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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 -
It’s the end of summer, 2001. Erin O’Connor has everything she’s ever dreamed of: good friends, a high-powered career at a boutique Manhattan firm, and a husband she adores. They have plans for their life together: careers, children, and maybe even a house in the country. But life has other plans. Daniel works on the 101st floor of the World Trade Center. Erin is drinking margaritas on a beach in Mallorca, helping her best friend get over a breakup, when she hears a plane has crashed into Daniel’s building. On a television at the smoky hotel bar, she watches his building collapse. She makes her way home with the help of a stranger named Alec, and once there, she haunts Ground Zero, nearby hospitals, and trauma centers, plastering walls and fences with missing-person flyers. But there’s no trace of Daniel. After accepting Daniel’s death, Erin struggles to get her life back on track but makes a series of bad decisions and begins to live her life in a self-destructive fog of booze and pills. It’s not until she hits rock bottom that she realizes it’s up to her to decide: Was her destiny sealed with Daniel’s? Or is there life after happily ever after? Author: Tabitha Forney Publication Date: September 7, 2021 -
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 -
A wife and mother of a grown son and two teen daughters, a woman enjoying her career and life, Mary Jo Doig wants nothing more from life than to live out her days embraced by the deep roots of family, friends, and her community. Tightly wrapped in a life-long protective cocoon, she has no idea how wounded she is―until, on one starless night following the death of a relative, she has a flashback that opens a dark passageway back to her childhood and the horrific secrets buried deep inside her psyche. Part mystery and part inspirational memoir, Patchwork is the riveting story of one woman who strived to live a life full of love, only to endure tragedies with two of her children and struggles in her marriages―the consequences of a mysterious life-long behavior unnoticed by her family or teachers. Like a needle stitching together a quilt, the memories Mary Jo recovers following her first flashback show her why her early years were threaded with a need to be invisible, as well as core beliefs that she was stupid, not good enough, and vastly different from her peers. Shattered by these revelations, overcome by depression, hopelessness, and a loss of trust in others, Mary Jo embarks on a healing journey through the underground of her life that ultimately leads to transformation. Author: Mary Jo Doig Publication Date: October 23, 2018 -
WINNER: 2015 International Book Awards, Best Multicultural Nonfiction FINALIST: 2015 IndieFab in Travel FINALIST: 2015 International Book Awards, Best New Nonfiction Fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants mom Jennifer Magnuson knew her spoiled suburban brood needed a wake-up call—she just couldn’t find the time to fit one in. But when her husband was offered a position in India, she saw it for what it was: the perfect opportunity for her family to unplug from their over-scheduled and pampered lives in Nashville and gain some much-needed perspective. What she didn’t realize was how much their time in India would transform her as well. Peanut Butter and Naan is Magnuson’s hilarious look at the chaos of parenting against a backdrop of malaria, extreme poverty, and no conveniences of any kind—and her story of rediscovering herself and revitalizing her connection with those she loves the most. Hers is a story about motherhood that will not only make you laugh and nod with recognition—it will inspire you to fall in love with your own family all over again Author: Jennifer Hillman-Magnuson Publication Date: November 11, 2014 -
2015 International Book Awards: Finalist, Management and Leadership Do you find yourself and your employees less engaged and less productive in the workplace than you would like? According to a Gallup poll, more than 70 percent of the American workforce today is “unengaged”—which means that most of the people in your organization are only showing up to work to go through the motions and collect their paycheck. But there’s something you can do to change that. In People Leadership, Gina Folk covers thirty proven techniques that she learned and utilized during a twenty-five-year career managing people at a Fortune 500 company. Unlike many of the leadership theories you’ll find out there, Folk’s teachings have been implemented and shown to work with real people in real situations. Using Folk’s practices, any individual charged with managing or supervising others at any level can learn to re-engage their employees and improve their company’s productivity—and become the boss they’ve always wanted to be. Author: Gina Folk Publication Date: April 21, 2015 -
