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During the German occupation of the Netherlands, 1940 to 1945, all Jews were ordered to register the religion of their grandparents. The Reichskommissar appointed the young lawyer Hans Calmeyer to adjudicate “doubtful cases.” Calmeyer used his assignment to save at least 3,700 Jews from deportation and death, dwarfing the number saved by Schindler’s famous rescue operation. Laureen Nussbaum―née Hannelore Klein―owes her life to this brave German official. In Shedding Our Stars, she tells how Calmeyer declared her mother non-Jewish and deleted her and her family from the deportation lists, saving them from death. She goes on to interweave his story with her family‘s tale of survival, as well as with that of her boyfriend and, later, husband, Rudi Nussbaum. Since in Amsterdam the Kleins were close to the Franks, Anne Frank and her family also figure in book. Going beyond the liberation of the Netherlands to follow both Calmeyer’s and the author’s story to the end of their lives, Shedding Our Stars is a story of courage in the darkest of times, and of the resilience of the human spirit. Author: Laureen Nussbaum Publication Date: October 1, 2019 -
2016 Foreward INDIE Awards Finalist, Science Fiction 2016 Indie Fab Finalist, Science Fiction 2017 National Indie Excellence Finalist, Regional Fiction: Southeast On Memorial Day, a series of bomb explosions shuts down major cities across the US. Her apartment in ruins, Sabine flees Washington DC and begins a grueling journey on foot that brings her to West Virginia, where she finds safety at an abandoned farmhouse with other refugees. For Sabine, family is a vague memory—she can’t even remember her last name. Without an identity, she hides—although thirty-five, she pretends to be twenty-eight, even to the refugee she falls in love with. But Sabine wants to recover her identity. Despite gangs, bombings, riots, and spreading disease, she longs to return to a family she has begun to recall—a mother, a father, and brothers. Are they alive, surviving, in hiding as she is? Do they await news, and hope to reconcile? Even in harrowing times, Sabine’s desires to belong and to be loved pull her away from shelter. Author: Lenore Gay Publication Date: August 9, 2016 -
2016 Indie Excellence Winner in Literary Fiction “A sensitively told exploration of layers of loss, isolation, motherhood, and marriage. Diamond knows there are no easy answers and her portrait of Sarah is drawn by a skillful, compassionate hand.” —Aimee Bender, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake and An Invisible Sign of My Own Since the death of her infant daughter, lawyer-turned-stay-at-home mom Sarah Shaw has struggled to keep it together for her two young sons and law professor husband. With her husband burying himself in his career and her friendships all having withered, she is lost in a private world of grief. Then one day walking in L.A., Sarah’s heart catches at the sight of a young homeless woman pushing a baby in a stroller—and saving them becomes her mission. An unlikely bond grows between Sarah and the mother, Josie, whose pride and strained relationship with her own mother prevent her from going home to Oakland. Through her friendship with Josie, Sarah slowly learns that those we love are never far, even in death—and that sometimes it is the people we set out to save who save us. Shelter Us speaks to the quiet joys and anxieties of parenthood, and illuminates the place all parents know: that shadowy space between unconditional love and fear of unbearable loss. Author: Laura Diamond Publication Date: June 8, 2015 -
Kim Fairley was twenty-four when she fell in love with and married a man who was fifty-seven. Something about Vern—his quirkiness, his humor, his devilish smile—made her feel an immediate connection with him. She quickly became pregnant, but instead of the idyllic interlude she’d imagined as she settled into married life and planned for their family, their love was soon tested by the ghosts of Vern’s past—a town, a house, a family, a memory. Shooting Out the Lights is a real-life mystery that explores the challenges faced in a loving marriage, the ongoing, wrenching aftermath of gun violence and the healing that comes with confronting the past. Publication Date: July 27, 2021 Author: Kim Fairley -
