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No Way Out of This is not the kind of Alzheimer’s memoir where you read about a noble, self-sacrificing wife who gives up everything to take care of her husband. We see such spouses in books and movies—but they’re not telling the whole story. Nobody’s that good. Certainly Sue Lick isn’t. Sue’s much-older husband, Fred, is a forgetful man. She’s always found that charming. But when his absentmindedness worsens into full-blown dementia, she suddenly finds herself dealing with his illness alone. Struggling to care for Fred and manage their two loveable but incorrigible dogs and still find time to write and play music, Sue constantly faces impossible choices. Tell people about his illness? Let him drive? Put him in an institution? Treat his medical problems, or let him go? Every decision feels wrong—but in the end, their love carries them through it all. More than 6 million Americans suffer from dementia. One in three seniors have it. Add in the spouses, siblings, adult children, and professionals responsible for their care, and we all have a stake in this story. While some caregivers have loving families to support them and enough money to pay for the best care, more often the situation is a lot messier. Here the author, a longtime journalist, tells the truth about nursing homes, Medicaid, mental health, and more. Author: Sue Fagalde Lick Publication Date: June 25, 2024 -
INSPIRATION FOR HOW TO CREATE A LIFE OF PURPOSE, NO WOMAN LEFT BEHIND IS THE UNLIKELY STORY OF HOW ONE WOMAN LEAVES MADISON AVENUE AND TACKLES THE GLOBAL MATERNAL HEALTH CRISIS HEAD ON. The day a woman gives birth is also the day she is most likely to die or suffer severe injury—a sobering reality that comes into sharp focus when Kate Grant visits the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia’s capital. There, she sees row after row of beds occupied by young women afflicted with obstetric fistula, a childbirth injury that leaves them incontinent and too often shunned by their communities, modern- day lepers. She soon learns that surgery is the only way to end their suffering. In No Woman Left Behind, Grant recounts her decision to abandon a promising advertising career, and the ups and downs of building Silicon Valley– based Fistula Foundation from a modest start-up into the global leader in fistula treatment. Through vivid firsthand accounts of surgeons toiling in remote corners of Africa and Asia, we see inside the fight to restore hope to some of the world’s most vulnerable women. A compassionate army of donors spanning nearly 70 countries makes such life-changing care possible. Grant demonstrates the profound power of individual action to change lives at scale, since Fistula Foundation takes no government money. No Woman Left Behind is a compelling personal journey and a how-to guide for anyone looking to make a lasting difference in the lives of others. 100% of the net proceeds from No Woman Left Behind will go to Fistula Foundation’s Love-a-Sister program to fund free surgeries for women with childbirth injuries. Author: Kate Grant Publication Date: May 6, 2025 -
Should Rica invite her mother to her wedding? In her early early forties and about to remarry, Rica Ramos realizes that starting over could mean leaving her mother behind. She longs to heal the relationship, but her mother still refuses to acknowledge the sexual abuse Rica suffered at the hands of her stepfather, or her own culpability throughout the years. With old traumas resurfacing and a new life unfolding before her, Rica grasps the power of unspoken grief—and the potential to suffer or heal. Will she and her mother ever cross the chasm between them, or are some secrets meant to stay buried? As Rica navigates her options, she faces two ultimate choices: submit to a culture that shames daughters for not honoring their mothers, or muster the courage to go her own way. Offering a bold and lucid look at mother-daughter relationships, Nobody's Daughter underscores every woman’s right to truth and validation. Pub Date: May 9, 2023 Author: Rica Ramos -
Earth, 2050. Pregnant, unemployed, and living back home with her father, climate scientist Quinn Buyers wonders how she got to this point in her life. Her famous scientist mother is mysteriously missing, the planet is at risk from a massive solar storm, the Transhumans want to take a colony to Titan, and her assisted living companion, a robotic meerkat, is showing clear signs of anxiety and depression. But her biggest challenge is her partner. How can she reconcile her long-distance relationship with this reserved, enigmatic cyborg? The sequel to Sarah Lahey’s debut novel and the second book in the Heartless Series, Nostalgia is Heartless delves into the world of near future, exploring a society on the brink of climate catastrophe. This time, Quinn’s adventures take her across the globe to Antarctica . . . where it rains all day, every day. Readers will delight in following Quinn’s journey as she races to save her family, her planet, and—hopefully—her love life. Author: Sarah Lahey Publication Date: October 26, 2021 -
Not a Perfect Fit is a collection of stories that are laugh-out-loud funny one minute and thought-provoking the next. Stories range from Schmidt’s experience living off-grid as the only English woman in an Amish neighborhood to family trips that are remarkably similar to National Lampoon’s Vacation. Through it all, she manages to rise above the many challenges she faces—inspiring and entertaining her audience along the way. Filled with animal antics, gratitude, mishaps, and madcap adventures, Not a Perfect Fit’s tell-all, single girl- gone-country, down-home stories give readers permission to laugh and cry—and, most important, to carry on. Author: Jane Schmidt Publication Date: April 11, 2017 -
