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2016 International Book Award Finalist in Social Change 2016 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist in Memoirs (Other) “If you’ve ever felt despair about the state of the world or wondered, ‘What can I do?’ I recommend reading Renewable. Eileen Flanagan’s insightful memoir shows a deep understanding of complex global problems, while showing us how one person can change their life while working to change the world we all share.” —Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director Greenpeace International At age forty-nine, Eileen Flanagan had an aching feeling that she wasn’t living up to her potential—or her youthful ideals. Drowning in e-mail and stuff she didn’t need, the simple Peace Corps life of her twenties was a distant memory, and the African country where she’d taught was in crisis, struggling to adapt to global warming. Renewable: One Woman’s Search for Simplicity, Faithfulness, and Hope is the story of a spiritual writer and mother of two who returned alone to southern Africa to try to help change the world—and unexpectedly found the courage to change her life Author: Eileen Flanagan Publication Date: March 3, 2015 -
Becky Galli was born into a family that valued the power of having a plan. With a pastor father and a stay-at-home mother, her 1960s southern upbringing was bucolic—even enviable. But when her brother, only seventeen, died in a waterskiing accident, the slow unraveling of her perfect family began. Though grief overwhelmed the family, twenty-year-old Galli forged forward with her plans for the future—marriage, career, and raising a family of her own—one she hoped would be as idyllic as the family she remembered from her childhood. But life instead presented her with situation after situation that derailed her: her son’s degenerative, undiagnosed disease and subsequent death; her daughter’s autism diagnosis; her separation; and then, nine days after the divorce was final, the onset of the transverse myelitis that would paralyze her from the waist down. Despite these life-changing losses, Galli’s steadfast commitment to family has enabled her family life, far different from the one she planned, to be filled with creative love and acceptance. At once heartbreaking and inspiring, Rethinking Possible is a story of the power of love over loss and the choice we all have to shape our life circumstances—even when we’re forced to confront the unimaginable. Author: Rebecca Faye Smith Galli Publication Date: June 13, 2017 -
A mysterious hospital deep in the Oregon woods is sending marauding ambulances into the countryside, looking for new patients. Mowing down anything in their path, the deadly ambulance drivers have forced the people and animals of the land into hiding. Twelve-year-old Chloe Ashton has returned to Fairfax and is desperate to find her mother. Together with her friends—the magical cook Mrs. Goodweather, carpenter Brisco Knot, and clever white rat Shakespeare—she hatches a plan to enter the hospital and stop the bloodshed. At the same time a rumor reaches them from the east: Silas the Stargazer is coming, and he is bringing an army. An animal army. Author: Diane Rios Publication Date: June 4, 2019 -
Social workers often reminisce about their first time “freezing”―the dreaded stillness from emotions so strong that they take the body hostage. Angela Lovelace is a well-trained social worker: she has been working for Child Protective Services in San Francisco for nearly five years and has never frozen, never had a sleepless night. But after she sees her father’s tattered picture on the apartment wall of a little boy whose addict mother just died, she must learn how to overcome the numbness―and sets out to uncover the truth. While Angela conducts her investigation, she finds her family and personal life spiraling down into brokenness; as she peels away layer after layer of secrets, her brother navigates the ravages of substance abuse, and her sister struggles with infertility. The Lovelace family must look to their faith in God and each other to discover their own resilience and put the pieces of their splintered lives back together again. Told from multiple perspectives across generations, Revelation explores how untreated mental illness and family secrets ricochet and can impact each and every family member―and the importance of perseverance, love, and hope. Author: Bobi Gentry Goodwin Publication Date: November 5, 2019 -
We wouldn’t consider letting Isis, Medusa, Pandora, or Persephone slip from our lexicon. To somehow forget the legend of Harriet Tubman, Anne Frank, or Mother Teresa would never cross our minds. And yet when it comes to the stories of Eve and other biblical characters, they are rarely known, barely appreciated, and ostensibly “lost” by most of us not deeply entwined within organized religion. Trapped in patriarchy and theological argument, dismissed as irrelevant, or viewed as unchangeable even as times change, these women’s voices, desires, and hearts have too often been silenced through misunderstanding and neglect. As result, we are as well. But when they are reimagined, deconstructed, disentangled from doctrine and dogma, and heard on their own terms, these stories become powerful inspiration and a source of discernment that reconnects us to a feminine lineage and a sovereign sense of self we’ve never known to call on or trust. In Rewriting Eve, Ronna Detrick invites us into the presence and power of ten sacred women, revealing the endlessly relevant ways in which they speak today and showing how they can heal, embolden, and transform our stories. Author: Ronna J. Detrick Pub Date: October 3, 2023 -
Clare Rainbow-Dashell, the only child of delightfully eccentric, wealthy hippies, has just taken a hiatus from her career as an acclaimed wildlife photographer and returned to California to pursue her academic dreams when a disastrous affair with a professor catapults her to another continent: Africa. There, she immerses herself in well-paid commercial work for a luxury safari lodge as she seeks to regain her emotional and financial self-reliance. All this, however, is complicated by her relationship with her charismatic, imperious employer and her undeniable attraction to a leading black rhino specialist two men who are at war over both environmental politics and Clare herself. Set against the formidable backdrop of the Namib Desert, Rhino Dreams dramatizes the crisis of endangered species preservation and the horrors of poaching, interweaving this very real ecological darkness with the internal and external battles of three characters driven by fierce passions and divided notions of duty, ambition, and desire. It is a sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant ride and, in the end, a testimony to how tenuous and precious both life and love can be. Author: Carolyn Waggoner and Kathryn Williams Pub Date: April 19, 2022 -
A compelling narrative about a pioneering woman’s connection to wild rivers as a whitewater world champion, and how the journey heals past and current childhood trauma. Alternating between two time periods, Risk is about Sue Norman’s journey as a pioneer in international whitewater kayaking and rafting competition. Outdoor adventure helped the author cope with the trauma of her mother’s diagnosis of acute multiple sclerosis when she was five, which rapidly forced her family into poverty and separation. As an adult, Sue was thrust into becoming a first-time parent after menopause to her four-year-old nephew. Her nephew's early years were spent with biological parents who struggled with addiction and mental illness. Does Sue have what it takes to parent a child considered to be at risk? Risk explores how pursuing “good risk” through adventure can help one escape, and face, their fears. Author: Susan Norman Publication Date: June 24, 2025 -
