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Eve Prince is done—with college, with her mom, with guys, and with her dream of fashion design. But when her best friend goes MIA, Eve must gather together the broken threads of her life in order to search for her. When Eve’s grandmother, Boop, a retiree dripping with Southern charm, finds out about the trip, she—desperate to see her sister, and also hoping to alleviate Eve’s growing depression—hijacks her granddaughter’s road trip. Boop knows from experience that healing Eve will require more than flirting lessons and a Garlic Festival makeover. Nevertheless, Boop is frustrated when her feeble efforts yield the same failure that her sulfur-laced sip from the Fountain of Youth wrought on her age. She knows that sharing the secret that’s haunted her for sixty years might be the one thing that will lessen Eve’s growing depression—but she also fears that if she reveals it, she’ll lose her family and her own hard-won happiness. Boop and Eve’s journey through the heart of Dixie is an unforgettable love story between a grandmother and her granddaughter. Author: Mary Helen Sheriff Publication Date: October 6, 2020 -
From the outside, Vanya’s childhood looked idyllic: she rode horses with her father in the solitude of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and attended flamboyant operas with her mother in the city. But life for Vanya and her family turned dark when ghosts from her father’s service on a Pacific destroyer in World War II tore her family apart. Set in postwar California, this is the story of a girl who tried to make sense of her parents’ unpredictable actions―from being left to lie in her own blood-soaked diaper while her Christian Scientist mother prayed, refusing to get medical help to watching her father writhe on his bed in the detox ward, his hands and feet tethered with leather straps―by immersing herself in the beauty and solitude of the wilderness around her. It was only decades later, when memories began to haunt her, that Vanya was able to look back with unflinching honesty and tender compassion for her family and herself. In this elegant, haunting narrative, Erickson invites us to witness it all―from the gripping, often disturbing, truths of her childhood to her ultimate survival. Author: Vanya Erickson Publication Date: August 21, 2018 -
For fans of Liane Moriarty and Maria Semple, this contemporary debut novel weaves together romance, mystery, and adventure as a woman travels to the Grand Canyon seeking answers after uncovering an old family secret. After crashing into a devastating revelation, Cyd’s tranquil life on the Florida panhandle is further upended when she receives a letter announcing an inheritance from an estranged aunt. The inheritance contains mysterious “items of a personal nature” which Cyd must collect in person halfway across the country. In a last attempt to salvage her deteriorating marriage, Cyd agrees to travel with her husband on what he promises—and she questions—will be the trip of a lifetime. As they set out, a hurricane threatens their hometown. Soon, fueled by the growing threat of the storm and the tension brewing between them, the couple’s long-suppressed problems erupt. Cyd digs deep for the courage to continue the journey on her own, unsure if either her home or her marriage will survive. Once in Phoenix, Cyd learns the strange details of the inheritance and a decades-old family secret. But what was the whole truth? Clues and instinct lead Cyd to Sedona and then to the Grand Canyon. She descends into the vast chasm alone searching for answers to newly raised questions and age-old mysteries. She steps off the beaten path, literally, knowing she must make peace with her pain-filled past and her uncertain future. Author: Jayne Mills Publication Date: July 8, 2025 -
Unflinchingly honest and darkly funny, this memoir will resonate with anyone facing the complicated reality of aging and illness in the United States. Elizabeth and her mother, Judy, have always had a complicated relationship. Now they face a confounding illness, as well as a labyrinthine healthcare system, at a complicated stage of life. Nothing is as it first seems in this riveting account of an unconventional mother-daughter journey—a journey that from the start poses questions about love, life, family, aging, healthcare, sex, and death. In Bound, Elizabeth Anne Wood addresses these questions as she chronicles the last eight months of her mother’s life—a period she comes to see, over the course of months, as a maternity leave in reverse: she is carrying her mother as she dies. Throughout their journey, Wood uses her notebook as a shield to keep unruly emotions at bay, often taking comfort in her role as advocate and forgetting to “be the daughter,” as one doctor reminds her to do. Meanwhile, her mother’s penchant for denial and childlike tendency toward magical thinking lead to moments of humor even as Wood battles the red tape of hospital bureaucracies, the frustration of planning in the midst of an unpredictable illness, and the unintentional inhumanity of a healthcare system that too often fails to see the person behind the medical chart. Author: Elizabeth Anne Wood Publication Date: August 13, 2019 -
In Bowing to Elephants, a woman seeking love and authenticity comes to understand herself as a citizen of the world through decades of wandering the globe. During her travels she sees herself more clearly as she gazes into the feathery eyes of a 14,000-pound African elephant and looks for answers to old questions in Vietnam and the tragically ravaged landscape of Cambodia. Bowing to Elephants is a travel memoir with a twist―the story of an unloved rich girl from San Francisco who becomes a travel junkie, searching for herself in the world to avoid the tragic fate of her narcissistic, alcoholic mother. Haunted by images of childhood loneliness and the need to learn about her world, Dimond journeys to far-flung places―into the perfumed chaos of India, the nostalgic, damp streets of Paris, the gray, watery world of Venice in the winter, the reverent and silent mountains of Bhutan, and the gold temples of Burma. In the end, she accepts the death of the mother she never really had―and finds peace and her authentic self in the refuge of Buddhist practice. Author: Mag Dimond Publication Date: September 17, 2019 -
"In reading Beth Ricanati's Braided: A Journey of a Thousand Challahs, one feels as if one is drinking from a spiritual fountain that allows a new wave of life to surge within them. This book offers both a recipe and a path to personal growth and healing. Packed with insight and wisdom, it is one of those rare books that every woman should read." —Readers' Favorite, five stars "Ricanati's memoir with recipes is a well-written investigation into her maturation as a doctor, her growth as a wife and mother, and the increasing wisdom she gained while pondering Jewish rites and rituals." —Booklist, starred review "'I knead for my needs, ' the author insists--and readers are likely to join her." —Kirkus Reviews2018 National Jewish Book Award Finalist2018 Foreword INDIES Winner2019 Readers' Favorite Awards Finalist2019 Wilbur Award, Nonfiction Winner2020 Eric Hoffer Award, First Horizon Award Finalist2020 Eric Hoffer Award, 1st runner up in Nonfiction2020 Eric Hoffer Award, Grand Prize Shortlist Finalist2020 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist2020 Next Generation Indie Book Awards WinnerWhat if you could bake bread once a week, every week? What if the smell of fresh bread could turn your house into a home? And what if the act of making the bread―mixing and kneading, watching and waiting―could heal your heartache and your emptiness, your sense of being overwhelmed? It can. This is the surprise that physician-mother Beth Ricanati learned when she started baking challah: that simply stopping and baking bread was the best medicine she could prescribe in a fast-paced world.Author: Beth Ricanati, MD Publication Date: September 18, 2018 -
At forty, Margaret quits her sales job to follow her husband’s hotel career to Paris. She’s setting sail on this adventure with a glass half full of bravery, a well-traveled passport, a journal in which she plans to write her novel, and the mentally engrained Davis Family Handbook of Rules to Live By. Everyone tells Margaret she’s living the dream, but she feels adrift without a professional identity. Desperate to feel productive and valued, she abandons her writing and throws herself into new roles: perfect wife, hostess, guide, and expatriate. When she and her husband move to Cairo, however, the void inside she’s been ignoring threatens to engulf her. It’s clear that something needs to change, so she does the one thing she was raised never to do: asks for—and accepts—help. Over the next fifteen years abroad, the cultures of Egypt, Thailand, and Singapore confront Margaret with lessons she never would have learned at home. But it’s only when they move back to Chicago—with Margaret now stepping into the role of perfect caretaker to her parents—that she has to decide once and for all: will she dare to let go of the old rules and roles she thinks keep her safe in order to step into her own life and creative destiny? Author: Margaret Davis Ghielmetti Publication Date: September 15, 2020 -
In Breaking Ground on Your Memoir, Linda Joy Myers (President of the National Association of Memoir Writers) and Brooke Warner (Publisher of She Writes Press) present from the ground up—from basic to advanced—the craft and skills memoirists can draw upon to write a powerful and moving story, as well as inspiration to write, finish, and polish their own story. Full of rich insights and practical advice and strategies, Breaking Ground on Your Memoir offers all the tools writers need to write a powerful, publishable memoir. In this book you will discover:- how to get focused on what your memoir is about—your themes.
- how to build the structure of your story.
- techniques to make your memoir come alive.
