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A collection of sixty-four black-and-white photographs and sixty-two poems, Unfolding in Light offers a vision of hands as images, symbols, and archetypes, allowing the numinous to shine through the mundane. Sisters Joan Scott and Claire Scott provides an intimate pause that gives the reader a quiet moment to reflect on the meaning of everyday hands: an ill child’s hands; a dying woman’s hands; hands of lovers, young and old; hands at work, at play, in pain, in prayer, and in love. Author: Joan and Claire Scott Publication Date: November 17, 2015 -
Dr. Pepper Hunt and Detective Beau Antelope team up again to investigate a tragic murder/suicide in a prominent ranch family in the small town of Farson, Wyoming. As they explore events leading up to the night of the disturbing crime they are drawn into the dark heart of a troubled family touched by a legacy of trauma. Author: J. L. Doucette Publication Date: November 23, 2021 -
While recovering from a near fatal illness, Nancy Pressly discovers a treasure trove of family material stored in her attic. Haunted by images of her grandparents and her parents in their youth, she sets out to create a family narrative before it is lost forever. It takes several more years before she summons the courage to reconstitute a path back to her own past, slowly pulling back the veil of amnesia that has, until now, all but obliterated her memory of her childhood. In this sensitive and forgiving meditation on the meaning of family, Pressly unravels family dynamics and life in a small rural town in the 1950s that so profoundly affected her—then moves forward in time, through to her adulthood. With an eye attuned to visual detail, she relates how she came into her own as a graduate student in the tumultuous sixties in New York; examines how she assumed the role of caretaker for her family as she negotiated with courage and resilience the many health setbacks, including her own battle with pancreatic cancer, that she and her husband encountered; and evokes her interior struggle as a mother as she slowly traverses the barriers of expectations, self-doubt, and evolving norms in the 1980s to embrace a remarkable life as a scholar, champion of contemporary art, and nationally recognized art museum strategic planning consultant. Full of candor and art-inspired insight, Unlocking leaves the reader with a deep appreciation of the power of art and empathy and the value of trying to understand one’s life journey. Author: Nancy L. Pressly Publication Date: May 5, 2020 -
“Theater fans will love the insiders’ stories culled from Sandra’s years on Broadway—but absolutely anyone, regardless of their familiarity with theater, can and will benefit from the lessons contained in these pages. It’s impossible to read this book and come out on the other side feeling anything but awakened.” —Jack Canfield, Coauthor of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series and The Success Principles™: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be Living a meaningful, satisfying life is an enigma for most people today. We feel stuck, small, without the self-confidence to move in the direction of what we really want. Or, if we do muscle through our fear in pursuit of our dreams, we exhaust ourselves working and striving and achieving and yet somehow, no matter our level of outer-world success, are left dazed and disheartened, asking ourselves, “Is this all there is?” After ten years on Broadway, Sandra Joseph—the longest-running leading lady in Broadway’s longest-running show, The Phantom of the Opera—knows one thing for sure: the only way to have a truly fulfilling life and achieve success that satisfies is to recognize that the journey up is no substitute for the journey in. In Unmasking What Matters, Joseph uses lessons learned on the road to Broadway, during her decade as Christine, and through the challenges she faced after walking away from the business to show readers how to courageously bring their inner voice to the outer world, stop seeking success for achievement’s sake and start creating the life they truly desire. With her hard-won wisdom, poignant personal stories, and practical, experiential exercises to guide them, readers will learn to shed their limiting masks, mindfully work through their fears, stand in their authentic power, and build a life rich with satisfaction, meaning, and significance. Warm, humble, encouraging, and inspiring, Unmasking What Matters can help anyone move from stuck, fearful, and playing it safe to embracing their passions, gifts, and opportunities and living life “full-out” today. Author: Sandra Joseph Publication Date: January 23, 2018 -
Jaded New York City Public Defender Liana Cohen would give anything to have one client in whom she can believe. Dozens of hardened criminals and repeat offenders have chipped away at her faith in both herself and the system. Her boyfriend Jakob’s high-powered law firm colleagues see her do-gooder job as a joke, which only adds to the increasing strain in their relationship. Enter imprisoned felon Danny Shea, whose unforgivable crime would raise a moral conflict in an attorney at the height of her idealism―and that hasn't been Liana in quite a while. But Danny's astonishing blend of good looks, intelligence, and vulnerability intrigues Liana. Could he be the client she’s been longing for―the wrongly accused in need of a second chance? Is he innocent? As their attorney-client relationship transforms into something less than arm’s length, Liana is forced to confront fundamental questions of truth, faith, and love―and to decide who she wants to be. Author: Reyna Marder Gentin Publication Date: November 13, 2018 -
Elizabeth Tilton, a devout housewife, shares liberal ideals with her husband, Theodore Tilton, and their pastor and close friend Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, both influential reformers of the Reconstruction Era who promote suffrage for women and former slaves and advocate for the spiritual power of love rather than Calvinistic retribution. Elizabeth is torn between admiration for her husband’s stand on women’s rights and resentment of his dominating ways at home. When Theodore justifies his extramarital affairs in terms of the free love doctrine that marriage should not restrict other genuine loves, she becomes closer to Henry, who admires her spiritual gifts—and eventually falls passionately in love with him. Once passion for her pastor undermines the moral certainties of her generation, Elizabeth enters into uncharted emotional and ethical territory. Under what circumstances should she tell the truth? If she does, will she lose her children and her marriage? Will she destroy her own reputation and the career of the reverend who has done much good? Can a woman accustomed to following the leadership of men find her own path and define her own truth? Author: Barbara Southard Publication Date: January 28, 2025 -