For fans of Geraldine Brooks’s Year of Wonders, a story set in 1400s Provence about a young, passionate doctor who falls in love with a mentally ill young woman—and soon finds himself immersed in a web of danger, deceit, and mystery. Roland, a young man from Barcelona who inherited a passion for healing others from his deceased mother, has rebelled against his family’s wishes and chosen to attend medical school in France. The university in Montpellier is the most prestigious medical school in all of Europe, and yet Roland is quickly disillusioned by his professors’ false teachings. Seeking more accurate knowledge of the body, he leaves Montpellier and apprentices himself to a surgeon in nearby Arles for the summer. Roland soon finds himself with two mentors in Arles—Hubert, a master surgeon, and Isaac, a Jewish doctor who advocates searching for remedies in ancient texts and testing them on patients—both of whose lessons he absorbs readily. But when he falls in love with Magali, a young woman suffering from a mental illness, he extends his quest for the truth about the body to include the truth about the mind. Readers who loved Rachel Kadish’s The Weight of Ink will be drawn to Roland’s story as he follows the woman he loves into her “labyrinth of the spirit”—one filled with wonder, mystery, betrayal, and love—and find themselves enthralled by this finely wrought depiction of the beauty and danger of life in early Renaissance Provence. Author: Anne Echols Publication Date: September 2, 2025 -
2017 Indie Excellence Book Award: Self-Help: General Finalist 2016 USA Best Book Awards: Self-Help: Relationships Finalist 2016 Best Indie Book Awards: Self Help: Relationships - Finalist Designed to help caregivers understand how to cope with and overcome the overwhelming challenges that arise while caregiving for a loved one—especially an aging parent—Role Reversal is a comprehensive guide to navigating the enormous daily challenges faced by caregivers. In these pages, Waichler blends her personal experience caring for her beloved father with her forty years of expertise as a patient advocate and clinical social worker. The result is a book offering invaluable information on topics ranging from estate planning to grief and anger to building a support network and finding the right level of care for your elderly parent. Author: Iris Waichler Publication Date: August 16, 2016 -
Named one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best 100 Indie Books of 2023 “Intricate and affecting, Kasdan’s debut finds hope in the saddest of stories.” —Kirkus Reviews STARRED REVIEW What happens to sibling relationships when your older sister, the budding poet you loved and admired as a child, falls prey to severe mental illness? When Deborah Kasdan’s sister returns from a gap year in Israel, she dazzles friends and family with her sophistication and beauty. In three years, however, Rachel is committed to a psychiatric hospital. The diagnosis: schizophrenia. As the years pass, Deborah focuses on her own family and career but constantly feels shadowed by a sense of guilt, especially when a plan to help Rachel backfires and leaves her hospitalized 2,000 miles from home. Eventually a poem Rachel writes gains her admission, against all odds, to a highly regarded community mental health program. After decades, she finally gains the freedom she has long yearned for. Relating her older sister’s struggle, Kasdan excavates its connections to family history and provides a poignant look at a mid-century Jewish family, especially during WWII and the Cold War. As she relates this history to her sister’s life, she realizes how writing consoles both Rachel and her, and how it also connects them. Ultimately, Roll Back the World is a profound testament to the power of writing to heal. Author: Deborah Kasdan Pub Date: October 17, 2023 -
For fans of dual-timeline, mother-daughter novels like The Paper Palace and Tom Lake, a compelling contemporary novel about a woman’s struggle to face her reckless history, with its trail of damage and deception, and her quest for the redemption that might still be possible. From the ruins of Egypt to the privileged life of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the story of a woman’s odyssey through the maze of love, loyalty, recklessness, and remorse, as the consequences of her acts ripple through the generations. Approaching a milestone birthday, Arden Rice has seen it all: three marriages, hardship and wealth, choices she both regrets and defends, all fueled by the same fierce desire—to give her daughter the best possible life. At least, that’s what Arden tells herself. But nothing is simple. Arden is haunted by her impetuous history, with its trail of damage and deception. Yet she’s finally made a life where she can be her best self—until the unthinkable happens, and a train engineer’s lapse in attention throws that life into chaos. Secrets begin to unravel, and Arden finds herself questioning everything she thought she knew—along with her own role in shaping the disturbing person her daughter has become. As the stakes increase, especially for the vulnerable granddaughter who’s now in her care, Arden must face questions she’s spent a lifetime avoiding: Which acts define a person? Can someone be better than her worst acts? Author: Barbara Linn Probst Publication Date: May 13, 2025 -
Kavita Basi had a wonderful life―a job she enjoyed, a wonderful family, and seemingly perfect health. Then an unexpected event took place and turned her entire world upside down. In Room 23, Basi chronicles her time suffering from a subarachnoid hemorrhage―bleeding in the area of the skull surrounding the brain. With this diagnosis, Basi went from being healthy and happy to battling a condition with a 50 percent mortality rate. Following her challenging journey through near death and recovery, this memoir takes an exciting, interactive approach, using QR codes within the chapters so readers can transport themselves to the timeline of what Basi was doing at each moment of her experience, either linking to an Instagram post or video blog―bringing her struggles, and ultimate triumph, alive. Author: Kavita Basi Publication Date: November 6, 2018 -
Rikki and her sister, Linda, fell out with one another four months ago. They are not speaking when Linda emails that she has lethal abdominal tumors, that her only hope of survival is a total bone marrow replacement. Linda claims Rikki is too old to donate, and explains there’s only a slight chance she is a good match anyway—but Rikki refuses to accept that. Despite the wounding between them, Linda’s email ignites a wild aspiration in her sister: she will become the perfect donor, the perfect match, with the healthiest, most vigorous cells possible. She rises with intent to heal herself, her sister, and their rootlines, the patterns formed in their family of origin that have quietly shaped their lives. Rikki walks through the science while confronting dogma that limits how mind can transform body. She builds herself into a stem cell factory using Muay Thai kickboxing and vegetarian nutrition. Working through childhood wounds and mental limits with meditation and yoga, she finds her own power, as well as ways to show up for Linda and walk with her from the edge of death to a new life. Together, the two sisters beat the lymphoma—and, as they rediscover the intimacy and love of their innocent childhood, heal the intertwined roots of their family pain. Author: Rikki West Publication Date: September 22, 2020 -