- the secrets of craft: how to write a great scene, colorful and memorable descriptions, narration, and flashback.
- how to connect with your reader using through-threads and takeaway so they’ll keep turning the pages, and learn something about their own lives by reading your book.
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When someone loses someone or something they love, there’s no cookie-cutter, one-size fits all “fix” that will magically take their pain away. Each person grieves, heals, and processes trials and tribulations differently. In Breaking Sad, Shelly Fisher and Jennifer Jones explore everything from the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, and the loss of health, delving into personal experiences from people on the other side of all of our good intentions to share some insight regarding the questions we’re unable to ask: How do I help? Is it better to say nothing? Should I share what my experience was like? The pages of this book are lined with real stories and real feedback to those questions and more. Amongst our many differences lies a similar need for understanding, comfort, and support; Breaking Sad is the start of the conversation that will get us all to a place where we can offer these things to people when they need it most. Author: Jennifer Jones and Shelly Fisher Publication Date: November 14, 2017 -
2015 International Book Awards: Finalist, Autobiography/Memoir 2015 INPE Best Book of the Year: Winner, Narrative Nonfiction 2015 Reader’s Choice International Book Awards: Finalist Kittel’s inspirational memoir, Breathe, tells the story of a family that suffers the unimaginable loss of an infant son as a result of the family being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Kittels’ pain is all consuming, and it’s enhanced by the fact that their extended family tries to point fingers and pass the blame. But the story moves from heartbreaking to horrific when, a mere nine months later, they are forced to bury yet another son when the doctor and her medical team make a terrible mistake during Kittel’s pregnancy. The narrative takes a third turn when the Kittels decide to press charges of malpractice, but the surprises don’t stop there. The Kittels end up having to battle not only the medical system but also their own family in a court of law, all while raising their other three young children and trying to heal from the pain of living through the deaths of two sons. Breathe is a story about motherhood, death, and a family in conflict. Although the pain Kittel suffers is tremendous, she narrates the story beautifully, and she ultimately shows readers how to embrace love, honesty, and joy even on the heels of tragedy. Author: Kelly Kittel Publication Date: May 14, 2014 -
Twelve year-old Chloe Ashton is an only child living in the remote wilderness of Oregon. She spends her days happily exploring the forests around her home, and is astonished when the forest creatures seem to begin to recognize her, follow her, and even to communicate with her. When a family tragedy results in Chloe being abducted and sold to the vagabonds who live deep in the woods, she discovers just how much the animals know. Finding help in the most unexpected places, Chloe learns the old legends are true— animals can talk, mountains do think, and deep in the forests, the trees still practice their old ways—and she struggles to survive, even as a new evil rises in the land. Set at a time when technology first arrived in the West, Bridge of the Gods is a book about the transformative power of nature, finding friendship in the darkest of places, and using an ancient, natural magic to find your way home. Author: Diane Rios Publication Date: August 15, 2017 -
Bridey is tethered to her mom’s addiction to dangerous men who park their Harley-Davidsons in the house and kick holes in all their doors. Raised to be her mother’s keeper, rescuer, and punching bag, Bridey gets used to stuffing her life into black trash bags, hauling them between Alaska and California, and changing schools every time her mom moves in a new monster or runs away from one.
Desperately seeking the normal life she’s observed in sitcoms and her friends’ families, Bridey earns her way into a fancy, private college, where she tries to forget who she is until her mom calls with a threat that drops Bridey to her knees. Watching doctors and police interrogate her mother at the hospital, Bridey realizes her mom has become a monster herself . . . and she doesn’t want to be saved.
But Bridey does.
Bright Eyes is about the indomitable spirit of a young girl forced to be brave, required to be resilient, and conditioned to be optimistic, and how she ultimately uses the same traits that helped her to survive her mother’s chaos to create her own happily-ever-after.
Author: Bridey Thelen-Heidel Publication date: September 24, 2024 -
Karen Grassle, the beloved actress who played Ma on Little House on the Prairie, grew up at the edge of the Pacific Ocean in a family where love was plentiful, but alcohol wreaked havoc. In this candid memoir, Grassle reveals her journey to succeed as an actress even as she struggles to overcome depression, combat her own dependence on alcohol, and find a loving relationship. With humor and hard-won wisdom, Grassle takes the reader with her through the sexual revolution and upheavals of the ’60s, to training at the famed London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art, behind the curtains of Broadway, and onto storied Hollywood sets. We know Karen Grassle best as the actress playing the strong prairie woman Caroline Ingalls, but here is the complex, funny, rebellious, and soulful woman we didn’t know. Raw, emotional, and empathic, Bright Lights celebrates and honors womanhood, in all its complexity. Author: Karen Grassle Publication Date: November 16, 2021 -
Sixty-three-year-old Dart Sommers—a professor of psychology and the founder of The Raindrop Institute (TRI), a think tank dedicated to eradicating poverty—is intelligent, resourceful, and ambitious. She has always considered her brain to be the best part of her. When she finds herself reacting inappropriately to situations at work and forgetting pieces of her day, she realizes that her mind is betraying her. Before she gets confirmation from a doctor, she knows her diagnosis: she has frontotemporal dementia (FTD). And whatever symptoms she’s experiencing now, they’re only going to get worse. As she struggles with the reality of her illness, Dart finds herself falling for her friend Ash—who is her boss and the still-grieving widower whose wife died of FTD. As Dart’s health deteriorates and she faces conflict at work with a colleague who wants to take over TRI, she pushes Ash away, determined to spare him from more heartache. But he refuses to give up on her—and as events unfold, Dart begins to suspect that love, not decisions based on logic, might change everything. Author: JoAnn Franklin Publication Date: May 21, 2019 -
At the age of thirty-five, desperate to salvage a self that has been suffocating for years―and to save her two-year-old son from witnessing a miserable relationship between his parents―Jane Binns leaves her husband of twelve years. She has no plan or intention but to leave, however, and therein begins the misadventures lying in wait for her. Over the years that follow, Binns falls in love with Steve, a man eighteen years her senior who has been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder since his return from military service in Vietnam forty years prior, and who has a talent for making her feel heard. Despite his inability to provide anything more than a spurious connection, run on a mercurial and erratic schedule, and despite his repeated rejections of her love, she continues to pursue him. During their off periods, she dates other men―but she inevitably compares each new suitor to Steve, and all of them fall short. Ultimately, it takes the loss of her father in the summer of 2014, followed by the death of her ex-husband five months later, for her to finally let go of Steve―and, in the process, fully unearth the self she’s been chasing all along. Author: Jane Binns Publication Date: November 13, 2018 -
Broth from the Cauldron is a collection of “teaching stories,” a literary Wiccan soup for the soul. It is a distillation of the wisdom Cerridwen Fallingstar has gathered from her journey through life, and from her forty years as a Shamanic teacher and Wiccan Priestess. At turns poignant and humorous, it chronicles her trajectory from a Republican cold war upbringing to Pagan Priestess, offering a portrait of a culture growing from denial to awareness. Accessible to any audience interested in personal growth, Broth from the Cauldron is for anyone who’s ever stood at the crossroads wishing a faery godmother would come along and show them the path. Author: Cerridwen Fallingstar Publication Date: May 12, 2020 -
The only thing reclusive bookworm Nora, high-powered attorney Christina, and supermom-in-training Leanne ever had in common was their best friend, Molly. When Molly dies, she leaves mysterious gifts and cryptic notes for each of her grieving best friends, along with one final request: that these three mismatched frenemies have brunch together every month for a year. Filled with heartwrenching scenes and witty prose, Brunch and Other Obligations explores the intricate dynamics of girlhood acquaintances who are forced to reconnect as women. This upbeat novel reminds readers that there’s hope for getting through the hard times in life—with a lot of patience, humor, and a standing brunch date. Author: Suzanne Nugent Publication Date: May 5, 2020 -