2017-18 Reader Views Literary Award, Adult Fiction: Finalist 2017 Winner of the National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Fiction: Northeast 2017 Distinguished Favorite in Literary Fiction by Independent Press Awards 2017 International Book Awards Finalist for Literary Fiction Have you ever wondered what the impetus was to start a certain painting? Why the artist chose to immortalize a particular subject? What if you suddenly discovered that the painting in question, your painting, was valuable? In Peregrine Island, the Peregrine family’s lives are turned upside-down one summer when so-called “art experts” appear on the doorstep of their Connecticut island home to appraise a favorite heirloom painting. When incriminating papers—and other paintings—are discovered behind the painting in question, the appraisal turns into a full-fledged investigation. Flattered at first by the art museum’s unanticipated interest, the family members quickly change their attitudes with the arrival of detectives on their terrace and the illusory but repeated appearance of a stranger reported to be concealed in a cove. The now-antagonistic family—grandmother, mother, and child—consequently begin to suspect one another, as well as the shady newcomers in their midst. As the summer progresses and the investigation reveals facts about the Peregrines’ past that even they didn’t know, they learn that people are not always who they appear to be—themselves not excluded—and art is often a reflection of their own lives. More important, in uncovering the secret of the painting they come to realize that the love each unconsciously sought has been right in front of them all along. Though Peregrine Island is driven by a mystery, it is as much characterized by its ever-present sense of spiritualism, accentuated by the symbolism of the Sound, the soul of relationships, and the wisdom of the very young and the very old. Author: Diane B. Saxton Publication Date: August 2, 2016 -
For aspiring scientists and science leaders alike, a powerful collection of stories from a diverse group of authors that details the ups and downs experienced by women in STEM—and offers insight into how to make the field more inclusive for all. Imagine walking into a lab or a lecture hall and realizing you’re the only woman there. For most women in the sciences, this is not a difficult thing to envision; rather, it’s a familiar reality. Here, fifteen writers representing a wide range of women in STEM, from early-career researchers to accomplished leaders, offer authentic, personal reflections on the obstacles they’ve faced in this traditionally male-dominated field. These powerful narratives address critical themes—imposter syndrome, balancing personal responsibilities with professional ambitions, and navigating systemic biases such as sexism and racism—and span continents and cultures, illustrating the diversity of experiences while highlighting shared threads of resilience, courage, and the power of mentorship. Through these stories, readers—not just women in STEM but all those committed to building more inclusive and equitable workplaces—will gain a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of women in science and the role we can all play in creating environments where everyone can thrive. Deeply personal yet universally relatable, Persevere, Survive & Thrive is a celebration of courage and persistence—and the power of sharing stories to inspire change. Author: The Stories of Women in Fluids (SOWIF) Publication Date: November 11, 2025 -
2017 Silver Medalist, IPPY in Memoir/Personal Struggles 2017 International Book Awards, Finalist Autbiography/Memoir 2016 Best Book Awards, Finalist Women's Issues In 1994, Lizbeth Meredith said good-bye to her four- and six year-old daughters for a visit with their non-custodial father—only to learn days later that they had been kidnapped and taken to their father’s home country of Greece. Twenty-nine and just on the verge of making her dreams of financial independence for her and her daughters come true, Lizbeth now faced a $100,000 problem on a $10 an hour budget. For the next two years—fueled by memories of her own childhood kidnapping—Lizbeth traded in her small life for a life more public, traveling to the White House and Greece, and becoming a local media sensation in order to garner interest in her efforts. The generous community of Anchorage becomes Lizbeth’s makeshift family—one that is replicated by a growing number of Greeks and expats overseas who help Lizbeth navigate the turbulent path leading back to her daughters. Author: Lizbeth Meredith Publication Date: September 20, 2016 -