“Overall, this is a frank, no-nonsense account of living with a disability, edged with a razor-sharp wit….Bold, charming, and inspirational.” —Kirkus Reviews Francine Falk-Allen was only three years old when she contracted polio and temporarily lost the ability to stand and walk. Here, she tells the story of how a toddler learned grown-up lessons too soon; a schoolgirl tried her best to be a “normie,” on into young adulthood; and a woman finally found her balance, physically and spiritually. In lucid, dryly humorous prose, she also explores how her disability has affected her choices in living a fulfilling (and amusing) life in every area―relationships, career, religion (or not), athleticism, artistic expression, and aging, to name a few. A clear-eyed examination of living with a handicap, Not a Poster Child is one woman’s story of finding her way to a balanced life―one with a little cheekiness and a lot of joy. Author: Francine Falk-Allen Publication Date: Aug 7, 2018 -
“Dunn’s clear prose and lively recall of her calamities make for an effortless read.” ―People “Witty, smart, droll, moving, and always entertaining, Dunn’s book is nothing short of a thoroughly enjoyable triumph . . .” ―The Oregonian “I loved this book.” ―Rosie O’Donnell Samantha Dunn used to live for the feeling of wind blowing in her hair and the powerful intoxication of her horse’s steady gallop. A tug of Harley’s leathery reins could instantly eradicate mounting bills, unfinished work, and the reality of a troubled marriage from her mind. But one day, as she was leading Harley across a stream in a picturesque California canyon, he panicked, knocked her to the ground, and trampled her—nearly severing her leg in the process. Dunn had always been “accident prone”—but in the aftermath of this incident, she began to analyze the details of her life and her propensity for accidents. Was she really just a klutz? Or could there be some underlying emotional reason she was always putting her life in danger? A blend of personal narrative and of research about what drives some people to have more accidents than others, Not by Accident is an insightful, incisive memoir that helps bridge the gap in understanding that exists on the concept of accident proneness. Author: Samantha Dunn Publication Date: August 11, 2015 -
2017 Readers’ Choice Book Award, Gold, in Relationships 2017 Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) in Sexuality/Relationships 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Awards: Finalist, Relationships It was 1969, and all the rules were changing, when Betty, a woefully single French teacher on Long Island, met the handsome but edgy new teacher at her school, a hippie just back from Woodstock. His vitality opened up a new world to her—but when they married, his rages turned against her, and often ended with physical violence. Like millions of women who discover they’ve married an abusive man, Betty was forced to make daily decisions—to suppress her feelings or risk confrontation, to keep it secret or report, and ultimately, to live with it or leave. Part memoir, part warm-hearted look at the ’70s, and part therapeutic journey, Not Exactly Love: A Memoir is an intense and inspirational story of a woman who grew from her experience. Author: Betty Hafner Publication Date: October 11, 2016 -
Beginning at the age of five, Sondra spends decades auditioning for the role of her authentic self. Her dazzling mother casts her as confidante and co-conspirator in her affairs and serial marriages. Sondra vacillates between fierce anger toward her mother—who does nothing to protect her from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse—and a desperate need for her love and approval. As an adult, Sondra enters into and stays in a toxic marriage for years, engaging in affairs with married men rather than divorcing. When therapy and AA eventually propel her out of the sense-deadening haze of alcohol and cigarettes, she summons the courage to tell her husband she plans to leave him. He reacts by playing on her biggest fear, telling her, “You’re going to turn out just like your mother.” Sondra attempts to establish a sober and separate identity, but tensions between her and her mother further increase when she marries someone new—a man who displaces her mother as the epicenter of her life—and her mother’s seventh marriage ends. During this time, traumatic childhood memories suddenly surface and a seismic shift occurs, freeing Sondra from her need for maternal connection. But establishing a life independent from her mother proves far more complicated than she could have imagined. Author: Sondra R. Brooks Publication Date: March 4, 2025 -
Even the most integrative, supportive doctor can only do so much for an individual during the worst period of healing from Lyme. The process looks different for everyone, but a patient must feel significantly worse before they begin to recover. When Lyme bacteria (or other coinfections) are first attacked by antibiotics, herbs, or other treatment, they release toxins into the body quicker than they can be dispelled. This is called a Jarisch-Herxheimer (Herx) reaction, and it can often include panic attacks, brain fog, paranoia, depression, pain, affected vision, racing heartrate, dysfunctional thyroid, disrupted digestion, severe confusion, and amnesia among many other symptoms. Herxing, in other words, is a complete—and sometimes seemingly unending—nightmare. When you’ve fretted about that frustrating doctor all night and Herxed all day, these autobiographical poems may go down smoother than a pill. Arranged chronologically in the order that they were written, they move from devastation to determination, addressing the various frustrations and dynamics of living with chronic Lyme disease—the isolation, the trauma, the fear—and also providing a voice of solidarity and inspiration for those suffering from this devastating illness. Written as a love letter for Lyme patients who are running out of patience, as well as for their family and friends, Not If, When is a clear-eyed, defiant, and poignant exploration of what it means to live—and sometimes even thrive—with Lyme. Author: Gail Tierney Publication Date: August 25, 2020 -