“Grace Orenstein’s book points to the power of interaction between childcare staff members to enhance or destroy the emotional climate of a child care center. The childcare community will value this important resource which gives directors and caregivers a blueprint for improving adult dynamics within their centers, supporting retention and continuity, and building stable, nurturing environments for both children and adults.” —Leslie Koplow, author of Unsmiling Faces: How Preschools Can Heal and director of Emotionally Responsive Practice at Bank Street There are more than 11 million children in the United States who spend part of each day in professional care. With more than 64 percent of all new mothers heading back to work only a few months after giving birth, 1 in 4 children will be cared for by others. Building Blocks for Reflective Communication is for those “others”—the caring but underpaid, devoted yet unevenly skilled workers who go to work each day to face executives who stand less than three feet tall and occasionally resolve conflicts with their teeth. The emotionally charged nature of the environment in which these early care and education professionals work affects all involved: the children, of course, but also parents, fellow teachers, colleagues, bosses, and the worker herself. Communication skills are key to the mental and physical health of staff relationships. Straightforward and accessible, Building Blocks for Reflective Communication raises the bar towards greater professionalism and workplace quality for those who have chosen to dedicate their lives to the health and well-being of children. Author: Dr. Grace Manning-Orenstein Publication Date: October 7, 2014 -
One terrible night in 2011, Brin Miller’s life is upended when she learns that her teenage stepson has been sexually abusing her two daughters. Once this secret is discovered, Brin’s marriage, already crumbling and unable to sustain itself, breaks apart. But against all odds, Brin and her husband, along with their daughters, are gradually able to learn resilience, forgiveness, strength, and courage, and—miraculously—Brin’s marriage begins to heal. Haunting and horrible yet hopeful and beautiful, Buried Saints is a fast and raw memoir of forgiveness and resilience, a revelatory look into a family deeply destroyed by deceit, and a truly astonishing story about the intense, unpredictable love of two parents who have to decide whether to fall or flourish in a tragic situation. Author: Brin Miller Publication Date: April 16, 2019 -
At sixty-five, artist, writer, and psychologist Sharon Strong doesn’t fit into the cultural stereotype of “senior citizen”—and she has no desire to. Instead, she claims the next decade as the most transformational years of her life. At sixty-six, she erects the first of what will become a series of monumental sculptures on the Black Rock Desert at Burning Man. At sixty-seven, she treks in the Himalayas. At seventy, she meets the love of her life and begins a new life with him. To honor her seventy-fifth year, she delves into an inward journey with psilocybin mushrooms. But life has its own seasons and time. The Great Recession necessitates the closing of Sharon’s gallery. She comes to the end of Burning Man. A wildfire destroys her home and, most devastating of all, completely incinerates her art studio and twenty years’ worth of work. Through it all, Sharon honors her experiences—even the most painful ones—because she knows that each one helps shape who she is. Ultimately, Burning Woman is a passionate love story about the adventure of aging that will inspire readers to feel their strength and commit to living their lives to the fullest and with a sense of pride and purpose. Author: Sharon Strong Pub Date: June 21, 2022 -
2017-18 Reader Views Literary Award, Nominations for Regional, Global and other Special Awards “It’s impossible to read But My Brain Had Other Ideas and not be in awe of this woman’s determination to triumph over her disease. Brandon’s clear-eyed approach to her story will hook you from the first chapter and remind you what it means to live life full on. Her refusal to be circumscribed by angioma is a reminder of the power of hope in all of our lives.” —Lee Woodruff, New York Times best-selling author and journalist When Deb Brandon discovered that cavernous angiomas—tangles of malformed blood vessels in her brain—were behind the terrifying symptoms she’d been experiencing, she underwent one brain surgery. And then another. And then another. And that was just the beginning. The book also includes an introduction by Connie Lee, founder and president of the Angioma Alliance. Unlike other memoirs that focus on injury crisis and acute recovery, But My Brain Had Other Ideas follows Brandon’s story all the way through to long-term recovery, revealing without sugarcoating or sentimentality Brandon’s struggles—and ultimate triumph. Author: Deborah Brandon Publication Date: October 10, 2017 -
By age four, Claudia Marseille had hardly uttered a word. When her parents finally had her hearing tested and learned she had a severe hearing loss, they chose to mainstream her, hoping this would offer her the most “normal” childhood possible. With the help of a primitive hearing aid, Claudia worked hard to learn to hear, lipread, and speak even as she tried to hide her disability in order to fit in. As a result, she was often misunderstood, lonely, and isolated—fitting into neither the hearing world nor the Deaf culture. This memoir explores Claudia’s relationships with her German refugee parents—a disturbed, psychoanalyst father obsessed over various harebrained projects and moneymaking schemes and a Jewish mother who had survived the Holocaust in Munich—and with her own identity. Claudia shares how she emerged from loneliness and social isolation, explored her Jewish identity, struggled to find a career compatible with hearing loss, and eventually opened herself to a life of creativity and love. But You Look So Normal is the inspiring story of a life affected but not defined by an invisible disability. It is a journey through family, loss, shame, identity, love, and healing as Claudia finally, joyfully, finds her place in the world. Author: Claudia Marseille Publication Date: May 14, 2024 -
Sometimes, in the blink of an eye, the unthinkable can happen; events in your life that cause you to ask: why me? Inspired, and inspiring, award winning author Jane Enright’s extraordinary uplifting memoir of surviving three life-altering events in the span of a year, losing almost everything, and coming out the other side stronger, more resilient, and happier than ever before is compelling and thought provoking. A feel-good story that everyone can relate to and learn from, Butter Side Up shows there can be happiness and joy after the unexpected—and a super awesome life, too. Author: Jane Enright Pub Date: June 7, 2022 -
One woman’s dark night leads her on a journey to find her light. Butterfly Awakens depicts the story of the extraordinary transformation of a forty-something Italian American attorney as she moves through unimaginable grief and sadness watching her beloved mother lose her battle to breast cancer. This tumultuous life experience shifts her world, causing her to question her life choices and opening her up to her soul’s calling. Nocero brings readers along on her journey through a dark night of the soul as she deals with the grieving process, a toxic work environment, and intense stress that results in depression, anxiety, and an acquired somatic nervous disorder called tinnitus. Through it all, she never gives up, instead looking for the help she needs to start to heal and find her light. In the end, like the metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly, this story is a beautiful love letter that honors Nocero’s mother’s legacy while detailing the awakening of her own. There are many stories about breast cancer and grief, but none are quite like this one. Throughout her tale, Nocero pulls the reader deep into her story through the intensity of her emotions; and in the end, after resigning from her career as a federal prosecutor due to a toxic administration, she searches for the lighthouse she saw in a vision when her mother died. Embarking on a spiritual pilgrimage on El Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain to get to the lighthouse at Cap Finisterre, she sets out to wake up and live again; the butterfly connection and stark honesty of her writing offers readers important lessons learned from moving through grief so that each person can shine their light again. Author: Meg Nocero Publication Date: September 7, 2021 -
Joanne Greene grew up in Boston during the 1960s and ’70s, a turning point for women in the United States. Doors were opening wider, and Joanne walked through as many as she could. As a young woman, she dove headfirst into San Francisco radio and television, and went on to host and produce award-winning feminist and other timely features and talk shows for decades. Throughout, she worked at having a great marriage and being an exemplary parent. But underlying her high-achieving life was a sometimes-destructive need for control. Vulnerability and dependency were okay . . . for other people. Joanne’s value was tied to how in charge, how together, and how productive she was. Then she suffered a traumatic accident—and it set her on a journey of discovery that taught her true power came in the still moments, the moments when she not only loosened her grip but even allowed herself to crack. In fragility, Joanne found, there was beauty—and possibility, too. By Accident is a story about discovering that control is a seductive illusion and how letting go of the need for it can reveal great strength and lead us to even firmer ground. Pub Date: June 20, 2023 Author: Joanne Greene -
Born to a depressed, exhausted mother and an abusive father who uses his seven children as cheap labor for his business schemes, Sue, Carole, and Kathy raise themselves in their chaotic household. The sisters all marry young; two divorce quickly. But despite the obstacles they face, the three women grow into confident businesswomen and remain extremely close as they build families and recover from their toxic childhood.
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the sisters gather over chilled martinis to take a serious look at the future and decide they should be together—in business. Bring on the cake. Liqueur-infused cake, that is. They soon start handing out samples of their inventions at farmers markets like seasoned carnival barkers, and soon a Food Network producer who’s stopped by their table invites them to New York City—sparking a hilarious adventure involving one-way streets, security guards, and the NYPD, all in an effort to get their cake into the hands of the producers at The Food Network and Rachel Ray.
Following Sue, Carole, and Kathy from childhood and through the development of the Full Spirited Flavours cake company, Cakewalk is a delightful romp that will have readers rooting for these three sisters every slice of the way.