Unsexed examines the role that sex plays in the life of one woman with two mothers who introduce her to polarized frameworks of female sexuality. Born in Greece to a violent prostitute and then adopted by a cold and unloving virgin from New York, Marina inherits a sexual identity steeped in fear and shame—one that, as she grows older and becomes a wife and mother, trickles into her marriage and the parenting of her children. Without the tools needed to understand her complex mothers or the unpack the lessons they taught her, Marina relies on self-erasure to survive relationships that silence and define her—until she finally becomes fed up with those old patterns and begins to stand in her own power. A memoir that unearths the layered emotional and sexual lives of women and exemplifies the satisfaction that comes when they assert their voices and power, Unsexed speaks to millions of women who have different narratives but face similar struggles in reclaiming their voices, bodies, and sexuality. Author: Marina DelVecchio Publication Date: April 2, 2024 -
When Laura Whitfield was fourteen, her extraordinary brother, Lawrence, was killed in a mountain climbing accident. That night she had an epiphany: Life is short. Dream big, even if it means taking risks. So after graduating from high school, she set out on her own, prepared to do just that. Laura spent her first summer after high school on North Carolina's Outer Banks, a magical few months filled with friendships, boys, and beer. There she met a handsome DJ who everyone called "Steve the Dream," and risked her heart. When September came, Steve moved to New York City to become a model, prompting Laura to start thinking about modeling, too. After just one semester of college, still seeking to fill the void left by her brother's death, she dropped out and moved to New York to become a cover girl. But while juggling the demands of life in the big city waiting tables, failed relationships, and the cutthroat world of modeling; she lost her way. A stirring memoir about a young woman's quest to find hope and stability after devastating loss, Untethered is Laura's story of overcoming shame, embracing faith, and learning that taking risks and failing can lead to a bigger life than you've ever dared to imagine. Author: Laura Whitfield Pub Date: April 5, 2022 -
When pregnant Esther—a young, adventurous, British-born Israeli—follows her new husband, Steve, to America, she has no idea what she’s getting herself into. Even before their baby is born, Esther discovers the dark side of her charming film production manager husband, and learns that she must cope with his moodiness and domineering personality. Left alone day after day in a high-rise apartment in Queens, Esther struggles with culture shock, homesickness, and adapting her husband’s whims—like the baby goat he brings home to their eighth-floor apartment to keep as a pet. Ten years and two more children later, thirty-four-year-old Steve is diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Despite aggressive treatments, he succumbs to the disease, leaving Esther to care for their three children alone, Esther at first feels lost and bewildered; as time goes on, however, she discovers that there is a freedom in her new situation—and that she has a greater inner strength than she ever before realized. Author: Esti Skloot Publication Date: August 20, 2019 -
Valeria Vose: A Novel takes a reader deep inside the cultural and emotional life of a 1970’s southern woman. Privileged, approaching age forty, her “perfect” life is shattered. Determined to survive, she’s forced to confront all preconceived values and expectations in order to find a path toward creative, spiritual independence and her true identity. Author: Alice Bingham Gorman Publication Date: October 2, 2018 -
Struggling to forget a crumbling marriage, forty-year-old Anna Lucia Lottol comes to Venice to visit an old friend—but instead of finding solace, she is dragged into the police station and accused of murdering a money-laundering count with whom she had a brief affair. A US Treasury officer with brains and athleticism, Anna fights to clear her name in a seductive city full of watery illusions. As she works to pry information from a cast of recalcitrant characters sometimes denying what she sees and hears, she succeeds in unleashing a powerful foe bent on destroying her. Will she save herself and vanquish her enemies, including her darkest fears? A mysterious tapestry of murder, betrayal, and family, Venetian Blood is a story of one woman’s brave quest for the truth —before it’s too late. Author: Christine Evelyn Volker Publication Date: August 8, 2017 -
2017 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Silver Medal for Memoir 2017 National Indie Excellence Awards Finalist 2017 Independent Press Award Distinguished Favorite for Memoir When young Barbara Bracht’s mother disappears from her life (no one tells her that she has died), she is left a confused child whose blue-collar father is intent upon erasing any memory of his dead wife. Forced to keep the secret of her mother’s existence from her brother, Bracht struggles to keep from being crushed under the weight of family secrets as she comes of age and strives to educate herself despite her father’s stance against women’s education—a journey that culminates in a visit to her mother’s grave nearly twenty years after her death. Narrated in a precocious, fiercely intelligent, and compelling voice, Veronica’s Grave” A Daughter’s Memoir is a heartrending story about the psychological cost of families who keep secrets—and the importance of pursuing one’s dreams and passions. Author: Barbara Donsky Publication Date: May 10, 2016 -