Most honeymoons, Mary knows, do not start this way. Lying outside on the sloping attic roof in Edinburgh, listening to the soft snores of her groom, she realizes that Rudy’s number one rule, “adapt," once again reigns. Rudy’s Rules for Travel takes you across the twentieth-century globe with intrepid, frugal Rudy and his spouse Mary, a catastrophic thinker seeking comfort. Whether stalled in a Spanish car tunnel, stranded atop a runaway elephant, or held at rifle-point at a Soviet border, Rudy has a rule for every occasion—for example, “Relax, some kind stranger will appear.” Mary, meanwhile, has her deep breathing and her own commandment: “Expect the worst.” The two are a picture of contrast. As Mary was being born, Rudy was a new American citizen flying US Air Force missions over his homeland, Germany. His father was a seaman, hers an accountant. And when this marriage of opposites goes traveling, their stories combine laugh-out-loud humor with poignant lessons from the odyssey of a World War II veteran. So start packing—you’ll want to join these two. Author: Mary K. Jensen Publication Date: April 10, 2018 -
Southern women are inundated with rules starting early—from always wearing sensible shoes to never talking about death to the dying, and certainly not relying on song lyrics for marriage therapy. Nevertheless, Katherine Snow Smith keeps doing things like falling off her high heels onto President Barack Obama, gaining dubious status as the middle school “lice mom,” and finding confirmation in the lyrics of Miranda Lambert after her twenty-four-year marriage ends. Somehow, despite never meaning to defy Southern expectations for parenting, marriage, work, and friendship, Smith has found herself doing just that for over four decades. Luckily for everyone, the outcome of these “broken rules” is this collection of refreshing stories, filled with vulnerability, humor, and insight, sharing how she received lifelong advice from a sixth-grade correspondence with an Oscar-winning actress, convinced a terminally ill friend to write good-bye letters, and won the mother of all “don’t give up” lectures by finishing a road race last (as the pizza boxes were thrown away). Rules for the Southern Rulebreaker will resonate with every woman, southern or not, who has a tendency to wander down the hazy side roads and realizes the rewards that come from listening to the pull in one’s heart over the voice in one’s head. Author: Katherine Snow Smith Publication Date: July 21, 2020 -
Laurie James spent most of her life wondering what it means to belong; loneliness dictated the choices she made. She rarely shared this secret with others, however; it was always hidden behind a carefree and can-do attitude. When she’s in her mid-forties, Laurie’s mother has a heart attack and her husband’s lawyer delivers some shocking news. She suddenly finds herself sandwiched between caring for her parents, managing unruly caregivers, raising four teenage daughters, and trying to understand the choices of the husband she thought she knew. Laurie’s story is about one woman’s struggle to “do it all” while facing the reality that the “ideal life” and “perfect family” she believed could save her was slowly crumbling beneath her. Laurie tries everything to keep her family together—seeks therapy, practices yoga, rediscovers nature, develops strong female friends, and begins writing—but as she explores the layers of her life and heals her past, she realizes that she’s the only one who can create the life she wants and deserves. Sandwiched is a memoir about what it means to let go of the life you planned in order to find the life you belong to. Publication Date: June 23, 2021 Author: Laurie James -
“Devilishly sharp… a masterful balance of psychological excavation and sumptuous description.” —Kirkus Reviews An only child, Deborah Burns grew up in prim 1950s America in the shadow of her beautiful, unconventional, rule-breaking mother, Dorothy—a red-haired beauty who looked like Rita Hayworth and skirted norms with a style and flare that made her the darling of men and women alike. Married to the son of a renowned Italian family with ties to the underworld, Dorothy fervently eschewed motherhood and domesticity, turning Deborah over to her spinster aunts to raise while she was the star of a vibrant social life. As a child, Deborah revered her charismatic mother, but Dorothy was a woman full of secrets with a troubled past—a mistress of illusion whose love seemed just out of her daughter’s grasp. In vivid, lyrical prose, Saturday’s Child tells the story of Deborah’s eccentric upbringing and her quest in midlife, long after her parents’ death, to uncover the truth about her mother and their complex relationship. No longer under the spell of her maternal goddess, but still caught in a wrenching cycle of love and longing, Deborah must finally confront the reality of her mother’s legacy—and finally claim her own. Author: Deborah Burns Publication Date: April 9, 2019 -
“…strikingly personal and lyrically told…. engrossing….A heartfelt, inspiring, and deeply moving chronology of substance abuse and enduring, unconditional familial love.” —Kirkus Reviews “I am sitting on the back porch of our condo bawling. I just finished Saving Bobby and I am filled with a belief that this 349-page book is the bravest thing I have ever seen in print. As Renée Hodges made it so clear in the end and was so apparent in each page, this is her story and maybe her eventual salvation. This process has brought Hodges to her darkest places and she found her salvation there. This sounds simple but I know how really hard that is. No one wants to do that. But she did.” —Dr. William H. Davis, Orthopedic Surgeon When Renée Hodges invited her nephew, Bobby, to come stay with her for a few weeks so he could visit a doctor about his back pain, she knew he was recovering from an addiction to prescription painkillers. She believed that if he could address his back problems, he would have a better chance of staying clean—but she had no idea what a roller coaster ride she was getting on. Unlike other books about addiction, Saving Bobby begins after rehab is over. Told in part through journal entries, e-mails, and personal recollections, this raw, honest, deeply moving memoir—begun to keep the family accountable—describes the sixteen months that Hodges, her husband, and their community struggled alongside Bobby as he attempted to successfully re-enter the day-to-day world. Using a holistic and open approach, the shame and stigma associated with addiction was lessened—and ultimately, Bobby learned he had to save himself. Author: Renee Hodges Publication Date: May 1, 2018 -
For nearly fifty years, Sara Somers suffered from untreated food addiction. In this brutally honest and intimate memoir, Somers offers readers an inside view of a food addict’s mind, showcasing her experiences of obsessive cravings, compulsivity, and powerlessness regarding food. Saving Sara chronicles Somers’s addiction from childhood to adulthood, beginning with abnormal eating as a nine-year-old. As her addiction progresses in young adulthood, she becomes isolated, masking her shame and self-hatred with drugs and alcohol. Time and again, she rationalizes why this time will be different, only to have her physical cravings lead to ever-worse binges, to see her promises of doing things differently next time broken, and to experience the amnesia that she—like every addict—experiences when her obsession sets in again. Even after Somers is introduced to the solution that will eventually end up saving her, the strength of her addiction won’t allow her to accept her disease. Twenty-six more years pass until she finally crawls on hands and knees back to that solution, and learns to live life on life’s terms. A raw account of Somers’s decades-long journey, Saving Sara underscores the challenges faced by food addicts of any age—and the hope that exists for them all. Author: Sara Somers Publication Date: May 12, 2020 -