Author: Sue Katein, Carole Algier, and Kathy Lanyon Publication Date: September 3, 2024 -
Having grown up on stories of her mother's wild youth in California, Elena Berg relocates from New England to the Bay Area in 2011 for a placement as an English teacher with Teach for America. Once there, she is eager to inspire a love of poetry and literature in her diverse but underprivileged students. Her own grandfather—a Holocaust survivor—was a storyteller and teacher who touched the lives of his students for years to come. Elena’s mother followed in his footsteps, leaving behind the hippie lifestyle of her twenties to become a university professor. But Elena quickly finds herself feeling disconnected from teaching, unable to inspire her students, and before long, she grows disillusioned with her career. She transitions to a role in an education technology startup—though she questions her decision, her motivations, and her values. Coming of age between the Occupy and #MeToo movements and against the backdrop of the 2016 election and California's ever-worsening fire season, Elena reckons with California as she imagined it and California as it really is. As she does so, she must also ultimately reconcile the person she envisioned herself to be with the person she actually is. Author: Noa Silver Publication Date: May 21, 2024 -
Call Me When You're Dead is a darkly comic novel about payback gone wild, gone sour, maybe even sweet. “If anything bad happens to me, I want you to get him.” That's what Eleanor Birch’s glamorous friend Sasha Cole requests of her during a New York City dinner one hot August night. Something bad does happen, and Eleanor is forced to become another person altogether in the wilds of Manhattan, acting as her own little Pygmalion in the harsh world of advertising and its remorseless denizens. How she triumphs, and how her prey becomes first her ally and then her lover, makes her journey a tragic romp, a hilarious disaster, and even an all-out farce—but one with very serious consequences. Author: A.R. Taylor Publishing Date: September 6, 2022 -
Warm cookies and milk are still okay, but what if they came with a workshop on goal setting or writing a business plan for the school year? Camp Grandma is full of innovative ideas that Marianne Waggoner Day, a highly successful businesswoman who became a committed and dedicated grandmother, modified from her working life in an effort to connect with her grandchildren. Along the way, she realized that in teaching her grandchildren, she in turn was learning some unexpected and invaluable lessons from them. Here, Day offers a new and refreshing perspective on grandparenting. Readers will be introduced to a compelling, sometimes humorous, and totally unexpected twist on a role people often take for granted—as well as enter into the larger societal conversation we should be having about the possibilities and value of grandparenting and how the women’s movement has reinvigorated and reshaped women’s approach to being grandmothers. Full of ideas and creative ways for grandparents to help their grandchildren grow strong, think critically, and have fun all at the same time, Camp Grandma reveals the importance of grandparenting and the value of passing on traditions, knowledge, and wisdom to the new generation. Babysitter? Not even close. Author: Marianne Waggoner Day Publication Date: May 7, 2019 -
“riveting … powerful … brilliant … necessary” —Kirkus Reviews For those drawn to both Tara Westover’s moving account of a difficult childhood and Susan Cain’s research on underappreciated traits … Canaries Among Us reveals the exquisite joy and tender heartache inherent in raising a child who is undervalued by a community. A lifeline to those struggling with learning differences, bullying, and anxiety, Canaries Among Us explores one of the most widespread threats to child well-being: a lack of acceptance. This heart-rending exposé provides a candid view of the ways unique children are regularly misunderstood and mistreated. Fortunately, through raw storytelling and ground-breaking science, Taylor points to an inspirational alternative: supporting, and even celebrating, the dazzling variety of our humanity. The author is donating her profits to organizations promoting mental health, neurodiversity, and bullying prevention. Note: This book was previously subtitled "A Mother’s Quest to Honor her Child’s Individuality in a Culture Determined to Negate It." Publication Date: October 11, 2022 Author: Kayla Taylor -
Growing up in Santa Barbara, California, way too close to the Hollywood dream machine, Jenna Tico’s self-worth wanes to invisibility when her identity becomes enmeshed with validation from celebrities and spiritual F-boys . . . until she claws her way back to empowerment. Here, Tico shares vulnerable personal essays, stories, and poetry—all grouped following the cycles of the moon—chronicling her journey from late bloomer to full grownup.Observing the world of twenty-something relationships from perspectives as diverse as a bachelorette houseboat, a music festival afterparty, and the airplane ride to a death bed, she validates the experiences of women who feel like they have been abandoned by the generation that came before them. Her self-reflective stories encourage healthy life choices for young women without telling them where, what, or how to live their lives—and always with a healthy dash of humor on the side. Simultaneously hilarious and poignant (without the whiff of morality play),Cancer Moon invites readers to embrace their twenties—aka the “age of wallowing”—as a humorous and necessary step toward understanding how we become who we want to be in the world. Author: Jenna Tico Publication date: September 17, 2024 -
Fifteen-year-old Jana’s Romani family leads a nomadic life, traveling and trading horses, in Czechoslovakia. When her family relocates to Prague one step ahead of the Nazi invasion, Jana becomes a freedom fighter. She gets a job in the Prague castle, where secret messages are hidden inside of clocks and she must smuggle them out of the castle and pass them on to the Resistance. After the Nazis close all Czech colleges and universities, Jana and two of her peers—her Resistance contact, Otto, who was the first in his family to attend college, and a fellow student, Albert—are even more determined to free their country from the Nazi oppressors. All three will face danger and desperate choices as they learn that this fight will cost them more than they ever imagined. In this coming-of-age story set in extraordinary times, Jana and her friends strive to find love and their place in the world—even as they fight the Nazi occupation of their country. Pub Date: June 6, 2023 Author: B.K. Oldre -
After Frieda Hoffman’s second miscarriage, she felt alone, ignorant, and overwhelmed with emotions. Finding little literature or support available, her entrepreneurial spirit kicked in and she decided to create the resource she wished she’d had: real stories about pregnancy loss from real women without the off-putting lens of religion or academia so typical of the self-help genre. Through Hoffman’s own journey and those of nineteen women she interviewed, Carry Me explores universal themes of grief, bearing witness, transforming adversity into opportunity, and the paradox of feeling alone while sharing a common experience. The diverse women and narratives unpack the physical, emotional, and financial challenges of loss; notions of womanhood and motherhood; and the intersections of public health, body politics, and patient care. Readers are called to action to share their own stories in order to heal themselves and support others. Nearly everyone knows someone affected by pregnancy loss, yet most of us are not comfortable, even in the relative safety of the company of friends and sisters, discussing this serious health issue. It’s time to normalize the dialogue and help one another through our losses by sharing our resources, our wisdom, and our stories by carrying one another. Author: Frieda Hoffman Pub Date: June 7, 2022 -
Losing your mother is a transformational event at any age, and yet the number of books on the subject of adult children grieving a mother’s death is meager. In this moving collection of poems and letters, Donna Stoneham chronicles the healing power of love between an adult daughter and her elderly mother—across the boundaries of this world and the next, and over the course of four years—and how that connection teaches her to love more deeply, to fully forgive, and to grow into her authentic self. An embracing solace for anyone recovering from the loss of a loved one, Catch Me When I Fall reveals how our grief journeys can be a powerful transformative force and offers readers a courageous, healing path to the other side of sorrow’s dark passage. Through the conversations between mother and daughter that take place in these lyrical pieces, readers are provided with the opportunity to explore a beautiful notion: as long as we keep our hearts open to the mystery and transformational power of transcendent, eternal love, it will always be possible to heal and continue our most pivotal relationships—even after death. Pub Date: May 9, 2023 Author: Donna Stoneham, PhD -
“A provocative book. Viewed through the lens of her own experience of homelessness, Josephine Ensign challenges us to view the homeless as real, complex people rather than social issues, or, worse, problems. Her committed vision as a clinician and author makes this a powerful narrative of one of the pressing social issues of our time.” —Theresa Brown, New York Times best-selling author of The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients' Lives At the beginning of the homelessness epidemic in the 1980s, Josephine Ensign was a young, white, Southern, Christian wife, mother, and nurse running a new medical clinic for the homeless in the heart of the South. Through her work and intense relationships with patients and co-workers, her worldview was shattered, and after losing her job, family, and house, she became homeless herself. She reconstructed her life with altered views on homelessness—and on the health care system. In Catching Homelessness, Ensign reflects on how this work has changed her and how her work has changed through the experience of being homeless—providing a piercing look at the homelessness industry, nursing, and our country’s health care safety net. Author: Josephine Ensign Publication Date: August 9, 2016 -