In 1972, when she was a young, divorced, single mother, restless and idealistic, Elena Schwolsky made a decision that changed her life: leaving her eighteen-month-old son with his father, she joined hundreds of other young Americans on a work brigade in Cuba. They spent their days building cinderblock houses for workers and their nights partying and debating politics. The Cuban revolution was young, and so were they. At a moment of transition in Schwolsky’s’s life, Cuba represented hope and the power to change. Twenty years later, she is drawn back to this forbidden island, yearning to move out of grief following the death of her husband from AIDS and feeling burned out after spending ten years as a nurse on the frontlines of the epidemic. Back in Cuba, she experiences the chaotic bustle of a Havana most Americans never see―a city frozen in time yet constantly changing. She takes readers along with her through her humorous attempts to communicate in a new language and navigate this very different culture―through the leafy tranquility of the controversial AIDS Sanitorium and into the lives of the resilient, opinionated, and passionate Cubans who become her family and help her to heal. Author: Elena Schwolsky Publication Date: November 12, 2019 -
After growing up in abject poverty in a dysfunctional alcoholic environment and being terrorized by a boarder who lived in the root cellar, Athena Demetrios repressed her traumatic memories—thrusting her into a downward spiral of melancholy and despair. But when, as an adult, she had a powerful spiritual experience that opened doors into other dimensions, she began an odyssey in which truth became stranger than fiction—a journey through hypnotic regression that led her to transcendence and healing. Demetrios’s story of courage, mystical insight, and otherworldly guidance will open your heart and challenge your perception of the borders of our minds and the boundaries of our world. This is a tale of past-life visions, spiritual guides, and communication beyond death—and emergence into the radiant light of self-discovery, knowing, and being at peace with all that is. Author: Athena Demetrios Publication Date: April 30, 2019 -
Alan and Joanne marry in midlife and live a happily-ever-after existence until, at sixty-nine, Alan is diagnosed with a rare, fatal, neurodegenerative illness. As he becomes increasingly disabled and dependent on others, and decreasingly able to find joy in life, he decides he wants to end his suffering using Colorado’s Medical Aid in Dying law. Joanne desperately wants Alan to live, but when he asks for her help completing the Medical Aid in Dying application, she can’t say no. She helps him complete the requirements, hoping deep down that his application will be denied . . . only to be stunned when his medical team approves his request and writes him a prescription for the life-ending drugs. Told with affection and spiced with humor, Walking Him Home is Joanne’s tale of coming to terms with her kind, funny husband’s illness; of learning to navigate the intricate passageways of caregiving and the pitfalls of our medical system; and of choosing to help Alan in his quest to die with dignity, even though she wants nothing more than to grow old with him. Tender and heartfelt, this is one woman’s story about loving extravagantly—and being loved in kind. Author: Joanne Tubbs Kelly Publication Date: August 9, 2022 -
Greece. Politics. Love. Danger. Reeling from a failed marriage and spurred on by a burgeoning sense of feminism, twenty-five-year-old Kate accepts a position as a speech therapist in a center for children with cerebral palsy in Thessaloniki, Greece. It is 1974, and the recent end of Greece’s seven-year dictatorship has ignited a fiery anti-American sentiment within the country. Despite this, as her Greek improves, Kate teaches communication to severely disabled children, creates profound friendships, and finds a home in the ancient and historied city. From a dramatic Christmas pig slaughter to a mesmerizing fire walking ceremony, her world expands rapidly—even more so when she falls in love with Thanasis, a handsome Communist. Through Thanasis, Kate meets people determined to turn a spotlight on their former dictators’ massacre of university students, as well as their record of widespread censorship and torture of dissidents. The more she learns, the more her loyalty to her country and almost everything she was taught in her conservative home state of Texas is challenged. Kate is transformed by her odyssey, but when her very safety is threatened by the politics of her lover, she must choose: risk everything to stay with Thanasis and the Greece that has captured her heart, or remove herself from harm’s way by returning to her homeland? Pub Date: June 13, 2023 Author: Kathryn Crawley -
Karen Gershowitz is officially a travel addict—one with more than ninety countries under her belt. In these engaging stories, she brings readers along as her companions as she explores, laughs, and marvels at the richness of other cultures. Whether she’s picking through the worst meal ever in the wilds of Tanzania, eating a transcendent strudel in Vienna, meeting the locals in an isolated opal mining hamlet in Australia’s outback, or learning to make noodles in a Chinese village, she invites you to share in her experiences. Whatever kind of traveler you are, novice or experienced, or even if you prefer sitting in your armchair, these stories will transport you deep into other ways of living in the world—and, hopefully, inspire you to set out on your own journeys! Author: Karen Gershowitz Pub Date: October 3, 2023 -
A riveting journey through sacrifice, resilience, and love in the heart of the Civil War, readers follow Adrien Villere as he fights for love and honor with Terry’s Texas Rangers, while his family copes with hardship and tragedy at home. An epic tale of forbidden love and courage that transcends societal boundaries. Book 2 in the series continues to hook fans of Southern literature or Civil War history—while also having, as the Historical Novel Society North America says, “the potential to be an important part of the canon of LGBTQ+ literature.” Author: Karen Lynne Klink Publication Date: April 9, 2025 -
Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Finalist IndieFab Awards Finalist (Top 15) “Reed’s charming novel stars a neurotic singer with mother issues who has been avoiding auditions and attending frustrating therapy sessions instead. When Cecilia meets a homeless boy on the streets, however, her life takes a risky new direction. A well-written, endearing book that surprises . . . ” —Kirkus Reviews Approaching forty, unemployed but well-off, talented but unknown, functional but depressed, former musical actress Cecilia Morrison reluctantly starts therapy, hoping for a change in her life, but ultimately it's a runaway teenager who cons her out of sixty bucks, not therapy, that gives her the inspiration she's looking for. Author: Mary Hutchings Reed Publication Date: April 23, 2013 -