After thyroid cancer, Crohn’s disease, and a slew of other autoimmune conditions ransacked her body in her twenties and thirties, Francesca was left feeling completely alone in her chronic pain. Constant, relentless, often indescribable, and always exhausting, it affected her whole life—intimacy, motherhood, friendship, work, and mental health. Yet it was also fairly invisible—and because of that, Francesca felt entirely alone in the centrifuge of her own pain. But after twenty-plus years of living this way, isolated and depressed, she started to wonder: if she lived in pain, others must too—so why couldn't she name one person in her community who suffered like she did? On a whim, Francesca started asking women in her community if they had chronic pain—only to find that she was surrounded by women also battling in silence. The more she spoke to people, the more she found common themes and experiences, proving that her stories of pain were not unique, and neither were her feelings of loneliness and seclusion. Liberated by this discovery, Francesca realized something: while she couldn’t alleviate anyone's pain, maybe she could lift the shadows surrounding it—bring these common stories into the light, with the goal of helping her fellow chronic pain sufferers feel a little less alone. Imbued with a deep respect for the women who tell their stories in its pages, as well as a healthy skepticism of the healthcare world and how it can silence, shame, and ignore women in pain, Not Weakness is galvanizing memoir about living and loving with chronic pain. Pub Date: April 18, 2023 Author: Francesca Grossman -
For fans of Kristin Hannah and Jennifer Chiaverini, a novel about a Polish immigrant woman who fights against worker oppression in Depression-era Detroit despite opposition by many—even her own husband. In this gritty, cinematic story, hardworking Florence and her best friend, Basia, are enraged by the poor treatment, low wages, and unsafe working conditions they endure in the factory where they hand-roll cigars. Florence is as reserved and compliant as Basia is fiery and forthright. During a time when their choices were between bad and worse, this is an underdog story of a woman who must search for her voice in order to lead a labor movement against her husband’s violent efforts to silence her. Set in turbulent 1937 Detroit, this novel portrays the Eastern European immigrant struggle when difficult economic times, xenophobia, “Fordism,” secret societies, and Communist-led labor organizations buffeted the demographic. Will Florence and her husband resolve their conflicts both inside and outside the home? At what cost? Author: Janis M. Falk Release Date: September 9, 2025 -
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 -
2016 Foreword INDIE Awards Winner, Self-Help 2016 Nautilus Book Awards Silver Medal Winner, Personal Growth 2017 BMS Book Awards Finalist, Self-Help Baggage! We all carry it with us through life. It comes in a wide variety of styles, shapes, and colors—more than enough to accommodate the stuff that we accumulate through life. And no matter how we dress it up, it’s frustrating, inconvenient, and slows us down. In fact, it’s downright disruptive. This book is about offloading emotional baggage—something that’s especially important when we realize that we don’t just pack for one; we pack for seven. Each of the seven selves—self-preservation, self-gratification, self-definition, self-acceptance, self-expression, self-reflection, and self-knowledge—has characteristics, wellness types, and shadows. Each plays a vital role in harmony, overall health, and well-being. Chock full of real-life emotional examples, as well as “keys” at the end of each chapter offering actionable tips, techniques, and exercises designed to help you unlock baggage, examine it, and offload it permanently, Note to Self will help you discover a lighter, joy-filled you! Author: Laurie Buchanan -
When thirty-five-year-old Carol Richmond decides to end her seventeen-year marriage, she has no idea what’s in store. Within the first year of the divorce, her ex-husband abandons his children and ignores the court’s orders to pay child support, and despite working sixteen hours a day and seven days a week, Richmond cannot make ends meet. She is forced to sell her home and hawk her jewelry in order to keep her family fed and housed, and more often than not she relies on hired women to kiss her children goodnight and dry their tears. In the decade to follow, Carol’s growing children struggle with individual complexities. One son attempts suicide; another utterly fails academically; and her daughter is sexually abused by a trusted acquaintance. Yet Carol and her children endure―because they must. Haunting yet full of humor and self-effacing wisdom, Notes After Midnight is a story of the invisible binding thread connecting each of us to one another―the thread that helps us find our way along even the most difficult of paths. Author: Carol Richmond Publication Date: September 10, 2019 -
Chile—named the Lonely Planet 2017 destination of the year—has been Suzanne Adam’s home for over four decades. She knows the territory—its culture, its idiosyncrasies, and its exotic landscapes, from Patagonian glaciers to the northern Atacama Desert. In this heartfelt collection of sixty-three personal essays, she searches for universal truths and sparks of beauty revealed in small, daily moments both in her native land—the United States—and in Chile. She considers how her American past and move to Chile have shaped her life and enriched her worldview, and she explores with insight questions on aging, women’s roles, spiritual life, friendship, love, and writers who inspire. In a return trip to Colombia fifty years after her two-year stay there as a Peace Corps Volunteer, Adam reflects on the mark left on her by that experience. Finally, she crosses America from east to west, immersing herself in regional cultures and discovering a common thread of reciprocity throughout. Author: Suzanne Adam Publication Date: November 20, 2018 -
In the summer of 1979, Diane Meyer Lowman, a nineteen-year-old Middlebury College student, embarked on a ten-week working trip aboard a German container ship with a mostly male crew. The journey would take her from New York to Australia and New Zealand and back, through the lush Panama Canal, to a Koala sanctuary and a Maori Museum. She swabbed decks and mended linens, navigated not only the Panama Canal, but perhaps more harrowingly the awkward and sometimes threatening mostly male shipboard society and its politics. The voyage would forever change her perspective on the world and her place in it. She left the port of New York a subservient, malleable girl and sailed back past the Statue of Liberty on her return as a more confident, independent, resilient young woman who’d learned to stand on her own two feet even if the roughest of waters. Author: Diane Meyer Lowman Publication Date: November 13, 2018 -