“Nicole Waggoner’s writing sings in this beautiful story of love and friendship. Center Ring will have you cheering for Norah and her posse of gal pals so much, you’ll wish they were yours!” —Kim Boykin, best-selling author of A Peach of a Pair, Palmetto Moon, and The Wisdom of Hair Norah Merrit, a dedicated obstetrician known for her bedside manner and service to Doctors Without Borders, walks into girls’ night out with a confession to make—and what she has to say shakes the group to its core. In the aftermath of Norah’s revelation, each of the women she calls her sister-friends—photojournalist Camille, stay-at-home mom Leila, publicist Ellison, and designer Kate—are left questioning the roads they haven’t taken, and revisiting the vastly different choices they’ve made in life and love. Told in alternating points of view between the five friends, Center Ring is a story about modern women finding balance through action, relationships, and growth in the midst of challenges and change. Author: Nicole Waggoner Publication Date: April 26, 2016 -
INDIE Foreword Reviews Book of the Year: Mind, Body, Spirit Finalist 2017 IPPY Awards: New Age/Mind Body Spirit, Silver Awards 2016 Nautilus Book Awards: Death & Dying/Grief & Loss Silver Medal Winner Change Maker is Rebecca Austill Clausen’s story of her discovery that she could communicate with her brother after he died. Following this realization, a world she never imagined opened up to her―even as she doubted her sanity and feared she would lose the respect of her colleagues, as well as the love and support of her family. Austill Clausen struggled with how her spiritual awakening and eventual spiritual transformation could mesh with the practical everyday world―the one where she had a rapidly growing rehabilitation business to run, and where she was known as a knowledgeable, science-based expert in the field of occupational therapy. Each chapter of Change Maker explores spiritual beliefs and understanding, includes an original black-and-white illustration by Micki McAllister, and ends with an “Illumination”―guidance, suggestions, encouragement, and inspiration for readers who wish to pursue their own spiritual journey. The end result is a book that blends the best of memoir, self-help, new-age philosophy, and inspiration. Author: Rebecca Austill Clausen Publication Date: September 13, 2016 -
“[Changed by Chance] is a heartbreaking, inspirational story of perseverance through a maelstrom of tragic events that Barker manages to triumph over. The experiences in this book seem almost too harrowing to be true, yet the author’s intelligent, clear prose will keep readers grounded. It’s food for thought for every reader.” —Kirkus Reviews Elizabeth Barker spent years planning and working hard to achieve her version of the American dream – one that is supposed to culminate in parenthood and the role of supermom. But when her first child is born with Down syndrome and a fatal heart condition, her dream suddenly becomes a nightmare. And that’s only the beginning… Liz’s new reality is a detoured obstacle course of life altering encounters, medical mishaps, a breast cancer diagnosis, and cruel hardships. From the moment of her daughter’s birth, she is pummeled with life lessons that no schooling or formal education could have ever taught her. Can Liz keep her sanity and some semblance of her former self alive and well through all of this? Changed by Chance is a courageous story of soul searching introspection about how this champion acquired the necessary life skills to Triumph over Tragedy. Her inspiring journey offers a roadmap to others who may face their own bumps in the road. Author: Elizabeth Barker Publication Date: September 15, 2015 -
Germany, 1940. While struggling to survive at an orphanage, young Didi crosses paths with a rebellious, quirky girl who will either help her escape a life of abuse and uncertainty or lead her down an even darker path. Fast-forward to 1970. With help from a worn leather journal, another young girl learns the story of Didi, who escaped war-torn Germany for a better life in America—except her life didn’t turn out as expected. The stories of these two girls intertwine and eventually collide one Christmas night when Didi, all grown up, finally remembers the secret she buried long ago. Chasing North Star looks back at a time when four free-range siblings, cigarettes in hand, roamed the streets ’til sunrise and hid from a gun-toting, mentally ill mother who couldn’t help herself. Stingray bicycles, transistor radios, and late nights in the cemetery—just another day in Alamo. That is, until the youngest sibling stumbles upon Didi’s story. Author: Heidi McCrary Publication Date: September 29, 2020 -
When Mamie Morrow, a fledgling Charleston journalist, is offered an assignment covering the Grand Bohemian Lodge in Greenville, South Carolina, at Christmastime, she jumps at the chance. Her grandfather recently passed away and left her a mysterious box of objects from the time she spent with him in New Mexico when she was three. Mamie has zero recollection of her time with her grandfather, but she now knows that he was Navajo—and as the majestic Grand Bohemian is filled with Native American art, she hopes being there will help her regain those memories. Robert Fitzpatrick is an upstart photographer from South Boston. Through equal parts inspiration and perspiration, he’s managed to compile a stunning portfolio, and he’s just relocated to slower-paced Charleston for its lush beauty and creative community. He’s also looking for the one—a girl to whom he can give his whole heart forever. But he harbors family secrets of his own. Rob is smitten with Mamie’s energy and pluck, but to Mamie, career comes first. As Christmas Day approaches, the two grapple with the complications that arise when dreams confront reality—and witness the Christmas magic that can happen when you put your faith in love. Author: Elizabeth Sumner Wafler Publication Date: October 29, 2024 -
“Love matters a little, but luck matters more.” The words of thirty-five-year-old David Melman’s Jewish grandmother still haunt him. He’s scared to settle down. Instead, he dates twenty-something pop stars that he meets through his celebrity-branding business. But when his niece and nephew inform him that he’s hit “rock bottom” with his latest inappropriate relationship, David realizes that change might be in order—so when his sister Marcy, with her own ulterior motive, pushes him to take a film-writing class taught by her friend Laurel, he agrees. Will writing a movie about a childhood visit to his grandparents in Florida, an unforgettable driving lesson, and a 1977 Cadillac bring David love? Luck? Or both? Alternating between David’s present-day life and his past through his movie script, Chuckerman Makes a Movie is a romantic comedy blended with a comedic coming-of-age. Author: Francie Arenson Dickman Publication Date: October 9, 2018 -
For fans of Tessa Bailey and Hannah Grace, Cinematic Destinies is a feel-good, contemporary romance about a trio of adult children searching for love and beauty in the shadow of their parents’ legendary Hollywood fairy-tale romance. Legendary actor Finn Forrester and his wife philosopher Ella Sinclair Forrester met on the location shoot for Jean Mercier’s film Celebration. The world has been captivated by their fairy-tale romance since Finn famously proposed on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival. As the couple now prepares to celebrate their thirtieth wedding anniversary, they wonder if their children will ever find love. Eldest daughter Betty is excelling in a medical residency program in New York City—and has convinced herself that distancing herself from emotions is the path to success. Youngest son Albert, a recent college graduate, is trying to find his footing in Boston as he struggles with his identity. Free-spirited Georgia, her mother’s spitting image and an actress following in her father’s footsteps, has been cast in Jean Mercier’s final film, mysteriously titled Beauty. When she arrives on set in Iceland and meets her costar, sparks fly. Is history repeating itself? How has growing up in the shadow of the world’s most iconic love story affected each of the Forrester children? In this highly anticipated conclusion to The Location Shoot and After the Red Carpet, we see how Finn, Ella, and their children fulfill their cinematic destinies. Author: Patricia Leavy Publication Date: September 2, 2025 -
In this captivating retelling of the Greek story, Perse—Circe’s mother and Helios’s wife—returns to her husband with a bold demand: a grand hall of her own in exchange for aiding his troubled sister, Selene, who has enraged Zeus by engaging in an affair with a mortal. Perse succeeds in her mission, but the House of Helios is soon plunged into sorrow when Clymene and Helios’s son, Phaethon, ignores all warnings and commandeers Helios’s chariot to initiate the day for the world. Unable to control the formidable horses, Phaethon inadvertently sparks wildfires on Earth—and Zeus intervenes with a lethal bolt of lightning. In the wake of Phaethon’s death, a pall of grief falls over his family’s household. And there is darkness beyond the palace walls as well: war has erupted, casting a shadow of turmoil. But amidst the chaos of a world fraught with conflict, a glimmer of hope blossoms within the House of Helios as Perse, fired up with power and determination even in the face of tragedy, emerges as a champion of peace. A stand-alone installment in Kouidou-Giles’s series of Greek mythology–inspired stories, Perse explores loss, resilience, and the enduring quest for peace against all odds. Author: Sophia Kouidou-Giles Publication Date: March 11, 2025 -
Terry Repak and her partner moved to West Africa with two small children at the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1990s. He did AIDS work while she wrote and raised their children to become global citizens like their parents. Living in different countries̵–from Ivory Coast and Tanzania to Switzerland—Terry embraced every opportunity to meet people of other cultures and to bear witness to the ravages of AIDS. Like many expats, she was torn between the pull of home when a parent’s health declined or her siblings needed help and the draw of epic landscapes and foreign cultures. The lessons she learned while living overseas—though not always easy—were deeply transformative. Candid, thoughtful, and instructive, Circling Home explores the notion of home and of how the bonds we form with people from other countries and cultures can profoundly change us. Author: Terry A. Repak Pub Date: September 12, 2023 -