An updated twist on the classic Under the Tuscan Sun, this is the deeply personal story of how fiftysomething Barbara Boyle leaves her busy and familiar life behind in San Francisco and begins taking apart a 300-year-old stone barn to build a new home—a new life—in the largely undiscovered region of Piedmont, Italy. Filled with discoveries and pleasures of the stunning places and food she encounters, Pinch Me also details Barbara’s frustrations in adjusting to a new culture, as well as the startling heartbreak of being faced with a breast cancer diagnosis. But even in the midst of this crisis, she and her husband create a home out of the stone ruin they had found, forming deep friendships in their little town and unlocking a new level of joy in life. She shares intimate moments, joyous and bittersweet, as a new wife, stepmom, and a member of a community—and, of course, she shares a few recipes reflecting the gastronomical excellence of the region. A touching memoir filled with food, friendships, and scenes of Italy, Pinch Me is ultimately a celebration of love, of learning to see the world, as well as oneself, through a different window, and of the powerful joy that comes from building a dream. Author: Barbara Boyle Publication Date: February 11, 2025 -
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 -
It’s the season of siren songs and loosened bonds―as well as war, campaign slogans, and assassination. At the height of the Vietnam War protests, Washington lawyer Tom Rayson uproots his family for the freewheeling city of Berkeley. While Tom pursues a romance with a sexy colleague in the Marin County woods, Marian joins a peace party that’s running a Black Panther for president and meets the Berkeley revolution. But for young Alice, her parents’ liberating forays become a blind leap in a city marked by beauty and social change―and for a girl, that’s no Summer of Love. Feeling estranged from her family, Alice embraces the moment and falls in with Jim and Valerie Dupres. Jim and Valerie have been learning the ropes on Telegraph Avenue, cadging meals at a nearby communal house and camping out in People’s Park. Soon they’re confronting National Guardsmen. As family and school fade away in a tear-gas fog, Alice feels an ambiguous freedom. Caught up in a rebellion that feels equally compelling, scary, and absurd, Alice could become a casualty—or she could defy the odds and become her own person. One thing is sure: there’s no going back. Author: Sarah Relyea Publication Date: June 9, 2020 -
At age forty, with two growing children and a new consulting company she’d recently founded, Gretchen Cherington, daughter of Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Richard Eberhart, faced a dilemma: Should she protect her parents’ well-crafted family myths while continuing to silence her own voice? Or was it time to challenge those myths and speak her truth—even the unbearable truth that her generous and kind father had sexually violated her? In this powerful memoir, aided by her father’s extensive archives at Dartmouth College and interviews with some of her father’s best friends, Cherington candidly and courageously retraces her past to make sense of her father and herself. From the women’s movement of the ’60s and the back-to-the-land movement of the ’70s to Cherington’s consulting work through three decades with powerful executives to her eventual decision to speak publicly in the formative months of #MeToo, Poetic License is one woman’s story of speaking truth in a world where, too often, men still call the shots. Author: Gretchen Cherington Publication Date: August 4, 2020 -
Through braided memories that flash against the present day, Portrait of a Feminist depicts the evolution of Marianna Marlowe’s identity as a biracial and multicultural woman—from her childhood in California, Peru, and Ecuador to her adulthood as an academic, a wife, and a mother. How does the inner life of a feminist develop? How does a writer observe the world around her and kindle, from her earliest memories, a flame attuned to the unjust? With writing that is simultaneously wise and shimmering, nuanced and direct, Marlowe confronts her own experiences with the hallmarks of patriarchy. Interweaving stories of life as the child of a Catholic Peruvian mother and an atheist American father in a family that lived many years abroad, she examines realities familiar to so many of us—unequal marriages, class structures, misogynist literature, and patriarchal religion. Portrait of a Feminist explores the essential questions of feminism in our time: What does it look like to live in defense of feminism? How should feminism be evolving today? Author: Marianna Marlowe Publication Date: February 25, 2025 -