A powerful contemporary romance that explores the incredible healing power of love. Tess Lee is a world-famous novelist. Her inspirational books explore people’s innermost struggles and the human need to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel—but despite her extraordinary success, she’s been unable to find personal happiness. Jack Miller is a federal agent working in counterterrorism. After spending decades immersed in a violent world, a residue remains. He’s dedicated everything to his job, leaving nothing for himself. The night Tess and Jack meet, their connection is palpable. She examines the scars on his body and says, “I’ve never seen anyone whose outsides match my insides.” The two embark on an epic love story, but old traumas soon rise to the surface as Jack struggles with the death of a loved one and Tess is forced to confront her childhood abuse. Can unconditional love help heal their invisible wounds? Together, will they be able to move from darkness to light? Author: Patricia Leavy Publication Date: March 18, 2025 -
An acclaimed author’s collection of short stories for fans of genre-bending fiction, Shot blends social impact fiction and activist fiction, tackling the gun violence crisis head on. Anna argues with her mom about a school science award. Ben discovers in his seventh decade that he is Jewish. Chester searches for his little sister in a snowstorm. Dixie is pregnant with her second child. Their stories and twenty-two others read like the ABC’s of everyday life. One way or another, the challenges that bring drama to our lives work themselves out, right? Or maybe not. Sometimes the ending isn’t at all what you expect. Shot is a collection of short stories about gun violence, organized as a dictionary, with a story for each letter of the alphabet. Each life is precious. And life itself is to be celebrated. Author: Jude Berman Publication Date: July 15, 2025 -
It's Berkeley in the 1960s, and all Martha Goldenthal wants is to do well at Berkeley High and plan for college. But her home life is a cauldron of kooky ideas, impossible demands, and explosive physical violence. Her father, Jules, is an iconoclast who hates academia and can’t control his fists. Her mother, Willa, has made a career of victimhood and expects Martha and her siblings, Hildy and Drew, to fend for themselves. Meanwhile, Jules’s classical record store, located directly across the street from the U.C. Berkeley campus, is ground zero for riots and tear gas. Martha perseveres with the help of her best friend, who offers laughter, advice about boys, and hospitality. But when Willa and Jules divorce and Jules loses his store and livelihood, Willa goes entirely off the rails. A heartless boarding school placement, eviction from the family home, and an unlikely custody case wind up putting Martha and Drew in Jules's care. Can Martha stand up to her father to do the one thing she knows she must—go to college? With its running "soundtrack" of classical recordings and rock music and its vivid scenes of Berkeley at its most turbulent, Shrug is the absorbing, harrowing, and ultimately uplifting story of one young woman’s journey toward independence. Author: Lisa Braver Moss Publication Date: August 13, 2019 -
A Riveting Memoir of Faith, Struggle and Rebirth That Will Have You on the Edge of Your Seat “An inherently compelling and candidly revealing memoir . . . an extraordinary, riveting and unreservedly recommended read from first page to last.” —Midwest Book Review Linda Curtis was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness and is an unquestioning true believer who has knocked on doors from the time she was nine years old. Like other Witnesses, she has been discouraged from pursuing a career, higher education, or even voting, and her friendships are limited to the Witness community. Then one day, at age thirty-three, she knocks on a door—and a coworker she deeply respects answers the door. To their mutual consternation she launches into her usual spiel, but this time, for the first time ever, the message sounds hollow. In the months that follow, Curtis tries hard to overcome the doubts that spring from that doorstep encounter, knowing they could upend her “safe” existence. But ultimately, unable to reconcile her incredulity, she leaves her religion and divorces her Witness husband—a choice for which she is shunned by the entire community, including all members of her immediate family. Shunned follows Linda as she steps into a world she was taught to fear and discovers what is possible when we stay true to our hearts, even when it means disappointing those we love. Readers of Educated and Leaving the Witness will resonate with Linda Curtis’ moving and courageous account of personal transformation. Author: Linda Curtis Publication Date: April 17, 2018 -