2014 USA Best Book Awards: Nominee, Autobiography/Memoir Warrior Mother is the true story of a mother’s fierce love and determination, and her willingness to go outside the bounds of the ordinary when two of her three adult children are diagnosed with life-threatening diseases. When Sheila Collins’s best friend, dying of breast cancer, asked her to accompany her through what turned out to be the last fourteen days of her life, she didn’t know that the experience was preparing her for what laid ahead with her own children. In the years that followed, Collins had to face both her son’s diagnosis with AIDS and her daughter’s diagnosis with breast cancer. Warrior Mother documents how she faces these challenges and the issues accompanying them—from learning to be the mother of a gay son to visiting a healer in Brazil on her daughter’s behalf when she decides on bone marrow transplant treatment. Experience as a professional social worker and family therapist doesn’t always help Collins to cope with her children’s illnesses—but her relationship with improvisational song, dance, storytelling, and women’s spirituality rituals carries her through. Author: Sheila K. Collins Publication Date: August 6, 2013 -
In 1991, Julia Wilkes, a zealous young reporter, covered the murder of a teenage girl in Fairbanks, Alaska. Julia’s stories relentlessly linked the girl’s boyfriend, Josh Harrison, to the crime—up to the day that the basketball star shot himself in the head. Twenty years later, Julia, now a Seattle journalism professor and syndicated columnist, comes back to Fairbanks on a sabbatical just in time to hear about a serial killer’s confession to the long-ago slaying. With Josh exonerated, Julia is haunted by whether her stories pushed him to end his life—and when a stalker begins to make attempts on her life, the stakes grow even higher. Suspects and motives abound: Julia’s enraged a pro-life group with a recent column; she’s drawn a jealous woman’s wrath; she’s unintentionally drawn the attention of a demented homeless person; and there’s always the possibility that someone from her past has come to collect vengeance for Josh’s death. Author: Patricia Watts Publication Date: March 19, 2013 -
Suzanne’s story begins with a phone call from her husband, Michael, telling her he has collapsed on the job. They soon learn he has multiple sclerosis. Despite the negative patterns threatening their marriage, she is determined to handle the caregiving tasks suddenly thrust upon her. Through love, psychological insights, and spiritual inquiry, she cultivates her abilities—and gains the courage to confront a medical system that often saves her husband but at other times threatens his life. As time progresses, Michael undergoes many hospitalizations; he also makes miraculous recoveries that allow adventure back into their lives, including a numinous experience with dragonflies. When Suzanne faces her own medical crisis, their world is shaken once again—but throughout it all, love is their bond, one even death cannot sever. In Watching for Dragonflies, Suzanne reaches out to other caregivers and anyone who has experienced a life-changing crisis, inviting them to explore the many avenues of growth and transformation that uninvited change can bring. Often poignant, at times funny, and always riveting, Watching for Dragonflies will bring comfort—and inspiration—to readers as they navigate their own transformative journey. Pub Date: June 6, 2023 Author: Suzanne Marriott -
Families who have supported a child with special needs will connect with this memoir about Sarah, a feisty girl with autism and a unique genetic blueprint. Her mom, Jenny, is equally feisty and determined, which leads her to make a commitment that dramatically changes her and Sarah’s lives—as well as those of many others. Sarah’s early years are filled with challenges, and Jenny and her husband, Carl, try various therapies in an effort to help her. At four years old, Sarah is still nonverbal, still doesn’t use the potty, and still struggles with eating. Jenny knows she must do more. She has heard of a method developed by the Autism Treatment Center of America called The Son-Rise Program, which, through loving, supportive interaction, aims to foster social connection in people with autism. It is a huge undertaking, requiring hours of one-on-one therapeutic playtime, which means Jenny needs to find and train volunteers to make it possible. Though Jenny isn’t sure she can do it, she decides to try. She calls her program Sarah-Rise. Accompany Jenny as Sarah’s language explodes, her eye contact intensifies, and she plays games, plays imaginatively, uses the potty, eats healthily, reads, and writes. Have your heart warmed and your socks knocked off by this momentous journey. Author: Jennifer Celeste Briggs Publication Date: January 21, 2025 -
2015 IPPY: Gold: Contemporary Fiction, Winner After her farmhouse in Greenwich, Connecticut is destroyed, Lidia is thankful her teenage twins, Carly and Clarisse, are unharmed and that her friend Polly Niven has taken them in. Lidia, whose husband left her and the girls for another man, lost her job in the financial crisis. She fears more bad news and soon discovers a connection between her and Tina Calderara, the pilot who crashed into her home. In the midst of her troubles, she meets Harry Caligan, the FBI Special Agent assigned to her case. With Harry’s help, Lidia plunges into the family mystery linking her to Tina. Author: Jean P. Moore Publication Date: June 3, 2014 -
Barnaby Brown has had enough of freezing winters, a dead-end job, and his life alone with his parrot. He wants to start anew move to California, and reawaken his lost dream of becoming an artist. Then his car crashes into as now bank nixing his plan of driving West and his beloved parrot flies away, and suddenly California feels very out of reach. After a run-in with a former teaching colleague, Barnaby is shocked into an awareness of how low he has sunk. He vows to make changes, including kicking his drinking habit and settling his debts. With the help of some good friends, Barnaby starts taking steps toward a better life and finds romance and more than a few mysteries to unravel along the way. A heartwarming novel about ordinary people and their hidden talents, Waterbury Winter celebrates the importance of keeping promises and the restorative value of art. Author: Linda Stewart Henley Pub Date: May 3, 2022 -