NOMINATED for Library of Virginia Literary Awards in the ART in LITERATURE: Mary Lynn Kotz Award category. “Two cultured French families lose everything in the Second World War, even each other. Winkler spins from this tragic tale a thing of beauty, as delicately radiant as the imagined painting at its core, even as she keeps the pages turning until the end.” ―Nicole Mones, author of Night in Shanghai France, 1940. Nazi forces march towards Paris. Lili Rosenswig’s wealthy and eccentric family is ensconced in their country chateau with their sumptuous collection of arts and antiques. The beloved Matisse portrait of Lili’s mother has been brought from their Paris salon for safety. It is the day before young lovers Lili and Paul are to be married that they are forced to flee and their fortunes change irrevocably. Lili and her family escape but Paul must stay behind to defend his country. In their struggle to adapt to changing circumstances in an unpredictable world, all are pushed to reinvent themselves. When top Nazi Herman Goring loots their Matisse portrait, their story is intertwined with the fate of the painting. Portrait of a Woman in White is a moving family saga, an obsessive search for lost love and lost art and how far we will go to survive. Author: Susan Winkler Publication Date: September 2, 2014 -
The aviation world is a man’s world—it always has been, and it continues to be so today. In fact, women make up a mere 5 to 6 percent of the total pilot population worldwide. But from the first time Erin Seidemann experienced what it was like to see the world from a small plane’s perspective, she was hooked—and she’s spent much of her time since then fighting her way into becoming one of that 5 to 6 percent. Postcards from the Sky: Adventures of an Aviatrix tells of the struggles and adventures one encounters as a woman in the male-dominated space of aviation. With humor and equanimity, Seidemann recounts her varied experiences as a female pilot—from the chauvinistic flight instructor she makes the mistake of falling in love with to the many, many customs agents who insist she can’t possibly be her plane’s owner (“Where’s your boyfriend?”)—while at the same time giving insight about just what makes flying so incredible . . . and so very addictive. Frank, funny, and full of adventure, Postcards from the Sky is an entertaining foray into a world few women have dared enter. Author: Erin Seidemann Publication Date: November 10, 2015 -
Cynical young gossip columnist Jane Benjamin joins FDR’s Office of War Information, a propaganda unit, to find a Wendy-the-Welder poster girl to urge more women to the shipyard work essential to America’s winning World War II—and, incidentally, to make herself into the new Hedda Hopper. But somebody doesn’t want those women at work. During a five-day contest to beat the world speed record for building a liberty ship, Jane investigates the lives of the first women welders and learns more about her flyboy former lover’s secret post–Pearl Harbor mission—and her cynicism begins to melt. But when inspectors find and publicize a series of flaws in the contest-week welding, the women welders are blamed. Worse, two poster girl candidates are killed. Are they being sabotaged by a belligerent male shipyard supervisor? The industrialist shipyard owner with a history of controlling women? Or someone else trying to diminish the success of the US liberty ship program? To find out, Jane must choose between her professional ambition and service to the women welders—before the murderer harms another girl and America’s best chance of winning the war. Author: Shelley Blanton-Stroud Pub Date: November 14, 2023 -
Pray. Trust. Ride: encourages you to stay in the saddle and ride through life with a looser rein. We live more fully when we can let go— even when all looks bleak and our brains scream, Hang on and do something! Do anything! Fix this! Stop that! The truth is, those problems that strangle our hearts are the sort of problems that we can’t fix. King Jehoshaphat understood that when he was boxed in by his enemy; at his most vulnerable moment, he leaned on God and let go of the outcome. Using this approach as her guiding principle, Lisa Boucher shares in this helpful guide how to lean on spiritual principles to help people live with less anxiety and strife, and how letting go allows us to accept that we can’t solve all our problems; we can’t save others from themselves; we can’t stop the inevitable from happening. What we can do is let go and trust that God has our backs. Author: Lisa Boucher Publication Date: November 1, 2022 -
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