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 -
In the 1980s and 1990s, a mind-boggling social panic over child sex abuse swept through the country, landing childcare workers in prison and leading hundreds of women to begin recalling episodes of satanic ritual abuse and childhood abuse by family members. Now I Can See the Moon: A Memoir is a deeply personal account of the devastating impact the panic had on one family. In trying to understand the suicide of her twenty-three-year-old niece, a victim of the panic, the author discovers that what she thought was an isolated tragedy was, in fact, part of a much larger social phenomenon that sucked in individuals from all walks of life, convincing them to believe the unbelievable and embrace the most aberrant claims as truth. Author: Alice Tallmadge Publication Date: April 24, 2018 -
Odessa, Odessa follows the families of two sons from a proud lineage of rabbis and cantors in a shtetl near Odessa (now Ukraine, in what was then part of western Russia). It begins as Henya, wife of Rabbi Mendel Kolopsky, considers an unexpected pregnancy and the hardships ahead for the children she already has. Soon after the child is born, Cossacks ransack the Kolopskys’ home, severely beating Mendel. In the aftermath, he tells Henya that, contrary to his brother Shimshon’s belief that socialism is their ticket to escaping the region’s brutal anti-Semitic pogroms, he still believes America holds the answer. Henya, meanwhile, understands that any future will be perilous: she now knows their baby daughter, who has slept through this night of melee, is surely deaf. So begins a beautifully told story that unfolds over decades of the 20th century―a story in which two families, joined in tradition and parted during persecution, will remain bound by their fateful decision to leave Odessa. Author: Barbara Artson Publication Date: September 11, 2018 -
Odyssey of Ashes: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Letting Go begins with the sudden death of Cheryl Krauter’s spouse. Five months later, in a stroke of irony and magic, her husband wins a long-desired guided fly fishing trip in a raffle—and Cheryl decides to go in his place, fulfilling a promise to scatter his ashes by a trout stream. Part I of this memoir is an account of the first year after Cheryl’s husband’s death, where she becomes an explorer in the infinite stream of grief and loss, a time traveler between the darkness of sorrow and the light of daily life. Part II concludes with stories of the poignant and humorous adventures she had during the ensuing year. Tying it all together and woven throughout is Cheryl’s account of the creation of an altar assembled during the three-day ritual of Los Días de los Muertos. Poetic and mythological, Odyssey of Ashes is a raw story of loss and the deep transformation that traveling through darkness and returning to light can bring. Publication Date: July 20, 2021 Author: Cheryl Krauter -
“Of This Much I'm Sure says it--the truths we keep secret. It goes there: messy and beautiful and complicated and terrifying and, ultimately, joyful. It's a story about fighting like hell. It's a story that is more necessary than ever before.” —Megan Stielstra, The Wrong Way To Save Your Life At twenty-two, Chicagoan Nadine Kenney is thrilled to meet her future husband, Jamie, while vacationing in Florida. After a whirlwind, long-distance romance, Nadine leaves her friends, family, and city to join Jamie in suburban Massachusetts. Once married, they begin trying for a baby without knowing how hard that road will become. Nadine soon faces the little-known horrors of IVF when a procedure causes severe internal bleeding, and she wakes up from emergency surgery with a six-inch scar instead of a baby bump. In the difficult year that follows, anxiety and additional failed fertility treatments threaten her new marriage and her mental state. By some saving grace, she eventually becomes pregnant naturally, but the horrors are not over: her son is diagnosed with potentially terminal kidney complications. Ultimately, Nadine learns that in an unpredictable life, the only thing she can be sure of is the healing power of hope. Author: Nadine Kenney Johnstone Publication Date: April 11, 2017 -
Fifteen-year-old Hannah was a privileged young girl with a promising future, but that didn’t stop her from sliding into an abyss of sex, drugs, alcohol, and other high-risk behaviors. Off the Rails narrates Hannah’s sudden decline and subsequent treatment through the raw, honest, compelling voices of Hannah and her shocked and desperate mother―each one telling her side of the story. Fearing that they couldn’t keep their teen safe, Hannah’s parents made the agonizing decision to send her to a wilderness program, and then to residential treatment. Off the Rails tells the story of the two tough years Hannah spent in three separate programs―and ponders the factors that contributed to her ultimate recovery. Written for parents of teens experimenting with high-risk behaviors, as well as those trying to navigate the controversial world of teen treatment programs, Off the Rails is an inspiring story of family love, determination, and the last-resort intervention that helped one troubled young woman find sobriety after a terrifying and harrowing journey. Author: Susan Burrowes Publication Date: October 23, 2018 -
“Intriguing and full of twists, it’s hard to find fault with the author’s theme of communal empowerment, her love of food, and her frequent instructional asides. A highly educated foodie’s dream, this tale delivers a unique take on both the campus and mystery genres.” —Kirkus Reviews Emily Addams, foodie professor of women’s studies at Arbor State–a land grant university in Northern California–finds herself an unlikely suspect in the poisoning of a man she barely knows: Professor Peter Elliott of Plant Biology, the hotshot developer of a new genetically modified corn. How did her cornbread end up in his hand as he lay in the smelly muck of a pig’s pen? As Emily and her colleagues try to identify who and what has poisoned Peter, they also struggle to keep a new and corporate-minded administration from defunding the women’s and ethnic studies programs. In the process of solving the mystery, Emily and her network deepen their ties to each other–and uncover some of the dark secrets of a university whose traditionally communal values are being polluted by a wave of profit-fueled ideals. Oink comes with recipes. Author: J. L. Newton Publication Date: April 18, 2017 -