In the tradition of The Paris Bookseller and Her Hidden Genius, the story of a real woman overshadowed in history by the giant talent she saved, Vincent van Gogh. How did a failed belligerent Dutch painter become one of the greatest artists of our time? In 1891, timid Jo van Gogh Bonger lives safely in the background of her art dealer husband Theo’s passionate work to sell unknown artists, especially his ill-fated dead brother Vincent. When Theo dies unexpectedly, Jo’s brief happiness is shattered. Her inheritance—hundreds of unsold paintings by Vincent—is worthless. Pressured to move to her parents’ home, Jo defies tradition, opening a boarding house to raise her infant son alone, and choosing to promote Vincent’s art herself. But her ingenuity and persistence draw the powerful opposition of a Parisian art dealer who vows to stop her once and for all, and so sink Vincent into obscurity. Saving Vincent reveals there was more than one genius in the Van Gogh family. Author: Joan Fernandez Publication Date: April 15, 2025 -
“Always being the 'good girl,' pleasing others, and internalizing your feelings is self-destructive. Our childhood is stored in our body, and if we do not heal our wounds someday, the body will present its bill. Roberta Dolan had the courage to transform and heal herself. The techniques she utilized to do so and the changes she made can benefit all those who have ever been abused, physically or psychologically. I strongly recommend reading this book to help you to release whatever pain exists within you and to restore your own life and body. It is never too late to leave the past behind and begin anew, as Roberta did.” ―Bernie Siegel, MD, author of 365 Prescriptions for the Soul and 101 Exercises for the Soul Say It Out Loud—a unique blend of memoir and how-to—exposes the emotional scars of sexual abuse and explains the process of healing. In straightforward prose, step by step, Roberta Dolan provides readers with tangible healing strategies—including journaling, visualization, and more—that she employed during her own years in therapy for a childhood of sexual abuse. Inspiring and accessible, Say It Out Loud offers guidance and support for any kind of healing journey, equipping readers with the skills and courage to transform a life of darkness into one of joy. Author: Roberta Dolan Publication Date: October 7, 2014 -
For anyone interested in the intersection of feminism and politics comes this inspiring, base-on-a-true-story tale of fighting back against sexism in the labor movement, set against the backdrop of Harvard in the 1990s. As soon as courses at Harvard begin, Ana, a White female, finds herself being stalked by Aaron, a Black male classmate. Word quickly gets out to the rest of the cohort—but not wanting to get anyone kicked out, Ana refuses to name names. With their program director insisting there’s nothing she can do to intervene if no one will name the perpetrator, the class becomes engulfed in a campaign to protect Ana that splits the group into two camps. Some of the men join the women to fight the harassment; some of the women join the harassers. In short order, the conflict becomes a fight for power that divides along race, sex, LGBTQ, and class lines—mirroring the heartbreaking history of the labor movement, and serving as a precursor to our current political landscape. A galvanizing behind-the-scenes look at the labor movement of the 1990s, Scabmuggers is ultimately a triumphant tale of women’s empowerment. Ana and her friends may be outnumbered—but they won’t go down without a fight. Author: Yvonne Martinez Publication Date: September 16, 2025 -
“Bravely honest. This is a moving narrative, and one that will ultimately serve a useful guide for families and their caretakers.” —Publishers Weekly “Rough’s memoir details her experience as her mother’s primary caretaker after a cancer diagnosis, with the years leading up to her mother’s death, as well as her struggle to come to terms with her passing afterward. Readers get a first-person look at how to embrace difficult people, as well as a meditation on forgiveness.” —Library Journal When her alcoholic and emotionally abusive mother’s health declines, Joan Rough invites her to move in with her—and for the next seven years, they both struggle to maintain their own privacy and independence. Rough longs to be the “good daughter,” helping her narcissistic mother face the reality of her coming death. But her mom, convinced she will live forever, does everything she can to remain in control of her own life. When repressed memories of childhood abuse by her mother arise, Rough is filled with deep resentment and hatred toward the woman who birthed her. And when her mother finally dies, she is left with a plastic bag of her mother’s ashes and a diagnosis of PTSD. What will she do with them? Courageous and unflinchingly honest, Scattering Ashes is a powerful chronicle of letting go of a loved one, a painful past, and fear—a journey that will bring hope to others who grapple with the pain and repercussions of abuse. Author: Joan Z. Rough Publication Date: September 20, 2016 -
2016 Benjamin Franklin IBPA Award Gold Medal Winner in Parenting and Family 2016 Foreward INDIE Awards Silver Medal Winner in Humor 2016 IndieFab Finalist in Humor Based on Norine Dworkin-McDaniel and Jessica Ziegler’s popular illustrated humor blog, Science of Parenthood: Thoroughly Unscientific Explanations for Utterly Baffling Parenting Situations takes the duo’s mix of high-brow science and low-brow humor to a whole new level. Using their trademark brand of quirky, witty humor, and bolstered by all kinds of slick graphs and spiffy flow charts, Dworkin-McDaniel and Ziegler dig deep into the core sciences—biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics—to help moms and dads everywhere solve for “y.” As in, “Y” is my child doing that . . . that . . . THING? And please, dear lord, is there a way to make them stop!? Anyone who’s ever wondered why the kid who plays Minecraft for hours can’t sit still for ten damn minutes to finish a math worksheet; who’s marveled at how their toddler always picks the most inopportune moment to poop; or who’s despaired of ever showering, sleeping, or finding a moment’s peace again will find this book a hilarious, enlightening, and relatable read. Author: Norine Dworkin-McDaniel and Jessica Ziegler Publication Date: November 17, 2015 -
“A timely critique, and needed story. Masculinity’s measure by money is not only ludicrous, it’s getting downright dangerous.” —Nomi Prins, former managing director, Goldman Sachs, and author of All the Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power The personal is not only political, it’s also economic and sexual: as a society, we’re encouraged to view economics as objective science far removed from us—when in reality it has concrete and far-reaching effects on our everyday lives. In Screwnomics, Rickey Gard Diamond shares personal stories, cartoons, and easy-to-understand economic definitions in her quest to explain the unspoken assumptions of 300 years of EconoMansplaining—the economic theory that women should always work for less, or better for free. It unpacks economic definitions, turns a men-only history on its head, and highlights female experiences and solutions. encouraging female readers to think about their own economic memoir and confront our system’s hyper-masculine identity. In the past fifty years, the US has witnessed a major shift in economic theory, and yet few women can identify or talk about its influence in their own lives. Accessible and inspiring, Screwnomics offers female readers hope for a better, more inclusive future—and the tools to make that hope a reality. Author: Rickey Gard Diamond Publication Date: April 3, 2018 -