A dazzling literary romance about a young socialite and a smooth-talking pilot who take a chance on each other against the extreme odds orchestrated by their peers and mother nature. In 1950s New England, being a marriageable young lady means following a certain set of rules. Nineteen-year-old Sabina knows them all too well, thanks to her imposing aunt Poppy, who has already decided how Sabina will spend the season at their summer home in Edgartown, where she’ll go to college in the fall, and the type of young man she’ll eventually marry. But Sabina has other ideas. And the island, it seems, does too. Sabina is about to meet the Vineyard’s most notorious bachelor: charter pilot Colin Hatch. With a cloudy history, a questionable income, and a reputation for charming every available girl at the yacht club, Colin isn’t exactly the traditional match her aunt had in mind. When Sabina takes a chance on him anyway, a complex love triangle emerges, setting Sabina’s summer on an entirely different path—not just for this vacation season, but maybe for the rest of her life. A coming-of-age story woven into a small coastal town’s various dramas, Ways of Virtue is Dirty Dancing meets Jane Austen—complete with a beautiful seaside setting, a high-society wedding in the making, a host of scheming, jealous neighbors, and a once-in-a-lifetime hurricane that’s barreling toward them all. Author:Liz O’Neill Publication Date: September 30, 2025 -
In the United States, more than 15 million women are parenting children on their own, either by circumstance or by choice. Too often these moms who do it all have been misrepresented and maligned. Not anymore. In We Got This, seventy-five solo mom writers tell the truth about their lives—their hopes and fears, their resilience and setbacks, their embarrassments and triumphs. Some of these writers’ names will sound familiar, like Amy Poehler, Anne Lamott, and Elizabeth Alexander, while others are about to become unforgettable. Bound together by their strength, pride, and—most of all— their dedication to their children, they broadcast a universal and empowering message: You are not alone, solo moms—and your tenacity, courage, and fierce love are worthy of celebration. Author: Marika Lindholm et. al Publication Date: September 10, 2019 -
We Never Told is a page-turning novel about a glamorous family in the golden age of Hollywood. Set in suburban New York, it follows Sonya Adler's life from growing up in a "broken home," to the hippie sixties, and into the present with a shocking twist at the end. The story outlines a time when unmarried women were shamed into putting their newborns up for adoption and the consequences which have touched thousands of people. This fast-paced story is not just about sisters keeping a secret but is a heart-wrenching and funny tale about a not often talked-about part of American history: children finding their birth families fifty years later. Author: Diana Altman Publication Date: June 11, 2019 -
Debbie and Judy are twins—but Judy was born with cerebral palsy, and Debbie was not. Despite the severity of Judy’s brain damage, her parents chose to keep her at home with her three siblings, and ultimately Judy lived at home with them well into adulthood. Even after her father died, she continued to stay with her mother, her care augmented by a succession of home attendants—until, that is, her doctor told Debbie that Judy’s care at home was wanting and she would not survive without nursing home care. In We Used to Dance, Debbie tells of the emotional trauma she experienced when she was forced to place her sister—a sister unable to sit, stand, eat regular food, feed herself, use a bathroom, or make her needs and desires known through speech or other means—in a new and strange environment. Following Judy’s life in her new home as well as her past relationship with Debbie and the rest of their immediate family, this is a raw, personal memoir of love and guilt—and, ultimately, acceptance. Author: Debbie Chein Morris Pub Date: October 24, 2023 -
In this fast-paced coming-of-age novel we meet Fiona, an art student at a New Jersey college who is brilliant, beautiful, and struggling to find herself. Through her eyes we relive the turbulent culture of sex, drugs, and rock ’n roll, the first draft lottery since World War II, the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, the Kent State University shootings, and the harsh realities of war for Americans in their early twenties. Fiona’s best friend, Melissa, is in a dead-end relationship, pregnant, and going nowhere fast. After Melissa’s abortion, Fiona and Melissa spend a week in Florida, where they are introduced to tarot cards and the anti-war movement. Following this experience, Melissa becomes obsessed with the occult; Fiona, though intrigued, approaches the tarot cautiously, with the voice of her conservative Christian mother screaming in her head. After Fiona’s return from Florida, she begins dating Reuben—a journalism major and political activist. Reuben decides to move to Canada to avoid the draft and encourages Fiona to accompany him. But is that really what she wants? Caught between her feelings for Reuben and her own aspirations, Fiona struggles to define herself, her artistic career, and her future. Author: Susen Edwards Publication Date: November 15, 2022 -
For readers who were inspired by Alua Arthur’s Briefly Perfectly Human, an emotional, eye-opening account of one woman’s journey from loss and abuse to healing and spiritual awakening. As a boy, Jay Amelong predicted the accident that caused his death, down to the color of the car that hit him. “I will die young, while riding my bike,” he told friends and family repeatedly. “It won’t be much longer, I want you to be prepared.” These were baffling words to hear from the mouth of a content thirteen-year-old—but when Kristina Amelong was only seventeen, her brother’s tragic death unfolded exactly as he said it would, radically changing her life. Propelled down a self-destructive path of drug addiction and reckless sex, Kristina spent much of her young adult years wanting to die. Once or twice she came close. Always, Jay’s bizarre story and his inexplicable acceptance of his own death lived in her body. More than thirty years after losing Jay, Kristina embarks on a journey of discovery, seeking truth about herself, her brother, and the universe. The result of her investigation is a memoir that defies belief. Charting a life path from loss and abuse to healing and spiritual awakening, What My Brother Knew demonstrates the transformative power of facing the mystery of death head-on and our incredible ability, as humans, to do just that. Author: Kristina Amelong Publication Date: May 27, 2025 -