When the fiancé of a prominent attorney is murdered, Dr. Pepper Hunt joins forces again with Detective Beau Antelope of the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Department to search for the killer. Prosecutor Connor Collins’ dreams are shattered when Stacy Hart is found strangled in their home a month before their wedding. He’s convinced Jack Swailes, the contractor who found the body, killed her in a jealous rage. And Jack looks guilty when he mysteriously disappears later that day. The investigation takes a different turn when Pepper uses her clinical skills to probe below the surface of the perfect couples’ lives. Chilling secrets and sinister motives that lead back to unsolved crimes with a direct link to Stacy’s murder are finally brought to light. Author: J.L. Doucette Publication Date: July 23, 2019 -
Set at the turn of the 20th century, a mystical, tantalizing novel about a visionary’s journey toward her destiny. In 1888, Katherine Tingley, a medium and clairvoyant, continues to have a childhood vision of a white city on a sundown sea. While serving the poor at her Do-Good Mission on Manhattan’s East Side, she encounters William Q. Judge, a mesmerist and leader of the American Theosophical Society. He recognizes her potential, convinces her to become his student, and guides her on a spiritual path that could make her mystical dream become a reality. After Judge’s passing, Katherine assumes leadership of the Society and embarks on a world crusade to spread brotherhood, learn from ancient cultures, and search for a Himalayan Mahatma. In 1900, she moves the Theosophical headquarters to San Diego. Here, she sets out to establish Lomaland—a sacred space of learning, artistry, and divine harmony, built on a barren peninsula yet brimming with hidden potential. As people from around the world converge to share in her vision, they form a community united in purpose to spread enlightenment. However, betrayals, lies, and libels accumulate until a monumental court case ultimately decides her future and the fate of the white city on a sundown sea. Author: Jill G. Hall Publication Date: October 14, 2025 -
In this no-holds-barred, provocative book, Terri Laxton Brooks tells a story that often remains hidden— that of a successful professional who has many friends and family and yet all her life has struggled with a loneliness she’s never revealed to anyone. Terri thinks her feelings of isolation will end with her marriage to her childhood sweetheart and their move from a farm town to the city of Chicago. But once the sheen of newlywed passion wears off, her husband, by nature reticent, grows even more emotionally distant. In her new job as a reporter for a Chicago paper, Terri hides her loneliness under a flurry of bylines and deadlines. But she can’t shake a feeling she’s had since childhood—of failure to connect, not just as a wife but also as a daughter, friend, and colleague—and soon she and her husband separate. Adrift, Terri contemplates suicide. Could a move to different city, to a fresh start, solve her problem? Terri’s decision to transplant herself to New York City forces her hand in a way she never imagined: it plunges her into a loneliness so total that out of desperation she grabs the key to her own salvation— ; love of interviewing, researching, hearing people’s stories. After starting therapy, her curiosity leads her into four years of soul-searching conversations with America’s leading psychologists and psychiatrists about how to cope with loneliness, why it is a normal and necessary stage of healthy growth, and how to stop resisting it. She explores with growing understanding intimate details of her dreams, her past traumas, and her role in her own loneliness—and learns not only how to live comfortably with that loneliness but how to use it to her advantage. Author: Terri Laxton Brooks Publication Date: November 29, 2022 -
In 1957, when Amy Turner was four years old, her father had to be talked down from a hotel ledge by a priest. The story of his attempted suicide received nationwide press coverage, and he spent months in a psychiatric facility before returning home. From then on, Amy constantly worried about him for reasons she didn't yet fully understand, triggering a pattern of hypervigilance that would plague her into adulthood. In 2010, fifty-five years after her father’s attempted suicide, Amy—now a wife, mother, and lawyer-turned-schoolteacher—is convinced she’s dealt with all the psychological reverberations of her childhood. Then she steps into a crosswalk and is mowed down by a pickup truck—an accident that nearly kills her, and that ultimately propels her on a remarkable emotional journey. With the help of acupuncture, somatic-oriented therapies, and serendipities that might be attributed to grace, Amy first unravels the trauma of her own brush with death and then, unexpectedly, heals the childhood trauma buried far deeper. Poignant and intimate, On the Ledge is Amy’s insightful and surprisingly humorous chronicle of coming to terms with herself and her parents as the distinct, vulnerable individuals they are. Perhaps more meaningfully, it offers proof that no matter how far along you are in life, it's never too late to find yourself. Author: Amy B. Turner Publication Date: September 6, 2022 -
“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 -