Part culinary memoir and part travelogue, Carole Bumpus gathered this compilation of intimate interviews, conversations, stories, and traditional family recipes (cuisine pauvre) in the kitchens of French families as she traveled throughout the countryside. Travel with her through Champagne caves/wineries and historic cathedrals, local farmers’ markets, ancient potters’ guilds, and restaurant kitchens with wood-fire ovens. Learn how to make homemade Spinach-stuffed Tortellini with Bolognaise Sauce from the Champagne region, Crêpes and Watercress-stuffed Ravioli from the Lorraine, and Baekeofe and Kugelhopf from the Alsace. “Go blind” from the family stock of Eau de Vie liqueur and be treated to tales of foraging for snails for the infamous and now extinct Escargots Festival. And, on a somber note, listen to accounts of families forced from their communities during the German occupation of WWII in the Alsace and Lorraine, only to continue to struggle for survival after finally making their way home. This book is a compilation of stories about making ends meet; about people being grateful for all they had, even when they had almost nothing; about the sharing of family jokes and laughter; and about family trials and triumphs. This book is about people savoring the life they have been given. Author: Carole Bumpus Publication Date: July 23, 2019 -
Praise for Book One of Savoring the Olde Ways: “Both a regional history and a cooking memoir, this is even more than the sum of its parts, and a celebration of living life every moment. Francophiles, history fans, and foodies will love this book.” —Booklist Join Carole Bumpus as she continues the culinary journey of Book One in Searching for Family and Traditions at the French Table, with her incomparable guide, Josiane, as they head north from Paris to Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Normandy, and Brittany, then drop into the Loire Valley before ending in the Auvergne. Sample family favorites and regional delights such as Flemish Potjevlesh, Algerian-influenced chicken tagine, moules (mussels) in cider and cream, salt-encrusted Lamb Grevin, Far Brêton, and Pâté de Pomme de Terre. Enjoy the music and antics of local festivals like La Bande de Pecheur (Gang of Fisherman), Feast of St. John, and the Blessing of the Fleet. Discover the wonder of troglodyte caves, wineries, and truffle farms in the Loire Valley. Then travel to Josiane’s family home, where you, too, can discover why food and family time are considered sacred in the Auvergne. And, all along the route, witness the impact WWI and WWII on the families profiled. Even seventy-five years later, the legacy of war remains—and yet, incredibly, the gift that each generation has handed down has been gratitude and a deep understanding of the importance of family. A compilation of personal stories, memorable moments, family secrets, and mouth-watering recipes, this French culinary travelogue is sure to find a prized place on the bookshelf of readers who love France—its food, its people, and its history. Author: Carole Bumpus Publication Date: August 18, 2020 -
"In her debut memoir, Meadows memorializes her daughter while deploring the state of adolescent mental health care. The book’s power comes from the way Meadows lucidly analyzes her own story to identify larger systematic issues in mental health care for young people. The memoir also includes basic advice and resources for struggling teens and their families. An intense, moving account of raising and mourning a child with mental illness.” ―Kirkus Reviews Karen Meadows had a normal, happy family until depression consumed her daughter, Sadie—a struggle that ended with Sadie’s suicide at age eighteen. In Searching for Normal, Meadows shares her family’s journey as she tries to help her daughter Sadie cope with her mental illness, expertly intertwining her own storyline with excerpts from her daughter’s diaries. The years Meadows chronicles are characterized by Sadie’s heartbreaking bouts of running away, cutting, and living with Portland street families while Karen and her husband desperately search for solutions—trying medication, hospitals, therapy, wilderness and residential treatment programs, and more. Ultimately, however, they find themselves the victims of the devastating shortcomings of the US’s mental health system. Including hindsight advice from Meadows, along with an extensive list of resources that she wishes someone had provided her when she was trying to help Sadie, this book will help parents of struggling teens feel less isolated and better equipped to navigate their teenager’s mental illness. : Meadows also describes recent developments that are paving the way for better diagnoses and treatment options. Author: Karen Meadows Publication Date: November 8, 2016 -
2018 Foreword Indies Finalist in Adult Nonfiction—Health “This book is a beautiful, raw and poignant story of the role of birthing in women’s lives. It takes us on one women’s journey yet it is so real that it is almost impossible to not take it to heart as partly our own.” ―Erica Weiss,MD, Obstetrician/Gynecologist, San Francisco, California “So many women today don’t believe that they have choices when it comes to giving birth – but Thais Derich shows us the way in her brave and beautifully written memoir. It is an important and timely story – a memoir full of heartache, resilience, and joy. My hope is that all women considering motherhood will find their way to Thais Derich’s book.” ―Melissa Cistaro, author of Pieces of My Mother, a NCIBA Best Nonfiction Book of 2015 winner On the joyful day of her son’s birth, Thais Derich never questioned going to the hospital. A week later, she walked out physically, spiritually, and emotionally injured, and fully disabused of the idea that the medical field would ever put her best interests before protocol, money, and legal concerns. The next three years of her life were spent recovering from that day, and preparing herself to do things her way when she became pregnant again. And then she did get pregnant again—and that resolve was put to the test. A universal story about betrayal and trust and the roller coaster ride in between, Second Chance illuminates the many ways in which our healthcare system is broken when it comes to helping women give birth, and gives a voice to all the mothers who have walked away from their delivery experiences wondering what the hell just happened. Author: Thais Derich Publication Date: May 9, 2017 -
2023 Nonfiction Book Awards Gold Winner 2023 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist in Autobiography/Biography 2022 Foreword INDIES Finalist in Autobiography & Memoir—Adult Nonfiction 2022 Readers’ Favorite Book Awards Honorable Mention in Non-Fiction—Autobiography 2022 IPPY Awards Bronze Winner in Autobiography II—Coming of Age/Family
“Sublime writing brightens an unforgettable, harrowing personal account.”—Kirkus Reviews “...a testament to the human spirit that will not be denied fulfilling its potential. Armento gives witness to the hard fact that we sometimes have to nurture ourselves and shows just how that can be done.”—Sue William Silverman, author of How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences THE STORY OF ONE GIRL’S SEARCH FOR HOPE IN AN ABUSIVE, DYSFUNCTIONAL HOME AND OF THE TEACHERS WHO EMPOWERED HER As the “Seeing Eye Girl” for her blind, artistic, and mentally ill mother, Beverly Armento was intimately connected with and responsible for her, even though her mother physically and emotionally abused her. She was Strong Beverly at school—excellent in academics and mentored by caring teachers—but at home she was Weak Beverly, cowed by her mother’s rage and delusions.Beverly's mother regained her sight with two corneal transplants in 1950 and went on to enjoy a moment of fame as an artist, but these positive turns did nothing to stop her disintegration into her delusional world of communists, radiation, and lurking Italians. To survive, Beverly had to be resilient and hopeful that better days could be ahead. But first, she had to confront essential ethical issues about her caregiving role in her family.