“This dazzling combination of riotous imagination with bottomless compassion makes this such a stellar debut. Readers will surely remember Clara and her crew―they are utterly distinct, and beautifully realized.” ―Aimee Bender, author of The Color Master, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, and four other novels Eccentric widow Clara Breckenridge, seventy-three, is on a last-ditch journey to reconcile with her estranged son, confront the guilty secrets tied to her daughter’s death, and maybe find love again before she dies, miserable and alone. Magic purple wasps saved her as a child from an abusive father, and they want to help her now—but Clara, scared and stubborn, runs from revelation. When her beloved old house gets slated for destruction, Clara insists her son haul the entire structure from Eugene, Oregon, to Jackpot, Nevada. There she encounters troubled young people abandoned by their parents who turn Clara’s life upside down. Still, she won’t confront her past. Can Clara’s purple wasp companion actually help Clara join life again? Or will time run out, leaving her devastated and alone? Author: Maryl Jo Fox Publication Date: November 21, 2017 -
In Class Letters, we meet Anne English, single mom and high school English teacher (yes, she enjoys the irony). She loves the students she teaches, and hopes to not only educate them, but to prepare them for life after high school. In an attempt to connect with her senior English class on a deeper, more personal level, Anne begins to write them monthly letters, addressing intangibles such as honesty, gratitude, and love. To her surprise and delight, her students reply with heartfelt responses, sharing many of their personal challenges and successes. Author: Claire Chilton Lopez Publication Date: April 16, 2013 -
When twenty-something artist Erica Mason moves from laid-back Mexico to Manhattan in the mid-1970s, she finds a hard-edged, decadent, and radically evolving art scene. Peppered with characters who could only come from the latter days of the “turn-on-and-drop-out” ’60s in then-crumbling New York (a spaced-out drummer who’s completely given up on using or making money, a radical feminist who glues animal furs to her paintings of vaginas, and icons in the making like Patti Smith), Erica’s New York is fast-moving, funny, and heartrending—just like the city itself. Ultimately, her rite of passage is not only a love affair with art, men, alcohol, drugs, and music in the swirl that was the downtown scene in a radically evolving era in New York, but also a resurrection from addiction and self-delusion. More than the study of a celebrated period of artistic expression, Cleans Up Nicely is the story of one gifted young woman’s path from self-destruction to a hard-won self-knowledge that opens up a whole new world for her—and helps her claim the self-respect that has long eluded her. Author: Linda Dahl Publication Date: August 5, 2013 -
2013 IndieFab Gold Award: Winner, General Fiction Rebecca Lev, a Chicago psychotherapist, is balancing a heavy workload, two demanding kids, and an unhappy second marriage—so when she learns that her father, Charlie, is in trouble, it’s just one more worry to deal with. Charlie’s moved into a grand home in the Bay Area with his new wife, Vicky, and Rebecca’s convinced that her new stepmother is physically abusing her father—but Rebecca and Charlie have grown apart, and he rejects her offers of help. Years after marrying Vicky, Charlie dies of a cerebral hemorrhage, and Rebecca strongly suspects that his wife is implicated. Feeling guilty that she didn’t better protect her father, she returns to the Bay Area to investigate, vowing to find out what really happened. Author: Nan Fink Gefen Publication Date: May 1, 2013 -
Closer to Fine is the story of Rachel Levine, a young, Jewish, bisexual woman finding her adult footing in a world full of uncertainties. Rachel has many teachers along the way—a stubborn grandfather, a progressive Rabbi, a worldly girlfriend, a wise supervisor, and an insightful therapist—but in the end, it is her own anxiety that is the best teacher of all. As Rachel learns that accepting that which she cannot control is the mark of true growth, she becomes ever more connected to the people who matter most in her life. Publication Date: May 25, 2021 Author: Jodi S. Rosenfeld -
After a decade of caring for crazy and keeping her mother’s mental illness a secret from the outside world, twenty-year-old Paolina Milana longs for just one year free from the madness of her home. When she gets the chance to go to an out-of-state school, she takes it, but her family won’t leave her be. Letter after letter arrives, constantly reminding her of the insanity rooted in her family tree. Even worse, the voices in her own head whisper words she’s not sure are normal. “Please don’t make me be like Mamma,” she prays to a God she’s not sure is listening. The unexpected death of her father soon after she returns home leaves Paolina in shock—and in charge of her paranoid schizophrenic mother. But it isn’t until she is twenty-seven and her sister two years her junior explodes in a psychotic episode and, just like Mamma, is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and must be committed, that Paolina descends into her own despair, nearly losing herself to the darkness. Poignant and impactful, Committed is one woman’s story of resilience as she struggles to stay sane despite the madness that surrounds her. Publication Date: May 4, 2021 Author: Paolina Milana -
Ann Josephson is a twenty-five-year-old sociopath whose compulsive kleptomania manifests itself in the most unlikely of places: the community center where she works out every day. The walls of the community center insulate her from the terrors of the outside world, which include her freelance work as a graphic artist; her socialite parents, who pay the better part of her living expenses; her therapist, who devotedly punches the clock; and the dark void of romantic relationships. As Ann battles the inner demons that plague her millennial psyche, she must also battle the fiends that plague her at the gym: the loudly grunting beefcake who can’t be bothered to drop his weights at a reasonable volume, the naked old lady in the locker room using a towel as butt floss, the housewife in yoga pants that obviate the need for yoga wheeling her double stroller up and down the indoor track. Set in suburban Kansas City in 2012, Community Klepto—a droll combination of Bridget Jones’ Diary and Choke—makes incarnate the characters and shenanigans that go on in every gym in the world. Author: Kelly I. Hitchcock Pub Date: June 21, 2022 -
2017 The Reader Views Literary Award: Winner, Romance 2017 Beverly Hills Book Awards: Winner, Romantic Comedy 2017 Reader Views Literary Awards Winner in Romance ER physician Elizabeth Hillman has been hurt by the men in her life far too often—which is why she spends her free time safely alone, reading the memoir of Giacomo Casanova, history’s most famous libertine. But when a child in Lizzy’s care dies, she flees to Venice, Italy for a much-needed break—and there, on a lovely rooftop, Casanova appears beside her. In 2016, Casanova is still Casanova. He seduces her friends, is arrested for child endangerment, and even boffs the cleaning lady. Although his antics upset Lizzy, she’s determined to enjoy his conversation and not fall victim to its legendary charm. But then she and Casanova travel to Paris seeking an answer to a question of love that would have changed his life, an incendiary love affair begins to unfold. Author: Melissa Rea Publication Date: June 7, 2016 -
Every day, most of us interact with people of disparate backgrounds, beliefs, and experiences—individuals who hold different expectations than we do of the people and world around them. How does one navigate these often-turbulent waters? In Conscious Change, nineteen authors describe how they have applied the principles of Conscious Change within multicultural, diverse environments to overcome difficult and emotionally draining challenges—and, in doing so, provide a road map to shifting one’s own story when moving through similarly demanding situations in all areas of life. These practical case studies reveal how transformational the Conscious Change tools can be, leading to a stronger sense of one’s personal capacity as a leader, better interpersonal relationships, and the beginnings of greater equity and inclusion. Illuminating and instructive, these stories are vivid illustrations of the skills today’s leaders need in their multicultural organizations and settings, where issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion are, and will increasingly be, front and center. Authors: Jean Kantambu Latting and V. Jean Ramsey Publication Date: July 9, 2024 -
“This is Raymond Chandler for feminists.” —Sharma Shields, author of The Cassandra Jane’s a very brave boy. And a very difficult girl. She’ll become a remarkable woman, an icon of her century, but that’s a long way off. Not my fault, she thinks, dropping a bloody crowbar in the irrigation ditch after Daddy. She steals Momma’s Ford and escapes to Depression-era San Francisco, where she fakes her way into work as a newspaper copy boy. Everything’s looking up. She’s climbing the ladder at the paper, winning validation, skill, and connections with the artists and thinkers of her day. But then Daddy reappears on the paper’s front page, his arm around a girl who’s just been beaten into a coma one block from Jane’s newspaper―hit in the head with a crowbar. Jane’s got to find Daddy before he finds her, and before everyone else finds her out. She’s got to protect her invented identity. This is what she thinks she wants. It’s definitely what her dead brother wants. Author: Shelley Blanton-Stroud Publication Date: June 23, 2020 -
Jealous of her brilliant older sister, Ernestine longs for her father’s approval as a little girl but is never good enough. When she discovers a talent for the flute, she meets a charismatic teacher who gives her the encouragement she craves and becomes her surrogate father. After winning several competitions, she dreams of being a professional musician, but her stern father ridicules the idea and forces her to attend Emory University as a math major like her sister.