When ambitious attorney Claire Hewitt is asked to represent the Satoris, one of Philadelphia’s most prominent families, in a lawsuit over the death of their daughter, she is thrust into an opioid nightmare with deadly impact—and not for the first time. Claire’s guilt for not saving her sister, Molly, has not subsided in the twenty years since Molly’s almost certainly opioid-related death. Now, with this new assignment, her guilt comes full circle. Who was really at fault in Molly’s death? And who is at fault now? What begins as a quest for truth becomes infinitely more complicated as Claire struggles to balance her desire for justice with the Satoris’ thirst for revenge. She knows she needs to expose the greed that transforms legal opioid production into illicit fabrications and the neglect that is the breaking point between physicians and their patients. But there are powerful people who will seemingly stop at nothing to prevent these truths from seeing the light of day, and she is sabotaged at every turn. Can she push past the obstacles in her way to build a winning case? Based on true events, Side Effects Are Minimal is about a corrupt pharmaceutical industry, the guilt of physicians prescribing the opioids that kill, and the pain experienced by families who’ve lost loved ones to an epidemic that has brought the United States to its knees. Author: Laura Essay Publication Date: July 9, 2024 -
Through personal stories and extensive research, Sidelined: How Women Manage (and Mismanage) Their Health examines the many ways in which women unwittingly neglect their own health. Researcher and writer Susan Salenger describes how women tend to place their needs behind the needs of their families, how they blame themselves for getting sick, and how they too often hesitate to question their doctors’ advice. But women’s attitudes toward themselves and their health don’t exist in a vacuum—which is why Salenger also examines the cultural and medical history that has conditioned women not to act in their own best interest, offering insight into the gender biases of the medical community and exploring why women are misdiagnosed more often than men and why we’ve been routinely omitted from clinical trials. Designed to help women—particularly women over thirty-five—become more aware of why they make the decisions they do and Sidelined will equip readers with the knowledge, language, and skill sets they need to get the best healthcare possible. Author: Susan Salenger Pub Date: April 12, 2022 -
Born during World War II, Marilee Eaves has long struggled to fit into the New Orleans elite―secret Mardi Gras societies that ruled the city―into which she was born. Then, as a student at Wellesley, she’s hospitalized at McLean psychiatric hospital, where she begins to realize how much of herself she’s sacrificed to blend into and be fully accepted by the exclusive and exclusionary white Uptown New Orleans culture to which she supposedly belongs. In Singing Out Loud, Eaves tells of her journey to stand on her own two feet―to find a way to be grounded and evolved in the midst of that culture. Along the way, she wrestles with bipolar disorder, alcoholism, and the effects of her bad (heartbreaking, and sometimes hilarious) choices. Raw and funny, this book offers hope and encouragement to willing to be vulnerable, address their issues, and laugh at themself in order to embrace who they truly are. Author: Marilee Eaves Publication Date: November 19, 2019 -
Numerous women in our culture have experienced shame, degradation, and despair as a result of having been sexually traumatized early in life. Some of these women end up in unhappy marriages or abusive relationships; some fall prey to a variety of addictions, silently or publicly; and some find themselves working in the sex industry. And for many survivors, their situations—and the situations that have brought them there—are secrets that have no voice. In Singing with the Sirens, experts Ellyn Bell and Stacey Bell address the long term complex trauma that results from the sexual abuse and exploitation of girls and young women, drawing on their personal and professional experiences to explore the link between the sexual abuse of children, issues of attachment and safety, and the commercial exploitation of young people. But this is not strictly a scholarly book or a memoir of personal experience; rather, the authors address this problem from a perspective of self-realization and transformation, taking the reader on a journey through mythological tales toward finding healing from within. Poetic, hopeful, and powerful, Singing with the Sirens is a call for wounded women everywhere to reclaim their own truth, spirit, and to sing with their authentic voice. Author: Ellyn Bell and Stacey Bell Publication Date: May 13, 2015 -