In this emotional memoir, Beverly shares the coping strategies she invented to get herself through the trials of her young life, and the ways in which school and church served as refuges over the course of her journey. Breaking the psychological chains that bound her to her mother would prove to be the most difficult challenge of her life—and, ultimately, the most liberating one. Author: Beverly J. Armento Pub Date: July 5, 2022 -
“Truly intimate with the world, Lone is a compelling heroine that takes us on an unforgettable journey into both dark and light places of our human heart, mind and soul, helping us discover how truly powerful we are.” – Kristine Carlson, Author of Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff for Women and Heartbroken Open. Seeing Red: A Women’s Quest for Truth, Power, and the Sacred is an intimate memoir about one woman’s search for personal power—a journey of climbing inner and outer mountains that takes her to the holy Mt. Kailas in Tibet, through a seven-year marriage, and into the arms of the fierce goddess Kali, where she discovers her powerful, feminine self. This is the story of Denmark native Lone Mørch’s transformation—a story of love and passion, and also a story of self-betrayal. After realizing that she’s given up on herself, Mørch has to strip herself bare, lose everything she’s held dear, and tear down everything she’s ever built in order to reclaim her life and sense of self. Seeing Red has received the Mary Tanenbaum Literary Award for a Nonfiction work in progress and an Honorary Mention at the San Francisco Book Festival. Author: Lone Mørch Publication Date: October 29, 2012 -
In this wry memoir, a Harvard-educated CPA with debilitating chemical intolerance digs deep in her family history to uncover the childhood trigger for her illness. Tackling themes of truth, loss, acceptance, and empowerment, Pookie Sekmet interweaves her personal story with timely guidance on the importance of avoiding toxic chemicals in cars, consumer products, and indoor environments; overcomes family trauma and mysterious chronic health struggles with determination and humor; builds an unconventional new life; and, finally, becomes a whistleblower within a corrupt and patriarchal corporate culture―and achieves righteous justice. Think Titus Andronicus, but with a slight woman in her mid-fifties with defiantly bad hair―wearing worn overalls and a home-sewn hemp jersey top―standing tall among the corpses. Our society has become polarized by leaders seeking to consolidate exploitative power through the imposition of magical thinking and untruths. Through the story of her struggles and ultimate triumph, Sekmet lays bare the underlying selfishness, heedlessness, and lies of many of our political, societal, and business structures and offers a reality-based and practical path to self-protection―and even empowerment. Author: Pookie Sekmet Publication Date: October 8, 2019 -
Join Carole Bumpus and her husband in Book Three of the Savoring the Olde Ways series as they take you on their first culinary trek through Italy, including regions of Lombardy, Tuscany, Compania, Apulia, and Lazio. Embrace unforgettable characters such as lovely guides Lisa and Margarita, who introduce you to the “true Italian experience.” Sup on traditional foods (cucina povera) including local tortelli, pappardelle al cinghiale (wild boar), bistecca all Fiorentina, pasta alla vongole (clams), or saltimbocca alla Romana. Sip regional wines, along with memorable digestivos like limoncello and grappa. Find yourself dancing at harvest festivals, climbing through Etruscan tombs, traipsing among Roman ruins, or bathing in ancient Roman termés (hot springs). Climb to the heights in elegant Capri on the gorgeous Amalfi Coast, or to the top of the “holiest of holies” at St. Peter’s Basilica. Soak up ancient and cultural history in Milan, Firenze (Florence), Amalfi, Pompeii, Lecce, and Rome. Bask in the sun and opalescent waters along the rugged coasts of the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic Seas. And, best of all, capture a rare glimpse into the secrets of the Mediterranean psyche while sharing a good meal with new friends. It is truly the trip of a lifetime. Publication Date: April 27, 2021 Author: Carole Bumpus -
Serious Little Catholics follows Kathy Gereau, the oldest of seven children, as she grows up in the mid-’50s and ’60s and makes her way through Catholic school alongside her siblings. Initially, she buys into the mysteries of faith and the litany of rules being spouted by the Sisters of Mercy. But when her fourth grade teacher tells the class that Kathy’s sweet little Protestant grandmother would never be admitted into heaven, she begins to question the rigid dogma of the church. Later, she discovers that not all boys are as goofy as her brothers and struggles with the notion that it is a woman’s responsibility to discourage men from the plague of impure thoughts. Even an innocent flirtation can sinfully lead men into a temptation they are not capable of resisting; it doesn’t seem fair. Ultimately, with the help of her classmates and a few understanding teachers, she learns to laugh at the ridiculous bits of her religion—and discovers the spiritual message within. Publication Date: June 8, 2021 Author: Kathy Gereau -
The stories in Seven Sides of Self explore the various sides of one’s personality: the storyteller, the skeptic, the survivor, the saint (or the sinner), the scholar, the seeker, and the savior. Through the lives of central characters such as Zarce Sun De’oggo, Sister Othrosa Vella, Jarka Moosha, and Old Mims―Nancy Joie Wilkie explores themes of battling strong emotions, the lengths we might go to for self-preservation and self sacrifice, the inability to accept things different, and taking responsibility for what we create in pieces that inhabit the worlds of both sci-fi and fantasy. Original and thought provoking, these are stories that will stimulate the intellect and engage the imagination. Author: Nancy Joie Wilkie Publication Date: November 5, 2019 -
Women are entering the national and international arena more than ever today, from political campaigns to corporate boards to entrepreneurship, and their success is showing. Statistics show that when women lead countries, those countries are less apt to go to war. There is also a positive correlation between the number of women on corporate boards and greater profits. Women entrepreneurs have also been shown to generate higher revenues and create more jobs than male entrepreneurs. In She Is Me, veteran journalist Lori Sokol, PhD, introduces readers to thirty-five women hailing from all walks of life who have successfully utilized qualities like compassion, empathy, introspection, and solidarity to create change and transform lives. Through interviews with women including Gloria Steinem, Billie Jean King, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Leymah Gbowee, readers will come to understand how these traits, which have long been considered soft and weak in our patriarchal culture, are actually proving more effective in transforming lives, securing our planet, and saving the world. Author: Lori Sokol Publication Date: August 11, 2020 -