Ernestine doesn’t give up on her musical dreams, however, and halfway through college she wins the second flute chair in the Atlanta Symphony. There, she sits beside her former teacher, the principal flute. At first, she loves working with him, but after one successful season he turns on her and does everything in his power to get her fired. Devastated by her idol’s merciless harassment, she’s driven into a spiral of suicidal depression. As she tries to recover, her vulnerability is exploited, again and again, by the very men she turns to for help.
A harrowing account of one woman’s battle with twentieth-century misogyny, Countermelodies follows Ernestine as, through the darkness, she clings to her love for the flute and her unshakable dream of making it in the cutthroat world of classical music.
Author: Ernestine Whitman Publication date: September 24, 2024 -
Rachel likes to think of herself as a nice Jewish girl, dedicated to doing what’s honorable, just as her parents raised her to do. But when her husband, David, survives a plane crash and is left with severe brain damage, she faces a choice: will she dedicate her life to caring for a man she no longer loves, or walk away? Their marriage had been rocky at the time of the accident, and though she wants to do the right thing, Rachel doesn’t know how she is supposed to care for two kids in addition to a now irrational, incontinent, and seizure-prone grown man. And how will she manage to see her lover? But then again, what kind of selfish monster would refuse to care for her disabled husband, no matter how unhappy her marriage had been? Rachel wants to believe that she can dedicate her life to David’s needs, but knows in her heart it is impossible. Crash tackles a pervasive dilemma in our culture: the moral conflicts individuals face when caregiving for a disabled or cognitively impaired family member. Publication Date: April 27, 2021 Author: Rachel Michelberg -
Ever since Eve was banned from the garden, women have endured the oftentimes painful and inaccurate definitions foisted upon them by the patriarchy. Maiden, mother, and crone, representing the three stages assigned to a woman’s life cycle, have been the limiting categories of both ancient and modern (neo-pagan) mythology. And one label in particular rankles: crone. The word conjures a wizened hag—useless for the most part, marginalized by appearance and ability. None of us has ever truly fit the old-crone image, and for today’s midlife women, a new archetype is being birthed: the creatrix. In Creatrix Rising, Stephanie Raffelock lays out—through personal stories and essays—the highlights of the past fifty years, in which women have gone from a quiet strength to a resounding voice. She invites us along on her own transformational journey by providing probing questions for reflection so that we can flesh out and bring to life this new archetype within ourselves. If what the Dalai Lama has predicted—that women will save the world—proves true, then the creatrix will for certain be out front, leading the pack. Author: Stephanie Raffelock Publication Date: August 24, 2021 -
2017 Independent Press Awards Winner, Medical Mystery 2017 International Book Awards Finalist, Fiction: Mystery/Suspense While the federal government is launching a national investigation on the “equity” of organ distribution a female tech CEO flies across country to get a liver transplant. Soon, well-respected transplant nurse Sarah Golden and her best friend, Jackie, find themselves tangled up in an intense plot to uncover the answer to the question on everyone’s mind: Can you buy your way up to the top of the waiting list? Their pursuit of justice brings them to Miami, San Francisco, and Chicago—a sometimes fun, sometimes dangerous roller coaster ride from which they barely escape with their lives. Author: Amy Peele Publication Date: April 11, 2017 -
A mother’s love and persistence are put to the test when her teen daughter is stricken with a mysterious, debilitating illness. As time goes on, Dana's condition drives everyone away; everyone, that is, except for her mother. Finally, desperate to improve Dana’s health, the two hit the road in search of a cure. Dana’s chronic symptoms require endless supplements, pharmaceuticals, and dietary restrictions, evoking a heroine’s journey. Full of humor, blind hope and alternative medicine, Dancing in the Narrows is a poignant chronicle of Anna and Dana’s multiyear odyssey toward healing from trauma. Author: Anna Penenberg Publication Date: July 7, 2020 -
Set against the backdrop of the early American presence in Iran under the Shah, and the burgeoning years of Kuwait’s early oil boom, Dancing into the Light is Kathryn Abdul-Baki’s memoir of growing up within both the expatriate Western communities and the larger Middle Eastern society of Kuwait and Jerusalem. Hers is a story of belonging to two vastly different cultures and finding her place within both, and the search to find the inherent harmony in worlds at odds with each other. She is already caught in both the joys of and the struggle to be both Arab and American, yet not fully either, when her young life of promise is disrupted by tragedy. But instead of derailing her life, her mother’s death opens the door to deeper love and support from other places within Kathryn’s family. Dancing into the Light is a story of love, loss, and renewal, and of overcoming devastating early trauma through music, dancing, and the love and devotion of strong American and Arab women. Author: Kathryn Abdul-Baki Pub Day: September 5, 2023 -
In Dancing on Coals, Cynthia Moore describes a multi-decade, harebrained search for love in all the wrong places, starting when her narcissistic mother abandons her to a Swiss finishing school. Devastated by her mother’s betrayal, eleven-year-old Cynthia vows to become acceptable—but to whom? Seeking approval first as a madcap performance artist and then an as over-functioning therapist, our narrator is finally forced to abandon her competitive, masculine compulsivity for a genuine quest for inner truth. Ultimately, she finds her voice, develops her gifts, and discovers love, but not where she expected to find it. At times humorous and self-deprecating, at times poignant and heartbreaking, this is the story of one woman’s path from abandonment to wholeness and authenticity. Author: Cynthia Moore Publication Date: March 25, 2025 -
At the tender age of twenty, Jenn faces a pivotal moment when her boyfriend, Morey, proposes marriage after only a few weeks of dating. Her intuition urges her to say no, but she’s spent the entirety of her teenage years caregiving for family; she yearns for adventure, and she thinks relocating to California with Morey will give her the freedom she craves. So she says yes—only to find herself back in the caregiver role after he becomes disabled a few years into their marriage. But it’s Morey’s volatile personality that ultimately leads Jenn to make a brave decision: it’s time to leave. Dancing on My Own Two Feet takes a poignant turn as Jenn relocates to New York City after her divorce. Here, she rediscovers a long-forgotten passion for dance and embarks on a transformative journey that transcends the physicality of movement. Each dance becomes a channel to tap into her inner wisdom, providing the courage to explore the world and embrace new adventures. Then Jenn encounters Gable, a potential suitor, prompting new questions to arise for her: Is she better off on her own? Or could Gable be the love and dance partner she’s been longing for? Author: Jenn Todling Publication Date: April 29, 2025 -
2016 Next Generation Indie Book Awards: Winner, Memoirs (Other) 2016 IPPY: Silver medal, Sexuality/Relationships 2016 International Book Award Finalist in Self Help: Relationships Ann has two kids, two careers, two divorces, a pile of friends and sings soprano in the church choir. But after twelve years single, she is sick of celibacy. She’s been through enough to know that marriage is not what she was brought up to expect, and that love can be slippery and uncertain. With a re-awakened libido and a longing for adventure, she steps outside her comfort zone—embarking on a boundary-pushing, soul-searching journey into the world of online dating. Ranging from Montclair, New Jersey to Harare, Zimbabwe, Daring to Date Again: A Memoir is a compelling, often racy memoir of one woman’s late-life adventures with sex and dating in the modern world. As she rollicks (and bawls) her way through dozens of relationships, Evans tackles some touchy topics with humor and insight: the morality of dating married men, whether women over sixty should consider having children, what age difference is too much, and more. Daring, frank, and a little bit nutty, Daring to Date Again is a story about what happens when a lonely, sex-starved sixty-year-old woman decides to put herself on the market again—but on her own terms. Author: Ann Anderson Evans Publication Date: November 11, 2014 -