Lisa Cheek loved editing TV commercials—almost as much as she loved her dog, Ron Howard. Then, she “aged out” of advertising, at 45. After being let go, Lisa got a call—at 2:45 AM—from a director who, like everyone in Hollywood, had a film he wanted to make: the original Cinderella story. Now, his dream could come true—if Lisa granted his wish. In Sit, Cinderella, Sit, Lisa Cheek shares her adventures in editing a film made on location in China—along the Tibetan border—where Mandarin was the only language spoken by everyone but her. Stuck in a house with fourteen men she couldn’t understand, literally, she yearned for conversation and coffee. But there were moments of wonder and laughter. Lisa forged a bond with her translator and a woman named Sunny. She rescued one dog, and then another. “Everyone speaks Cinderella,” the director had assured her. Maybe he was right. Told with humor and heart through a fairy tale lens, with flashbacks into the author’s not-always-happy childhood, Sit, Cinderella, Sit is a story about what can happen when you take a leap of faith, look and hear beyond people’s differences, and dare to believe in yourself. Author: Lisa Cheek Publication Date: January 14, 2025 -
“It’s a jolly, lighthearted narrative, JoJo Moyes’ Me Before You (2012) for foodies. Like a slice of a favorite dessert, thoroughly enjoyable, but gone too soon.” —Kirkus Reviews “Size Matters offers the perfect blend of romance and friendship with a dash of culinary wit.” —Redbook John Frederick is a man of considerable substance, in every sense of the word. Rich, intelligent, reclusive, and very large, John Frederick lives to eat. His everyday needs are tended to by Mrs. Floyd, his house manager, and by a never-ending parade of personal chefs. Enter Lexie Alexander, the latest applicant for that once-again vacant position. A young woman of magical sensibilities, fresh out of culinary school and still recovering from a recent personal tragedy, Lexie lives to cook. As time passes, a love of food, musical comedy, and tea begins to weave a connection between John Frederick and his new chef—but then a major medical crisis completely turns life at Frederick House upside down, threatening the bond John Frederick and Lexie have forged. Size Matters is the story of how people interact with each other and with the world, and what happens when the structure of a person’s life, their self-image, and all their familiar coping mechanisms are shattered. Author: Cathryn Novak Publication Date: November 22, 2016 -
It's 1967, and Katherine Roebling is a Chicago-based stewardess caught between the hold of highflying travel and the call of her Native American ancestors just as the women’s movement is taking the US by storm. As she vacillates between an ever-present mystical ancestral feather and her alluring stewardess life of excitement and travel, she embarks on a journey from one adventure to the next—each episode bringing her closer to her predestined calling. A chance meeting with a college student from Athens, Greece at a Chicago Playboy Mansion Press Party and her visit to the Oracle of Delphi intertwine with Katherine's discovery of the treasure inside herself. Ultimately, she gains wings that allow her to glide over society’s barriers; she abandons the so-called glamorous life she’s been living, creates her own path, and embarks upon a new career at the Smithsonian in DC—one that will take her on a miraculous experience of personal growth and uncharted paths. Author: Judy Kundert Publication Date: June 18, 2019 -
At the age of eight, Linda Lockwood moves with her family to an isolated ranch in eastern Washington State. Within two years, she’s patrolling the ranch on horseback alongside her border collie—herding sheep, killing rattlesnakes, and defending the ranch’s livestock from coyotes, bears, and even trespassing hunters—and working tirelessly to realize her dream of training horses. But her most daunting challenge is one hard work can’t overcome: her mother is descending into madness. And Linda’s deepest fear is that she might inherit the schizophrenia that threatens to dismantle her family.
At age twenty-five, Linda marries, but the joy of her first pregnancy is darkened by her mother’s suicide. Then she endures a painful miscarriage and the death of her beloved grandmother, traumatic events that send her back in time to the births and deaths of animals—domesticated and wild—that she loved in childhood. Eventually, her own family grows, but her happiness is haunted by questions people have tiptoed around all her life. How did her mother become schizophrenic? What did she endure as a patient in 1960s mental hospitals? Might Linda and even her children be next to battle that catastrophic mental disorder? Driven by the courage and will she sharpened as a rancher, Linda vows to find out.