A debut memoir for fans of Love Warrior—a candid account of the emotional and psychological pain of infidelity and divorce; and the journey of a lifetime that one woman took to heal. Few things can shatter our hearts like expectations. Sarah expected to live happily ever after. She expected her husband to honor his vows. She expected his military helicopter to land safely. But when the unimaginable occurred and her world unraveled so magnificently, the undoing of her expectations left her on her knees, fighting for her life. When everything we “expect” crumbles like ash after a fire, how do we reconcile what was lost? One courageous step at a time. Sarah packed her car, then set out to hike and camp across the country. But pain, codependence, and trauma challenged her as she moved forward. From a sailboat to a yoga studio, a therapist’s couch to a shaman’s ceremony, from selling everything and moving into a van—on the ashes of her former expectations, Sarah rebuilt, from the inside out. She Journeys is a testament to the transformative power of healing. From darkness to light, from a marriage ended to a life reclaimed, we are reminded that it never matters how we begin. Only that we do. From wounds to wisdom, She is every woman who must find her way from heartbreak to homecoming. Author: Sarah May Publication Date: September 9, 2025 -
At fifty-four, Alenka was running out of time to follow through on a dream she’d written down in her pocket-size Rumi book just after her first marriage crumbled. Years later, as she slowly rebuilt her life with her second husband, things started spiraling out of control. The only way she knew how to heal and connect all painful parts of her life was by riding her bike, and she didn’t want to have regrets. But was she brave enough to embark on an unknown path and risk losing everything . . . perhaps even her own life? Determined to awaken her dying spirit and heal her battered body, Alenka loaded her mountain bike with 50 pounds’ worth of camping gear and set off on a 2,500-mile journey. Starting in Lake Tahoe California, she hoped to ride along the Sierra Nevada Mountain range to the tip of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, following remote mountain trails. Alone. What followed was an irrevocably transformational journey of love, hope, courage, and resilience—and here, Alenka tells that story in a voice stripped of self-pity and infused with a good dose of humor. She Rides is a galvanizing wake-up call for anyone who wants to unearth and follow their own deeply buried dreams—and reclaim their life. Pub Date: July 18, 2023 Author: Alenka Vrecek -
A schoolteacher escapes an abusive marriage and finds love on a blind date. Mary Jane’s new man, sure that riding a Harley will restore her confidence, ends up following the white lines with her through fifteen years of marriage. Traveling together, they learn to be partners, both on and off the road, until Dwayne is diagnosed with cancer. After losing her husband, Mary Jane once again must learn to live on her own―but she’ll never be the same again. Author: Mary Jane Black Publication Date: October 1, 2019 -
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 -
“Short chapters and well-crafted dialogue make for a fast-paced story that will be enjoyed by anyone who has spent any time in or near academia.” ―Booklist “A hilarious spoof of academic intrigue, Slipsliding by the Bay mirrors the societal turmoil and follies of the seventies.” ―Independent Publisher, Notable July Indie Book Release Perched on the edge of San Francisco, Lakeside College is experiencing an identity crisis. John Gudewill is recruited as president to save the college from possible closure—but he is flummoxed at every turn. The faculty, led by secretive English professor Eliot Blanc, is determined to unionize. The alumni want Lakeside to return to its former status as a women-only college. Meanwhile, Sister Magdalena, the college’s infamous artist, is waging war against corporate America through her art, and the students are engaging in their own warfare through sit-ins and protests. With the college besieged on all sides, what is its new president to do? A hilarious spoof of academic intrigue, Slipsliding by the Bay mirrors the societal turmoil and follies of the seventies. Author: Barbara McDonald Publication Date: July 18, 2017 -
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 -
Songs My Mother Taught Me follows the narrator, confronted with the imminent death of her mother, on a voyage to share the final leg of their lifelong journey together. With candor and lucidity, she retraces the passage from childhood to womanhood under the powerful influence of a loving but suffocating mother. Told by a daughter who has carried all her life the epigenetic endowment inherited from her parents’ experiences during the Holocaust, this raw and painfully honest story digs into the complexities and subtleties of love. Having spent most of her life traveling the globe in an attempt to escape this legacy, the narrator finds herself back in the house she grew up in, where she tries to finally piece together, and find peace with, the looming shadows of her family’s past. This epic and lyrical tale spans from Transylvania in the 1930s to modernday Tel Aviv, Tokyo, New York, and Paris—giving a literary voice to those affected by PTSD transmitted down the generations. Author: Eva Izsak Publication Date: July 16, 2024 -
After her parents’ divorce, seven-year-old Sophia is raised by her paternal grandmother and, later, her father’s second wife. She visits her mother on weekends until she finishes her high school, after which she moves to the US to complete her post-secondary studies and launch a career in child welfare. Decades later, Sophia travels back to Greece, determined to find her mother’s grave and finally learn about the reasons for her parents’ divorce. As she digs, she begins to realize how clashing cultures between her Greek-born mother and her father’s early years in Turkey wreaked havoc on the marriage. Determined to unlock the true story, she interviews family members, all of whom are sympathetic but reluctant to disclose information. Finally, she hires an attorney and resorts to document searching—and uncovers a story she never knew existed. Written with illuminating insights and a mature understanding of what forced her mother’s decision to abandon their home, Sophia’s compassionate, authentic recounting of her journey will encourage those who search for the truth to persist in seeking answers to life’s unanswered questions. Author: Sophia Kouidou-Giles Publication Date: September 7, 2021 -