“Vivid and engaging, this memoir shows, with honesty and intelligence, the appeal of Pentecostal religiosity to a sensitive and searching teenager... Gelsinger’s excellent storytelling provides illuminating vignettes on her experience and how it was so often laced with doubt even as she sought certainty… A well-written, honest memoir that takes a multilayered view of revival.” —Kirkus Reviews Carly Gelsinger is an awkward and lonely thirteen-year-old when she stumbles into Pine Canyon Assemblies of God, the cracked stucco church on the outskirts of her remote small town. She assimilates, despite her apprehensions, because she is desperate to belong. Soon, she is on fire for God. She speaks in tongues, slays demons, and follows her abusive pastor’s every word―and it’s not until her life is burnt to the ground that she finds the courage to leave. Raw and illuminating, Once You Go In is a coming-of-age story about the beauty and danger of absolute faith, and the stories people tell themselves to avoid their deepest fears. Author: Carly Gelsinger Publication Date: October 16, 2018 -
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 -
Melissa Harris’s dream of being a mother again shatters when a fertility doctor tells her she may never have another child due to a physical anomaly in her uterus. Determined to persevere, she undergoes nine surgeries and a year of fertility treatments until she finally gets a positive pregnancy test—only to miscarry both twins within the first fifteen weeks. When what she’s decided will be her last attempt results in her finally becoming pregnant, she’s told that this baby, Sam, is also at risk. While lying in a hospital bed for six days, trying to get to the golden standard twenty-four-week gestation mark, Melissa makes a decision—she will give this baby every chance to live, no matter what it takes. One Pound, Twelve Ounces is the journey of one mother’s determination to give her micro-preemie a fighting chance, and the story of that baby’s remarkable battle to survive. Author: Melissa Harris Publication Date: November 2, 2021 -
A parent should never outlive their own child, yet this is the position Janice Jensen found herself in after the drowning of her nine-year-old son. In the aftermath of this tragedy, Janice dedicated herself to her roles as mother to her surviving daughter and wife to her devastated husband even as she grappled with her grief. As a non-swimmer, Janice experienced water’s unforgiving power through the loss of her son, but as time went on, she also learned to appreciate its redemptive and healing properties. She sculled symbolic and real rivers, taking the necessary side channels to find waves that soaked peace and happiness into her body, mind, and heart. She learned to sail. And she fell in love with ballroom dancing, a passion that eventually led her back to the very place where she lost her son. A poignant, heartfelt story that takes readers through the everyday ups and downs of life after a tragedy and highlights the need to view each person’s grief journey and timeline as unique. One Ripple at a Time comforts readers and, through decades of the author’s personal quest, imparts a crucial message: The best of you is just around the bend. Author: Janice Jensen Publication Date: October 15, 2024 -
A full one-fifth of the United States has engaged in consensual non-monogamy (CNM) at some point in their lives, and 29 percent of adults under thirty today consider open relationships to be morally acceptable—yet there are few resources to turn to when it comes to navigating this more non-traditional and explorative territory. Picking up where CNM self-help books like Open Up, The Ethical Slut, and More Than Two leave off, Open Deeplytackles the most difficult challenges posed by CNM. Therapist Kate Loree—who has practiced non-monogamy since 2003, and who specializes in treating clients who also practice non-monogamy—pulls no punches as she uses vignettes based on her own life, as well as her clients’ experiences, to illustrate the highs, lows, and in-betweens of life as a consensual non-monogamist. Interwoven with these stories are thorough explanations of how attachment theory impacts non-monogamy, how blending cutting-edge, neurobiology-informed grounding skills with effective communication skills will make even the most challenging conversations regarding non-monogamy manageable, and more. The result is a compassionate, attachment-focused template for non-monogamy that will allow readers to avoid pitfalls and find adventure while concurrently building healthy relationships. Non-monogamy is a wild and woolly ride—and Open Deeply is here to help make it a great one. Author: Kate Loree Pub Date: April 19, 2022 -
As a young doctor working in the middle of the HIV epidemic in the early ’90s, Alicia Blando feels unsure of the effectiveness of the medical profession. To gain insight into her life’s path, she seeks advice in some unconventional places, and lands on astrology as her way forward. Astrology, based in astronomy, has specific rules; it can’t be easily manipulated. The scientist in her can’t help but respond to this idea. At a pivotal group demonstration, Alicia finds a mentor, Iris, who introduces her to the study of astrology. By learning to read the horoscope, Alicia gains insight into her potential and manifests her ambition to travel and explore healing techniques from indigenous cultures. Eventually, her search for new teachers and past knowledge takes her from Manhattan to the Peruvian Amazon, Belize, and Bolivia, where she discovers ancient ways of healing among people who consider the sky to be a continuation of nature on earth. She connects with the tenets of astrology as the language that describes man’s connection to the sky environment. The horoscopic map gives information that can assist in making better choices in life, Alicia learns; it has the potential to analyze a person’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and health concerns. Alicia’s journey off the beaten path ultimately leads her to true self-exploration and connection with the world around her, as well as a desire to share her knowledge. In Open for Interpretation, she shares her story of finally finding the map she’s been seeking—and explains how we can all use that map to access our true selves and untapped potential. Pub Date: June 27, 2023 Author: Alicia Blando, MD -