Author: Linda Lockwood Publication date: September 10, 2024 -
In the last years of the British Raj, an American missionary family stays on in Midnapore, India. Though the Hintons enjoy white privileges, they have never been accepted by British society and instead run a boarding house on the outskirts of town where wayward native Indians come to find relief. Young Gene Hinton can’t get out from under the thumb of his three older brothers, and the only person he can really relate to is Arthur, his family’s Indian servant. But when Uncle Ellis, a high-ranking British judge, suddenly arrives and announces he’ll be staying indefinitely in their humble house, far from his prestigious post in Himalayan foothills, life as Gene knows it is interrupted. While his brothers are excited at the judge’s arrival, he is skeptical as to why this important man is hiding out with them in the backwaters of Bengal. Also skeptical is Arthur. Then an Indian woman appears on their doorstep—and, after growing close to her, he learns the sinister truth about the judge. Torn between a family that has provided him shelter, work, and purpose his whole life and the escalating outrage of his countrymen, Arthur must decide where his loyalties lie—and the Hintons must decide if they can still call India home. Author: Joanne Howard Publication Date: October 22, 2024 -
Perfect for anyone interested in the behind-the-scenes of the ballet world, a rousing memoir of a brash young ballerina from a dysfunctional family who achieves her greatest dream only to realize—as she begins to find success—that she’s gay. With a priest for a father and a magician for a mother, Emily Sayre Smith was always going to have an interesting life—for better and for worse. Here, she recounts what it was like coming of age in Texas and Arizona in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s in a decidedly dysfunctional family. To escape her turbulent family life, Emily throws herself into her ballet classes, where she can dance out the anxiety in her body and take refuge in fantasy worlds. Driven by the dream of being a ballerina, she earns scholarships and lead roles, studies in London for two years, and eventually lands back in Tucson, where she joins a fledgling ballet company and falls in love—with a woman and with marijuana. Join Emily as she survives her troubled family, hangs out with dance royalty, saves Martha Graham, meets the Queen of England, slings hash in a diner, discovers her sexuality, and tries to figure out how it’s all going fit together in her ballerina world in this story of a brave and sometimes bumbling girl charging her way through life. Author: Emily Sayre Smith Publication Date: October 7, 2025 -
As her stultifying marriage to Jack is unravelling and she is mourning the loss of her creative self, Caro has a nightmare about Peter, an old love whom she hasn’t seen in twenty years. She takes this as a sign he still needs her and—with her three children safely off at summer camp—embarks on a pre-Facebook, pre-cell phone road trip to recapture who she once was and what she thinks she once had. Set in the sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll ’60s of Tucson, Arizona, when Caro and Peter were kooky, colorful, and inseparable, and in the suburban ’80s, when Caro’s creative spark has been quashed to serve the needs of her husband and children, So Happy Together explores the conundrum of love and sexual attraction, creativity and family responsibilities, and what happens when they are out of sync. It is a story of missed opportunities, the tantalizing possibility of second chances, and what we leave behind, carry forward, and settle for when we choose. It sits in that raw, messy, confounding, beautiful place where love resides. Publication Date: April 20, 2021 Author: Deborah K. Shepherd -
Diane Cook’s idyllic suburban life was shattered with one phone call. As she stood five feet away from her two young sons, her husband, Jed, delivered the news: He had just been arrested. For attempted solicitation of a minor male over the internet. Her world suddenly in shambles, Diane could have fallen apart―but she knew that wasn’t an option. She was a mom; her responsibility was to her boys. So she vowed to herself that she would keep herself―and her children―together. And then, just when it seemed things couldn’t get any worse, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. In the months that followed, Diane struggled to deal with Jed’s scandal, raise her two sons, and handle her new medical condition, all as a suddenly single mother. But she quickly learned that, even in her darkest times, she was not alone: her community was with her every step of the way, always ready to swoop in to support her when she needed it most. Ultimately, So Many Angels is an uplifting story of resilience and strength―and a tribute to the many friends and strangers who helped Diane and her boys survive the greatest trial of their lives. Author: Diane Stelfox Cook Publication Date: September 3, 2019 -