When a young girl feels complicit in her own abuse, how does that thwart her attempts to build a happy life as an adult woman? When disturbing memories begin to surface, Marti returns to the small Vermont town she ran away from thirty years ago to face her demons. She drags her unwitting teenage daughter along on the journey—heightening already existing tension between mother and daughter. But Marti is determined to achieve what she’s returned home for: forgiveness for lies told, and revenge for secrets held. Exploring the vast social changes that took place between 1970 and 2000 and turning a critical eye on times before language such as #MeToo helped give voice to these all-too-common occurrences, What Was Lost is a raw, powerful tale of one woman confronting the ghosts of her past. Author: Melissa Connelly Publication Date: October 8, 2024 -
In 1967, Fay Stonewell, a water tank escape artist in Florida, leaves for Vietnam to join the Amazing Humans, a jerry-rigged carnival entertaining the troops, abandoning her teenage, disabled son, Dickie, in the care of an abusive boyfriend. Now forty-years-old, Dickie recalls the chaotic months after Fay left. His troubled home life ends in a surprising act of violence, forcing him to run away first to Manhattan, where he’s taken in by the eccentric artist Laurence Jones and later, by Spin, a gay man struggling with AIDS in a Massachusetts coastal town. Spin may offer Dickie what he’s always wanted: a home without wheels. But the farther Dickie runs, the tighter the past clings to him. Fay faces dangerous threats also. From the night her plane jolts onto a darkened Saigon runway, she confronts every bad decision she’s made as she struggles to return to her son. But the Humans owner is hellbent on keeping her in Vietnam, performing only for war-injured children at a hospital, daily reminders of the son she’s left behind. Ultimately, What We Give, What We Take is a deeply moving story of second chances and rising above family circumstances, however dysfunctional they may be. Author: Randi Triant Pub Date: April 12th, 2022 -
In 1947, war bride Ursula arrives in Minneapolis torn between guilt over leaving loved ones behind and her desire to start a new life—and a family—in this promised land. But the American dream proves elusive—she is struck with polio, and then shocked by the sudden death of her GI husband. Without a spouse or the child she so desperately wanted, Ursula must rely on her shrewd survival skills from wartime Berlin, and she takes in a boarder to help make ends meet. She soon falls in love with the Argentinean medical technician living in her spare bedroom, but his devotion to communism troubles her—and when she finds herself pregnant with his child, she is faced with a dilemma: how to reconcile her dream of motherhood with an America that is so different from what she imagined. Pub Date: July 25, 2023 Author: Christine Gallagher Kearney -
Kassie O’Callaghan’s meticulous plans to divorce her emotionally abusive husband, Mike, and move in with Chris, a younger man she met five years ago on a solo vacation in Venice, are disrupted when she finds out Mike has chronic kidney disease—something he’s concealed from her for years. Once again, she postpones her path to freedom—at least, until she pokes around his pajama drawer and discovers his illness is the least of his deceits. But Kassie is no angel, either. As she struggles to justify her own indiscretions, the secret lives she and Mike have led collide head-on, revealing a tangled web of sex, lies, and DNA. Still, mindful of her vows, Kassie commits to helping her husband find an organ donor. In the process, she uncovers a life-changing secret. Problem is, if she reveals it, her own immorality will be exposed, which means she has an impossible decision to make: Whose life will she save—her husband’s or her own? Author: Valerie Taylor Publication Date: September 15, 2020 -
In her second novel, Valerie Taylor—award-winning author of What’s Not Said—gives readers another romantic comedy interwoven with forbidden love, infidelity, and family. With the court date set for her divorce and the future she’d planned with a younger man presumably kaput, Kassie O’Callaghan shifts attention to reviving her stalled marketing career. But that goal gets complicated when she unexpectedly rendezvous with her former lover in Paris. After a chance meeting with a colleague and a stroll along Pont Neuf, Kassie receives two compelling proposals. Can she possibly accept them both? Kassie’s decision process screeches to a halt when her soon-to-be ex-husband has a heart attack, forcing her to fly home to Boston. There, she confronts his conniving and deceitful fiancée—a woman who wants not just a ring on her finger but everything that belongs to Kassie. In the ensuing battle to protect what’s legally and rightfully hers, Kassie discovers that sometimes it’s what’s not true that can set you free. Author: Valarie Taylor Publication Date: August 24, 2021 -
What’s Your Book? is an aspiring author’s go-to guide for getting from idea to publication. Brooke Warner is a publishing expert with thirteen years’ experience as an acquiring editor for major trade houses. In her book, she brings her unique understanding of book publishing (from the vantage point of coach, editor, and publisher) to each of the book’s five chapters, which include understanding the art of becoming an author, getting over common hurdles, challenging counterproductive mindsets, building an author platform, and ultimately getting published. Brooke is known for her straightforward delivery, honest assessments, and compassionate touch with authors. What’s Your Book? contains the inspiration and information every writer needs to publish their first or next book. Author: Brooke Warner Publication Date: September 18, 2014 -