If you believe in the power of dreams and intentions, this inspirational coming-of-age memoir set in 1950s Australia where an immigrant girl swimmer turns challenges and disappointments into opportunities for success is for you. Henny was just a little girl when she experienced brutal violence and hunger in WWII Amsterdam, but she is now a teenage immigrant swimmer in 1950s Australia where she must learn to turn challenges into success. She is smart, she swims fast, and she has definite opinions about the kind of woman she intends to be. She hears the timeless Land speak and sees the Southern Cross as a beacon when she walks in the bush with her father. She enjoys swimming star fame and championship victories and turns to the pool in her search to belong, to face fears and dashed hopes, until at every turn she sees more clearly her unique path ahead. “Intentions are like prayers, if you pay attention they come back as destiny,” her mother has taught her. Is it intention or destiny that propels this young New Australian into her future long life? Author: Hendrika de Vries Publication Date: September 2, 2025 -
“…a witty and moving story which truly captures the sense of wonder, self-discovery, and adventure that unfolds when one throws caution to the wind and ventures out into the world alone.” —D. Cameron, Stone Head Press In 1994, at the age of 64 with no business experience and very little start-up money, Nancy Hinchliff buys a turn-of-the-century mansion in Louisville, Kentucky and turns it into a charming Victorian Inn. Through sheer tenacity, she learns the business while successfully coping with one mishap after another. An admittedly asocial retired school teacher, she reinvents herself as an Inn keeper. The reader is drawn into this humorous and engaging tale as the author wields her way around cantankerous contractors, harrowing housekeepers, and no shortage of strange and interesting guests and events. Through her collected stories, Hinchliff gives readers a personal, in-depth, and honest look at what it’s like to be an inn keeper as she candidly describes her twenty-year journey of self discovery. Author: Nancy Hinchliff Publication Date: June 6, 2017 -
A debut historical fiction for fans of Kristin Hannah and John Steinbeck, Orphans of the Living follows the Stovall family’s early 20th-century quest for home and redemption as they confront racism, poverty, and inequality across the American South and West. In the shadow of the Great Depression and Jim Crow south of the 1930s, an impoverished white family escapes—with the help of Black sharecroppers—from a vengeful Mississippi plantation overseer intent on lynching them. Arriving in California to start a new life, Barney and Lula Stovall are haunted by the past, the children they’ve left behind, and the daughter they cannot love or protect. Orphans of the Living follows the peripatetic life of the Stovall family, woven from four parallel stories: Barney and Lula Stovall, and two of their nine children, Glen and Nora Mae. Their California sojourn—from their hardscrabble dairy farm, to the brig at the San Francisco Presidio, to the building of the Golden Gate Bridge—lead them on paths toward each other and forgiveness. But redemption doesn't come to them all. Author: Kathy Watson Publication Date: September 30, 2025 -
Joss and Phil’s already rocky marriage is fragmented when Phil is injured in a devastating fire and diagnosed with Capgras delusion—a misidentification syndrome in which a person becomes convinced that a loved one has been replaced by an identical imposter. Faced with a husband who no longer recognizes her, Joss struggles to find motivation to save their marriage, even as family secrets start to emerge that challenge everything she thought she knew. With two young daughters, a looming book deadline, and an attractive but complicated distraction named Adam complicating her situation even further, Joss has to decide what she wants for her family—and what family even means. Author: Lenore H. Gay Publication Date: October 20, 2020 -
Our Divide: Two Sides of Locked in Syndrome is the story of the other side, the side of LaDonna the pregnant wife of Cleve, who at age twenty-seven, is struck down by an obstruction in the brain stem leaving him with locked-in syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that causes most victims to remain mute and paralyzed. Unlike Jean-Dominique Bauby (1997) in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Cleve “locked in” his unresponsive body is unable to sit up in a wheel chair or communicate by blinking an eye. Our Divide is a beautifully written, honest accounting of the experience of a family member watching a loved one suffer. Harrison delivers both a peek into the world of a unique other and an intimate view of one young woman’s grieving process. This heart-breaking story braids a grief narrative, coming of age and survival narrative into the memoir genre, creating a genuine, honest portrayal of one woman’s mistakes and courage while learning how to take responsibility and create a life for herself. This memoir embraces sadness and trauma, life lessons, love and hope. Readers will be swept away. Author: LaDonna Harrison Publication Date: August 10, 2021 -
Laraine Burrell gets the call to come back to England from the United States just in time to visit briefly with her father before he passes away. Following his death, she is overcome with grief, feeling that she has squandered the time she had with her father. Instead of staying close, she chose to travel the world and seek her own goals as a young woman, always thinking there would be time later on to tell her dad all the things she wanted to tell him—how much she loved him, and how he was her hero. Now, she realizes, it’s too late. Wanting to do something significant for her father to make up for her neglect, Burrell reflects on the fascinating life her father, a Royal Yachtsman, led—and decides that the one thing she can do for him is to tell his exceptional life story and make sure he is not forgotten. Our Grand Finale is the culmination of that effort—an exploration of both the author’s and her father’s unusual life experiences, and a reminder that “later” doesn’t always come. Author: Laraine Denny Burrell Publication Date: October 17, 2017 -
“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 -
