Jessica Null Vealitzek Publication Date: April 22, 2014 -
Ever since a childhood tragedy bonded Jessica Jensen to Oregon’s mighty Nesika River, she has seen herself as its guardian. Now a courageous field biologist, Jess has just finished gathering scientific evidence that could bring about the dismantling of the massive hydro dam that threatens to destroy her river. But then Jess discovers that her boss is suppressing her scientific evidence―and as she digs deeper into the reason for her boss’s actions, she learns that the dam’s fate is at the mercy of a dark and far-reaching government and corporate conspiracy. Even worse, her live-in boyfriend, Jeff, who is supposedly on her side, may not be the man she thought he was. As Jess’s life spirals out of control, she mysteriously starts to make contact with Piah, a Native American Molalla woman who lived on the riverbanks of the Nesika 200 years before Jess. Piah, too, faces a terrible threat that could destroy all that’s left of her world. As the veil between their two worlds begins to lift, each woman learns important lessons from the other about how to love and rekindle their faith in the future, even in the face of tragic loss and uncertainty. Author: Lisa Reddick Publication Date: October 9, 2018 -
It’s 1910, and Catherine Ogden is aching to live a creative and meaningful life. That’s not easy to do when her aunt and uncle—and all of New York society—consider a good marriage to be the pinnacle of feminine achievement. But when Catherine visits Oakview, the Northern California estate of handsome bachelor William Brandt, she thinks that it might be possible to satisfy her family’s hopes as well as her own. In that beautiful place, she finds the promise of a new start and the opportunity to use her artistic gifts in designing the garden. But as Catherine is drawn into William’s hidden life, as well as the secrets of his estate staff, she discovers that Oakview holds both more opportunity and more risk than she ever imagined. It will take all her courage—and the lessons of some shocking revelations from the past—to choose the path that leads to real freedom. Full of rich period detail and complex characters, and set against an unforgettable backdrop, The Seeing Garden explores what it takes for a woman to discern the path to her most authentic life. Pub Date: May 9, 2023 Author: Ginny Kubitz Moyer -
A classical pianist, desperate to recapture her lost magic, must face the possibility of losing everything—and everyone—she treasures as she seizes an unexpected chance for redemption and acclaim. Susannah’s career has been on hold for nearly sixteen years, ever since her son was born. An adoptee who’s never forgiven her birth mother for not putting her first, Susannah was determined to put her own child first, no matter what. But now, offered a chance at the very thing she thought she’d renounced forever, Susannah’s longing is reawakened. There’s just one problem: somewhere along the way, she lost the power and the rapture. And she needs to get them back. Now. Her quest—what her husband calls her obsession—turns out to have a cost Susannah didn’t anticipate. One by one, her relationships begin to disintegrate, and even her hand betrays her as she learns she has a progressive hereditary disease that’s making her fingers cramp and curl—a curse waiting in her genes, legacy of a birth family that gave her little else. As her now-or-never concert draws near, Susannah is catapulted back to memories she hasn’t been able to purge—and forward, to the country-and-western sister she’s never known. Publication Date: April 6, 2021 Author: Barbara Linn Probst -
Now a USA TODAY BEST-SELLER, The Sound of Wings is a masterfully crafted tale of love, friendship, betrayal, and the risks we take in the pursuit of justice. Seventy-year-old Goldie Sparrows faces declining finances, questionable health, and a late husband who torments her from the beyond. She seeks refuge in her butterfly garden, which is filled with voices and memories from long ago. Jocelyn Anderson is a struggling writer who finds escape from her custody battle in the journal of her late mother-in-law. As she gets pulled through the pages of time, Jocelyn discovers her own husband has a hidden history she knows nothing about. Is this secret now Jocelyn’s to keep? Krystal Axelrod is living a life she never dreamed she could have. And yet the demons of a dysfunctional childhood and mean girl culture from her cheerleading days cast their shadow over her ability to feel whole, capable, and worthy. Does Goldie hold the key to Krystal’s path to freedom? Publication Date: May 4, 2021 Author: Suzanne Simonetti -
When her charismatic mentor, Ernesto, publicly chooses her as his professional partner, all indications are that Vera’s bodywork career is about to ignite. There is just one glitch—no, make that two. Vera—single mother of savvy, smart teenage India and her scruffy mutt, Francisco—is fucking Ernesto. As for her new promotion . . . Ernesto took it from his wife, Jean, in order to give it to her. As Vera becomes increasingly embroiled in Ernesto and Jean’s dark shenanigans, she quickly realizes that what seemed like an exciting opportunity is more like a deal with the Devil. Confronted with the consequences of her own yearning for male validation, it takes India, a glamorous and aristocratic client named Grace, and the mysterious goddess White Tara, Tibetan Goddess of compassion, to teach Vera the virtues of a sustainable path to self-authority. A fast-paced, humorous tale, The T Room is sure to prove irresistible to every adventurous woman familiar with that Saturday-morning-bookstore trajectory that starts with Self-Help, diverts into Romance, and lands heartfirst in Spirituality. Author: Victoria Lilienthal Pub Date: July 19, 2022 -
After losing her college scholarship, Arden Firth—with the help of Justin Kirish, a law student with a mysterious past—becomes the reluctant leader of a movement to ban corporations. South Dakota Ballot Initiative 99 is Arden’s last hope to save her grandmother’s farm from foreclosure; but as the movement grows, shadowy forces conspire to quash it, and Arden sees “99” begin to spiral out of her control. A novel charting the intersection between idealism, extremism, and forgiveness, fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Margaret Atwood will love The Third Way—the story of a young woman struggling with her own demons while trying to articulate a vision that could change the world. Author: Aimee Hoben Publication Date: August 23, 2022 -
A young, determined woman figures out life and love while staying true to herself in this whip-smart and genuinely witty debut. Twenty-eight-year-old Hannah Spencer wants nothing more than to change everything about her life. After ten years of living in cities, Nathan Wild has just moved back home to Vermont and doesn’t want to change anything about his. Recently laid off from her depressing job in Boston and ready for a challenge, Hannah heads to Vermont for the summer to take care of her sister’s kids and do some serious soul searching. There, against the stunning landscape of the Green Mountains, she embarks on an ambitious project: building a treehouse for her niece and nephew. As she hammers away, she formulates a plan to jump-start her life with a new job out West. But will Nathan-next-door complicate her desire to change course? A witty, romantic, and inspiring story of a young woman taking control and making tough choices about love and work to build the life she wants, The Treehouse on Dog River Road will have you rooting for Hannah every step of the way. Author: Catherine Drake Pub Date: May 10th, 2022