“Sweeping you away with its vivid, poetical writing, Dark Lady is a novel about a brilliant Elizabethan woman, a musician, commoner, and secret Jew who was barred from working as a musician because of her sex. Emilia Bassano Lanyer loves three very different men: the aging Lord Hunsdon who treasures her, the young Shakespeare who enchants her, and the man she marries, musician and soldier Lanyer. Her writing arises from her experience as a gifted woman in a world ruled by men. Dark Lady is a beautifully drawn portrait of an exceptional woman in a time of plague, war, and political danger.” —Stephanie Cowell, author of The Players, Claude and Camille, and Marrying Mozart Emilia Bassano has four strikes against her: she is poor, beautiful, female, and intelligent in Elizabethan England. To make matters worse, she comes from a family of secret Jews. When she is raped as a teenager, she knows she probably will not be able to make a good marriage, so she becomes the mistress of a much older nobleman. During this time she falls in love with poet/player William Shakespeare, and they have a brief, passionate relationship—but when the plague comes to England, the nobleman abandons her, leaving her pregnant and without financial security. In the years that follow, Emilia is forced to make a number of difficult decisions in her efforts to survive, and not all of them turn out well for her. But ultimately, despite the disadvantaged position she was born to, she succeeds in pursuing her dreams of becoming a writer—and even publishes a book of poetry in 1611 that makes a surprisingly modern argument for women’s equality. Author: Charlene Ball Publication Date: June 27, 2017 -
Days after graduation, Betsabé Ruiz’s life in New York is turning out to be nothing less than cinematic. Although her first job at a white-shoe, Wall Street investment bank is the opportunity of a lifetime, she is not prepared for the magnitude of wealth swirling about her, the long hours and close quarters that infuse her professional relationships with intimacy, nor an unexpected attraction to her boss. And like all great films, Betsabé’s New York dream comes with a twist that challenges her to find a balance between where she came from and where she’s going. Narrated in the retrospective as a letter of wisdom to her unborn son, Daughter of a Promise captures not only Betsabé’s coming of age but also her journey to understand that deep-seated forces such as desire and love are more complicated than she ever could have imagined. Author: Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg Publication Date: April 2nd, 2024 -
When Amy Daughters reconnected with her old pal Dana on Facebook, she had no idea how it would change her life. Though the two women hadn’t had any contact in thirty years, it didn’t take them long to catch up and when Amy learned that Dana’s son Parker was doing a second stint at St. Jude battling cancer, she was suddenly inspired to begin writing the pair weekly letters. When Parker died, Amy not knowing what else to do, continued to write Dana. Eventually, Dana wrote back, and the two became penpals, sharing things through the mail that they had never shared before. The richness of the experience left Amy wondering something: If my life could be so changed by someone I considered “just a Facebook friend,” what would happen if I wrote all my Facebook friends a letter? A whopping 580 handwritten letters later Amy’s life, and most of all her heart, would never, ever, be the same again. As it turned out, there were actual individuals living very real lives behind each social media profile, and she was beautifully connected to each of those extraordinary, flawed people for a specific reason. They loved her, and she loved them. And nothing, not politics, beliefs, or lifestyle could separate them. Author: Amy Weinland Daughters Pub Date: May 17, 2022 -
On November 5, 1917, Taylorville, Illinois native Clara Taylor stepped off a Trans-Siberian Railway train into a city then called Petrograd, Russia. Employed by the YWCA as an industrial expert, Clara had been sent to Russia to help establish Associations in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) and Moscow. Her main charge while in Russia was to survey and report on factory conditions, but Clara only spent a fraction of her stay in Russia visiting factories; due to the vagaries of the political, social, and economic revolution—the upheaval of an entire culture—Clara and her colleagues spent most of their first year in Russia teaching English, home economics, book keeping, literature, and basketball, and sponsoring lectures, dances and sing-alongs for Russian working women. Clara’s letters, collected in this book, tell of both the mundane and the extraordinary: what the YW staff ate for dinner; how the Bolshevik suppression of free speech impacted Americans’ ability to communicate with those at home; shootings in the streets; bartering for pounds of sugar; conversing with nobility, with intellectuals, and with workers; attending the opera; and sight-seeing at monasteries. Together, Clara’s letters to her family—her “dearest ones at home”—tell a compelling story of one American woman’s experiences in Revolutionary Russia. Author: Katrina Maloney and Patricia M. Maloney Publication Date: October 21, 2014 -
For adventurous fiction lovers, this debut novel tells the story of a young geologist working with ancient rocks who finds herself in present mortal danger when Mount St. Helens erupts with catastrophic power. After an inspiring trip to the Grand Canyon, Lauren Brown falls in love with geology—so much so that she convinces her husband, Kenny, to follow her from Philadelphia to East Texas, where she enters a male-dominated graduate program at Texas Polytechnic. Lauren thrives on the adventure geology affords her—studying undersea volcanoes, shepherding clueless undergraduates in a remote national park, and climbing canyons in Oregon to collect rock samples—but at home, things are deteriorating. After separating from her straying husband, she becomes best friends with Chris, an honorable male colleague who helps her fend off a predatory professor. When Mount St. Helens awakens, geologists from all over the world flock to Washington. Lauren is determined to be part of the action and witness an erupting volcano. The dream event of a lifetime is at hand. On a Saturday in May, she and Kenny, with whom she has reconciled, convene with Chris to stake out Mount St. Helens. The first day, the mountain remains annoyingly quiet. The next day, it erupts with catastrophic power—and irreversibly upends Lauren’s life. Author: Susan Sizer Bogue Publication Date: May 6, 2025 -
“. . . a survival story of the highest order, navigating the complex terrain of marriage, medical crisis, and a future reimagined.” —CAROLINE VAN HEMERT, award-winning author of The Sun is a Compass A marine biologist’s adventurous life as a professor and mother in Alaska is upended when her healthy husband is slammed by a rare type of stroke. His radical approach to recovery clashes with her instinct to keep him safe at home and sets them on a collision course as he insists on ambitious sailing expeditions with Beth and their young son in Alaska’s magnificent yet unforgiving waters. Author: Beth Ann Mathews Publication Date: May 2, 2023 -
Del Rio, California, a once-thriving Central Valley farm town, is now filled with run-down Dollar Stores, llanterias, carnicerias, and shabby mini-marts that sell one-way bus tickets straight to Tijuana on the Flecha Amarilla line. It’s a place you drive through with windows up and doors locked, especially at night—a place the locals call Cartel Country. While it’s no longer the California of postcards, for local District Attorney Callie McCall, her dying hometown is the perfect place to launch a political career and try to make a difference. But when the dismembered body of a migrant teen is found in one of Del Rio’s surrounding citrus groves, Callie faces a career make-or-break case that takes her on a dangerous journey down the violent west coast of Mexico, to a tropical paradise hiding a terrible secret, and finally back home again, where her determination to find the killer pits her against the wealthiest, most politically connected, most ruthless farming family in California: her own. Publication Date: May 18, 2021 Author: Jane Rosenthal -
Jessica Fischer wants nothing more than to build her law practice in small-town Ashton, Georgia. She’s well on her way when the local town hero, football coach Frank “Tripp” Wishingham III, hires her to represent him in a paternity suit. Coach is everything Jessica despises—arrogant, sexist, entitled—but it’s her job to make him look good in public. This is made doubly difficult when her burgeoning relationship with a local reporter gets in the way of telling the truth. Are things as black and white as Jessica thinks? And can she find a way to succeed without compromising her own personal values—or her personal life? Author: Lori B. Duff Publication Date: November 12, 2024 -
For fans of the new Matlock reboot, a legal thriller featuring an idealistic young lawyer who believes her bruised and abused client . . . even after discovering that client is keeping secrets that are beyond belief. Attorney Jessica Fischer is back, and this time she feels good about helping her client. Susan Wolan is the wife of a county commissioner and the victim of domestic violence. Jessica knows the abuse happened—she’s seen the handprints on Susan’s body. But she also suspects her client is holding something back from her. What is it—and can she help save Susan from her powerful and connected abuser without damaging her own career? As if all this weren’t enough, Jessica is simultaneously forced to deal with her estranged father, who has just come back into her life with secrets of his own. After a fall lands him in the emergency room, Jessica realizes that he and her paralegal, Diane—a person she depends on to keep her sane—might be falling for each other. She wonders if she’ll be able to stop herself from falling . . . apart. Author: Lori B. Duff Publication Date: October 7, 2025