In her search to find healing and meaning in midlife, Glenda Goodrich undertakes a series of wilderness quests into the backcountry of Oregon, Washington, and California to discover what the natural world has to teach her about life, death, happiness, spirituality, and forgiveness. This book chronicles the sacred ceremonies that connected Goodrich to the land, wove her into nature’s web, and transformed her from a woman who worked to please others into a woman who forged her own path. It is a brilliant collection of adventures—the touch of coyote fur, a snake’s kiss, a ceremonial blood offering—and a profound reflection on the healing and restorative power of nature. Author: Glenda Goodrich Pub Date: September 26, 2023 -
At eighteen, Yvonne Martinez flees brutal domestic violence and is taken in by her dying grandmother . . . who used to be a sex worker. Before she dies, her grandmother reveals family secrets and shares her uncommon wisdom. “Someday, Mija,” she tells Yvonne, “you’ll learn the difference between a whore and a working woman.” She also shares disturbing facts about their family’s history—eventually leading Yvonne to discover that her grandmother was trafficked as a child in Depression-era Utah by her own mother, Yvonne’s great-grandmother, and that she was blamed for her own rape. In the years that follow her grandmother’s passing, Yvonne gets an education and starts a family. As she heals from her own abuse by her mother and stepfather, she becomes an advocate/labor activist. Grounded in her grandmother’s dictum not to whore herself out, she learns to fight for herself and teaches others to do the same—exposing sexual harassment in the labor unions where she works and fighting corruption. Intense but ultimately uplifting, Someday Mija, You’ll Learn the Difference Between a Whore and a Working Woman is a compelling memoir in essays of transforming transgenerational trauma into resilience and post-traumatic growth. Author: Yvonne Martinez Publication Date: October 18, 2022 -
Lady Isabel is just twelve years old when Lord Chetwynd rescues her from being raped by warriors in his company. When they meet eight years later, each has a good reason for entering an arranged marriage. Together, they embark on a perilous journey to the court of King Louis. On the way, danger from enemies on the journey brings them closer together; when they arrive at court, rivalry and intrigue nearly parts them. Ultimately, however, they survive these trials through their own native wit and charm—and gain new respect and love for one another. Rich with historical detail and drama, Song of Isabel is a compelling novel of love, sex, ambition, and intrigue. Author: Ida Curtis Publication Date: April 17, 2018 -
“Linda Joy Myers has written a remarkable, heartbreaking, and hopeful story. Song of the Plains is a memoir of fierce longing and a quest to understand the fragile bonds of family. Myers stitches together her past, finding solace in the landscape of the Great Plains and weaving in elements of story like a poet, detective, artist, therapist, mother, daughter, and historian. The fascinating and fractured women in this memoir will continue to whisper their songs for generations to come.” —Melissa Cistaro, Author of Pieces of My Mother Ever since she was a child, Linda Joy Myers felt the power of the past. As the third daughter in her family to be abandoned or estranged by a mother, she observed the consequences of that heritage on the women she loved as well as herself. But thanks to the stories told to her by her great-grandmother, Myers received a gift that proved crucial in her life: the idea that everyone is a walking storybook, and that we all have within us the key to a deeper understanding of life—the secret stories that make themselves known even without words. Song of the Plains is a weaving of family history that starts in the Oklahoma plains and spans over forty years as Myers combs through dusty archives, family stories, and genealogy online. She discovers the secrets that help to explain the fractures in her family, and the ways in which her mother and grandmother found a way not only to survive the great challenges of their eras, but to thrive despite mental illness and abuse. She discovers how decisions made long ago broke her family apart—and she makes it her life’s work to change her family story from one of abuse and loss to one of finding and creating a new story of hope, forgiveness, healing, and love. Author: Linda Joy Myers Publication Date: June 20, 2017