Born in the Netherlands at a time when girls are to be housewives and mothers and nothing else, Hendrika de Vries is a “daddy’s girl” until her father is deported from Nazi-occupied Amsterdam to a POW camp in Germany and her mother joins the Resistance. In the aftermath of her father’s departure, Hendrika watches as freedoms formerly taken for granted are eroded with escalating brutality by men with swastika armbands who aim to exterminate those they deem “inferior” and those who do not obey. As time goes on, Hendrika absorbs her mother’s strength and faith, and learns about moral choice and forced silence. She sees her hidden Jewish “stepsister” betrayed, and her mother interrogated at gunpoint. She and her mother suffer near starvation, and they narrowly escape death on the day of liberation. But they survive it all―and through these harrowing experiences, Hendrika discovers the woman she wants to become. Author: Hendrika de Vries Publication Date: August 27, 2019 -
When Diana quit her job and followed her husband to Manila, she believed the move would work for both of them: Jay would finally have his dream job, and she would take time off from her accounting career to start a family. Four years later, however, she’s still not pregnant. Her fertility doctor advises her to relax—an undertaking that is easier said than done in one of the noisiest, most crowded cities in the world. Nevertheless, Diana tries. She takes up yoga and meditation. She buys goldfish. Then one day, while Jay is away on business, a violent coup d’état erupts. The rebels bomb the presidential palace and occupy parts of the city. Clearly, Diana decides, something needs to change. Determined to have a baby while she’s still young enough, she convinces Jay to transfer to the small South Pacific nation of Vanuatu, said to be “the most relaxing place on earth.” It isn’t long before she realizes that the island’s tropical beauty hides dangers and disappointments that will test her courage, her marriage, and her ability to open herself up to new possibilities. Publication Date: April 27, 2021 Author: Nicki Chen -
“Lena’s beautifully developed character, Ridley’s commanding sense of place, and a well-drawn supporting cast bring this intricate historical fiction vividly to life.” —Barbara Stark-Nemon, author of Even in Darkness Coming of age in Prague in the 1930s, Lena Kulkova is inspired by the left-wing activists who resist the rise of fascism. She meets Otto, a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, and follows him to Paris to work for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. As the war in Spain ends and a far greater war engulfs the continent, Lena gets stuck in Paris with no news from her Jewish family, including her beloved baby sister, left behind in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Otto, meanwhile, has fled to a village in England, and urges Lena to join him, but she can’t obtain a visa. When Lena and Otto are finally reunited, the safe haven Lena has hoped for doesn’t last long. Their relationship becomes strained, and Lena is torn between her loyalty to Otto and her growing attraction to Milton, the son of the eccentric Lady of the Manor. As the war continues, she yearns to be reunited with her sister, while Milton is preoccupied with the political turmoil that leads to the landslide defeat of Churchill in the 1945 election. Based on a true story, When It’s Over is a moving, resonant, and timely read about the lives of war refugees, dramatic political changes, and the importance of family, love, and hope. Author: Barbara Ridley Publication Date: September 26, 2017 -
Lindsey Henke is freshly married and a newly practicing psychotherapist when she finds out she is pregnant with her first child. Nine months later, on a cold Minnesota night in December 2012, after a perfect pregnancy, Lindsey goes into labor—only to be told upon arrival at the hospital that her baby has no heartbeat. After the stillbirth of her daughter, Lindsey grapples with the unbearable agony of losing a child. Unprepared to cope with a sorrow this deep, she uses the only tools she has—her skills as a therapist—to plot her own path through grief. Over the next year and half, as Lindsey mourns the loss of one child while simultaneously trying to hold space for the joy of expecting another baby, she learns that grief can live side by side with joy. When Skies Are Gray offers a poignant message to any mother who is grieving: Your pain is real. The sharp ache of the grief you feel will soften over time, though your love for the child you lost will always remain. And it’s okay to feel that love; it’s a mother’s love, and like lullabies, a mother’s love never dies. Author: Lindsey M. Henke Publication Date: May 21, 2024 -
When China opened its doors in the 1980s, it shocked the world by allowing private enterprise and free markets. Dori Jones was among the first American correspondents to cover China under Deng Xiaoping, who dared to defy Maoist doctrine to try to catch up with richer nations. Though introverted, Dori used her fluency in Mandarin to get to know the ordinary people she met—people embracing opportunities that had once been unimaginable in China. Soon, Dori fell for a Chinese man who had fled China with his family in 1949 and only recently returned. Together, they found the relatives his parents had left behind, who were just starting to hope for a better future. This euphoria—shared by American businesses and Chinese citizens alike—reached its peak in 1989, when a million peaceful protestors filled Tiananmen Square, demanding democracy. Dori lived that hope, as well as the despair that followed when the army opened fire. After Tiananmen, dejected and sure that the era of promising possibilities was over, she returned to America in 1990—only to watch as China resumed its growth. Written in a time when China’s rapid rise is setting off fears in Washington, When the Red Gates Opened offers insight into the daring policies that started it all. Author: Dori Jones Yang Publication Date: September 22, 2020 -
What sort of mad longing besets a woman—nearing fifty and recently widowed—to sell everything she owns, buy an around-the-world airline ticket, pack a single suitcase, and set off alone on a year-long journey without a plan or agenda? When Your Heart Says Go answers that question. Set in 1990–’91, Judy’s story takes readers from San Diego through eleven European countries, the then-Soviet Union, and finally India, during the lead-up to the first Gulf War. Explorations of foreign locales and interactions with strangers and acquaintances who become a lifeline to friendship are interspersed with occasional flashbacks to Judy’s life with her beloved husband, Tom, as well as his illness and death. Descriptions of sites historic and current serve as both daily life and background for Judy’s struggle to find her way as a sober, single, independent woman in the vast world as it edges toward the collapse of the Soviet Union and war in the Middle East. The outer journey serves as a container for the inner; the more Judy experiences of the world, the more she learns about herself—and the closer she gets to realizing her lifelong dream of being a writer. Author: Judy Reeves Pub Date: October 10, 2023 -