The year was 1972. The place was rural Pennsylvania. Civil rights, the Vietnam War, and counterculture youth who were defying their traditional parents had the nation in social upheaval. Lynda was white, an anxious but earnest free spirit studying poetry, peyote, and peaceful protest at her small university. TJ was black, a talented athlete recruited from the inner city to win basketball games for Lynda’s hometown college. Their chemistry was irresistible, but their schools were hours apart—so, in the days before email, cell phones, and video chat apps to connect them, they reached out to each other in the only way possible: letters. Songs and prose penned late into the night revealed a longing that neither had felt before. TJ used music to show Lynda his sensitive side and deep desire for true love. Lynda strove to leave her conservative upbringing behind, to see truths beyond skin color and the pressure—for women, especially—to conform. But their connection, though deep, was also fragile. Racist parents, a jealous friend, and a prior lover who came back to claim Lynda ultimately unraveled the delicate fabric woven by their words. Now, four decades later, Lynda and TJ may have another chance. Can they take it? This sensual memoir by human sexuality professor Lynda Smith Hoggan lays bare the raw contradictions between social expectations and the heart’s desires—and leaves readers pondering what love might look like in a world where we are truly free. Author: Lynda Smith Hoggan Pub Date: October 11, 2022 -
In the late 1860s in Bantry, Ireland, sixteen-year-old Eileen O’Donovan is forced by her family to marry an older widower whom she barely knows and does not love. Her brother Michael, at age nineteen, becomes involved with the outlawed Irish Republican Brotherhood, a secret organization dedicated to the violent overthrow of British rule in Ireland. Their fates intertwine when they each decide to emigrate to America, where both tragedy and happiness await them. An exciting coming-of-age story of a brother and sister in an Ireland still under the harsh rule of the British, Out of Ireland brings alive the story of our ancestors who braved the dangers of immigration in order to find a better life for themselves and their families. Pub Date: April 25, 2023 Author: Marian O'Shea Wernicke -
We all tell ourselves stories about who we are. Many of these stories are self-critical and disempowering. Through the practice of self-compassion, we can rewrite these stories and become more authentic and powerful versions of ourselves—transforming not only our own lives but also the lives of those around us. In short and personal pieces, Marianne Ingheim tells the story of how the practice of self-compassion have changed her life in ways big and small ways, helping her unlearn harsh self-criticism, survive multiple tragedies, and live more authentically. In the wake of a breast cancer diagnosis and her husband’s suicide, she discovers the power of self-compassionate storytelling and finds belonging within herself—and in doing so, she learns how to manage anxiety and stress, how to be authentic in relationships, and how to let go of comparison and be truly creative. Through stories and journaling prompts, Out of Love: Finding Your Way Back to Self-Compassion aims to inspire readers to unlearn the self-critical patterns holding them hostage—and begin to live a happier, more courageous life. Author: Marianne Ingheim Publication Date: May 26, 2020 -
Relocated with her family to Cold War–era West Germany, Army Brat and middle sister of three Mary grapples with the torment exacted by her older sister, the high moral expectations of her military father, and societal pressure to conform to traditional gender roles during the rise of the feminism movement. Through the transformative power of place, travel, and the people she encounters, Mary embarks on a journey of self-discovery, learning about social justice and finding her voice in a world still shaped by male dominance. Rich with historical context, Out of Place is a poignant and compelling exploration of identity, personal growth, and the enduring strength that comes from embracing one’s purpose. Author: Mary McKnight Publication Date: December 3, 2024 -
Irene Sardanis was born into a Greek family in the Bronx in the 1940s in which fear and peril hovered. Her mother had come to New York for an arranged marriage. Her father drank, gambled, and enjoyed other women—and then, when Irene was eleven, abandoned her family altogether. Faced with their mother’s violent outbursts in the wake of this betrayal, Irene’s older siblings found a way out, but Irene was trapped, hostage to her mother’s rage and despair. When she finally escaped her mother as a young adult, she married a neighbor, also Greek, who controlled and dominated her just like her mother always had. But Irene wasn’t ready to let her story end there. With therapy, she eventually found the courage to leave her husband and pursue her own dreams. Out of the Bronx is her story of coming to terms with the mother and past that terrified and paralyzed her for far too long—and of how she went on to create a new life free of those fears. Author: Irene Sardanis Publication Date: May 14, 2019 -
“A compelling, intimately personal, insightful, and ultimately inspirational account, Painting Life: My Creative Journey Through Trauma, is very highly recommended for both community and academic library collections.” ―Midwest Book “Carol is an evolved being and talented storyteller. I found her spiritual approach to work and life truly inspirational. She shares very personal, intense, powerful life experiences that have guided her on a path to help her integrate her emotional and spiritual health. Painting Life is a gem that offers healing insights for all of us to treasure.” ―Louis deSabla, publisher of Pathways Magazine When Carol Walsh pulled her fiancé from the bottom of a diving well—dead from a massive heart attack—her life was turned upside down. Even though she was a psychotherapist working with clients suffering from trauma, this personal shock felt unbearable. Nonetheless, she had to heal herself while supporting clients—and, as a single mother, her two children. Using the creative interests she’d developed during childhood in order to emotionally save herself from a difficult mother, she fully recovered from her grief and PTSD symptoms—and as she recreated her personal, artistic, and professional life, she began to thrive. Author: Carol Walsh Publication Date: November 15, 2016