“Powerful . . . U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo transforms her many paths of life into a poetic prayer.” —Jean Dany Joachim, award-winning poet Soul Psalms, a collection of poems from Zimbabwean American poet U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo, is filled with lyrical and vivid imagery that takes you on a emotional journey toward finding self. Exploring themes of family, love, body image, acceptance, and belonging, Mhlaba-Adebo’s words flow melodically and powerfully, bringing readers to a place of peace. The themes in Soul Psalms may be personal, but they appeal to a universal pull: the desire to become. Author: U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo Publication Date: April 19, 2017 -
ForeWord Reviews’ IndieFab Book of the Year “Editor’s Choice Award” Independent Publisher Awards Bronze “Best Regional Fiction South” Winner of International Book Awards in “Religious Fiction” Category Set in 1940s Germantown, Tennessee, South of Everything is a magical coming-of-age story about the daughter of a plantation-owning family, who, despite her privileged background, finds more in common with “the help” than her own family. Sara develops a special kinship with her parents’ servant Old Thomas, who introduces her to the mysterious Lolololo Tree—a magical, mystical tree with healing powers that she discovers is wiser than any teacher or parent or pries—and, in doing so, opens her eyes to the religious and racial prejudice of her surroundings. A universal coming-of-age tale about questioning the world around us and finding our own truth, South of Everything will appeal to anyone who’s ever dreamed of stepping beyond the safe boundaries of the world they know. Author: Audrey Taylor Gonzalez Publication Date: September 15, 2015 -
Mary Em Phillips has decided to kill herself after losing her beloved Mamie, who raised her; her husband, Jack, who has left her for another woman; and her only son, Petey, who has died as a result of a freak bacterial infection. But when Mosely Albright, a black man from Chicago’s South Side, comes to her back door one morning needing a drink of water and seeking directions back to the train, her plans are derailed . . . to the chagrin of Mishigami (so named by the Ojibwe, also known as Lake Michigan), who has been trying to lure Mary Em into his icy depths in the hopes that she will save him. Mary Em wants nothing more than to end her anguish. Mosely is searching for the love he’s been missing most of his life. And Mishigami who fears he is dying from rampant pollution and overfishing, seeks a champion. A story of friendship, survival, connection and the unquestioning power of nature told through three distinct voices, Speed of Dark affirms a love of humanity that transcends all else, including race and background. Author: Patricia Ricketts Pub Date: May 3, 2022 -
In Split-Level, set as the nation recoils from Nixon, Alex Pearl is about to commit the first major transgression of her life. But why shouldn’t she remain an officially contented, soon-to-turn-thirty wife? She’s got a lovely home in an upscale Jersey suburb, two precocious daughters, and a charming husband, Donny. But Alex can no longer deny she craves more—some infusion of passion into the cul-de-sac world she inhabits. After she receives a phone call from her babysitter’s mother reporting that Donny took the teen for a midnight ride, promising he’d teach her how to drive, Alex insists they attend Marriage Mountain, the quintessential 1970s “healing couples sanctuary.” Donny accedes—but soon becomes obsessed with the manifesto A Different Proposition and its vision of how multiple couples can live together in spouse-swapping bliss. At first Alex scoffs, but soon she gives Donny much more than he bargained for. After he targets the perfect couple to collude in his fantasy, Alex discovers her desire for love escalating to new heights—along with a willingness to risk everything. Split-Level evokes a pivotal moment in the story of American matrimony, a time when it seemed as if an open marriage might open hearts as well. Author: Sande Boritz Berger Publication Date: May 7, 2019 -
At 18, Tré Miller-Rodríguez gave her newborn daughter up for adoption. At 19, her only sibling was killed in a car crash. At 34, she lost her husband to a sudden heart attack. Then, at 36, her now-teenaged daughter found her on Facebook—and began to reshape the course of Tré’s life. With sharp, immediate prose, Tré unpacks the experience of being young and widowed in New York City: the “dumb sh*% people say”; the “brave face” she wears to work and social events; the solace she doesn’t find in one-night stands; and how her perspective only begins to shift when she spontaneously brings Alberto’s ashes on a trip and sets into motion the ritual of spreading him in bodies of water around the world. Author: Tré Miller Rodríguez Publication Date: March 5, 2013 -
Saint Hildegard: Ancient Insights for Modern Seekers is a treasure trove of St. Hildegard’s bracing, rich, and transforming insights. Written for today’s seekers and spiritual directors, it takes us deeper into our own experiences in the company of the mystic visionary St. Hildegard, whose twelfth-century wisdom, still strikingly relevant to our contemporary struggles, enriches our journeys. Spiritual director and retreat guide Susan Garthwaite knows this journey well—she’s traveled it for years. St. Hildegard has influenced Garthwaite’s spiritual life, as well as her work as a spiritual director, and here she gives concrete examples of spiritual experiences and practices in which St. Hildegard’s insights can draw out our own wisdom. She also gently touches our worst experiences and offers St. Hildegard’s light for our liberation and fullness of life. Like all of us today, St. Hildegard dealt with a world in turmoil. She believed spiritual development was the key to peace in troubled times. With her guidance, read, reflect, pray, discern, journal, heal, befriend your soul, and discover your mystic self. A richer life awaits. Author: Susan Garthwaite Publication Date: September 14, 2021