In Where Do You Hang Your Hammock? seasoned coach and author Bella Mahaya Carter shows writers how to use their present circumstances as stepping-stones to a successful and meaningful writing life, navigated from the inside out. It encourages writers and authors to rethink their ambitions (which may be fueled by the tyrannical demands of the ego) and trust in their heartfelt purpose and values in the journey to becoming, or continuing on, as authors. Many writers believe their self-sabotaging thoughts are trustworthy and true. They take rejection personally. They surmise that if they don’t achieve their goals they have failed, and lose sight of who they are and what matters most. This book is for writers looking for inspiration and for authors daunted by the publishing process, who might lack the requisite author platform to get published the way they dreamed, or whose careers may not be unfolding as expected. It aims to be the friend and trusted expert writers turn to when hijacked by their own thinking. Ultimately, it reminds authors that they are infinite creators. Publication Date: June 1, 2021 Author: Bella Mahaya Carter -
Where Have I Been All My Life? is a compelling memoir recounting one woman’s journey through grief and a profound feeling of unworthiness to wholeness and healing. It begins with the chillingly sudden death of Rice’s mother, and is followed by her foray into the center of mourning. With wisdom, grace, and humor, Rice recounts the grief games she plays in an effort to resurrect her mother; her misguided efforts to get her therapist to run away with her (or at least accept her gifts); and the transformation of her husband from fantasy man to ordinary guy to superhero. In the process, she experiences aching revelations about her family and her past—and realizes what she must leave behind, and what she can carry forward with her. Poignant, tender, and sometimes hilarious, Where Have I Been All My Life? is Rice’s universally relatable story of how she found sustenance for the difficult—but vital—journey toward love and wholeness in an unexpected place: herself. Author: Cheryl Rice Publication Date: October 7, 2014 -
It’s 1976, and Shelley Ilillouette, unemployed and without prospects, has never heard of the Kingdom of Tonga—but when an artist offers her a job in this South Pacific kingdom, she takes it. She arrives in Tonga to discover that her employer has vanished. Alone in a bewildering world where ancient Polynesia mingles with missionaries, Peace Corps, and yacht dwellers, she is adopted by Foeata, a genial Tongan who decides that a mafu—a sweetheart—will solve Shelley’s problems. Foeata favors the Peace Corps doctor, Skip, but he is smitten with Lily, a mysterious half-Tongan actress. Then Shelley’s first and only lover, Jackson, follows her to the islands, and life only get more complicated. When Lily goes missing, too, and Jackson’s visit proves disastrous, Shelley has to admit that she has not escaped from anything; she has just brought all the confusion of life with her. Why, Foeata wonders, are Americans so bad at love? Amidst encounters with sharks and one octopus (meetings far less harrowing than those she has with missionaries and ex-lovers over the course of her adventure), Shelley untangles a web of stories reaching back decades, leading her to conclude that Tonga may indeed be what its king has proclaimed: the place where time begins. Author: Sasha Paulsen Pub Date: July 5, 2022 -
A writer at Dateline NBC tries her hand at a different kind of mystery, perfect for fans of Chandler Baker’s Whisper Network, where a cynical TV news producer sells out her principles to rise to her network’s top job, and comes face-to-face with what appears to be her idealistic teenage self. Everleigh Page is on the cusp of greatness. Executive producer of an award-winning primetime news magazine, she’s just been offered a role never attained by a woman at her network: president of the news division. It will be her job to shape coverage of world events and mold the journalists of tomorrow. Too bad in order to get here she’s sold out most of the principles she held as an idealistic young reporter. Too bad she’s just, at the direction of her boss, fired two of her best staffers and killed an important investigative story that could save lives. As a woman, she knows, you have to play ball to get to the top. Even if it means bending your moral code or breaking up with your boyfriend. Sean may be the love of her life, but his large, complicated family has started taking up too much of her time. Her younger self wouldn’t recognize her. Or will she? When a college reunion takes a mystical twist, Everleigh finds herself defending her choices to the toughest critic in the world and confronting a crucial question: can she possibly right all the wrongs she was willing to tolerate just an hour ago? Author: Lorna Graham Publication Date: May 13, 2025 -
After a lifetime of strained bonds with her aging parents, Patricia Williams finds herself in the unexpected position of being their caregiver and neighbor. As they all begin to navigate this murky battleground, the long-buried issues that have divided their family for decades—alcoholism, infidelity, opposing politics—rear up and demand to be addressed head-on. Williams answers the call of duty with trepidation at first, confronting the lines between service and servant, guardian and warden, while her parents alternately resist her help and wear her out. But by facing each new struggle with determination, grace, and courage, they ultimately emerge into a dynamic of greater transparency, mutual support, and teachable moments for all. Honest and humorous, graceful and grumbling, While They’re Still Here is a poignant story about a family that waves the white flag and begins to heal old wounds as they guide each other through the most vulnerable chapter of their lives. Author: Patricia Williams Publication Date: November 7, 2017
