RECOMMENDED READS
In This Life Or Another, Melissa Payne
On the brink of death, a man comes to terms with the life he lived versus the one he never pursued in an emotionally rich novel of parallel lives, redemption, and finding purpose.
On the eve of his sixtieth birthday, mechanic Rusty Wilson takes a bullet to save the patrons of a small-town Colorado diner—and awakens to a strange realm between life and death.
However, he finds that this limbo is not the end. There are still choices to be made and a lifetime to review. Paths open for a man who believes the life he did live was one of disappointments, grief, and devastating family estrangements. Given a chance to experience an alternate reality, Rusty is visited by figures from his past and present, sees what could have been if he had pursued a woman he loved from afar, and confronts a family secret that shaped everything. Now it’s Rusty’s choice: accept the imperfect existence he knew, or the what-if that could still be his.
At the heart of this poignant exploration of mortality, memory, and second chances is the profoundly simple question: What makes a life truly meaningful?
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The Other Beautiful People, Caroline Bock
In the entertainment world, the spotlight shines on the beautiful— but behind the scenes are those who make the magic happen. Amy Greene is one of them. As head of marketing and public relations at the Cinema Channel, a beloved yet struggling cable network devoted to classic and independent films based in midtown Manhattan, Amy is at the height of her career— but her life is anything but steadfast. Torn between her charismatic boss, Owen Orski, and her husband Jack, Amy’ s world schisms with 9/11, the death of her father, and the secrets she’ s kept locked away.
The Other Beautiful People is a dazzling cinematic novel about love, loss, and the search for meaning— in work, family, and the spaces in between. It’ s a story that will captivate your heart and stay with you long after the final scene. The Other Beautiful People is a workplace love story unlike any other.
“An ode to work families and nuclear families as well as a testament to the power of a single aching, forbidden, cinematic kiss.”
—Susan Coll, author of eight novels including The Literati, Bookish People, and Real Life and Other Fictions, former president of the Pen/Faulkner Foundation
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The House in the Middle of the Street, Jennifer Sklias-Gahan
In The House in the Middle of the Street, Jennifer Sklias-Gahan conjures a haunting modern fairy tale of inheritance, secrets, and the creatures we invite into our lives.
When Rebecca and her husband inherit a stately old home, they imagine it as the perfect place to build their family. But as the seasons turn, shadowy visitors begin to arrive—children who are not what they seem, guests with appetites beyond bread. Bound by ancestral debts and ancient instructions, Rebecca and her descendants are drawn into a chilling cycle of desire, duty, and haunting.
With prose that shimmers like a spell and imagery as vivid as a fever dream, Sklias-Gahan offers a dark winter tale that recalls the cautionary power of the Brothers Grimm while speaking directly to the anxieties of our time.
The House in the Middle of the Street is a gothic exploration of legacy, survival, and the perilous cost of letting others in.
“The House in the Middle of the Street blends mythology and fairy tale influences with supernatural intrigue as it follows a descent into addiction, new possibilities, and family’s cycle of dealing with haunting events and an old house, and the perils of allowing dark forces to enter one’s life.” — Diane Donovan ― Midwest Book Review
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The Town I Crow About: East Millstone Stories from the Heart of Raymond Hills, Donna Hills Patrick
The Town I Crow About is a collection of stories that 94-year-old Raymond Hills told his daughter, Donna, as he looked back on his life growing up in East Millstone, New Jersey, a small, once industrious town with a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places.
From the schoolyard to Market Street, Raymond invites readers into personal reflections spanning the Great Depression through the World War II era and beyond, introducing them to East Millstone’s early history and explaining how the town has evolved over the years. His stories begin with childhood adventures in the Boy Scouts, follow his teenage years racing a Model A roadster, recount his service in the Navy, and conclude with the courtship of the woman who would become his wife of 63 years.
While historical photographs bring each story to life, it is the people, Raymond included, who make East Millstone–the town he crows about–special.
“The Town I Crow About is an autobiography that leaves you feeling as if you’ve spent the afternoon sitting on a front porch listening to your grandpa share his life with you. Reading it feels entirely different from looking at a standard historical document because the focus stays on real, human moments…This book is a beautiful reminder of how local memories shape our understanding of the past. Very highly recommended.”
-Tanya Kays for Readers’ Favorite
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What Lies Buried, Leslie Kain
“A dramatic story about taking the hardest steps forward to confront the scars of our past. A thought-provoking sequel that dives deep into the way our histories shape us.” ― 5 Stars from Indies Today
What Lies Buried…doesn’t stay buried.
Scarred by a lifetime of emotional abuse and traumatic violence, Gavin battles the triggers of Complex PTSD. His wife Katie is determined to support him despite the strain of his unpredictable reactions on their marriage.
But returning to Boston to settle his father’s estate reactivates Gavin’s childhood scars, and more triggers. Then when he uncovers his family’s mob history, his volatile reactions put him in the crosshairs of dangerous people. Worried for his safety, Katie packs up their toddler and joins him. While there, she begins sorting through her late parents’ keepsakes, finding evidence of the artistic talent she abandoned after her father died, when she became child caregiver to her disabled mother. Eager to revive her unfulfilled past, Katie copes with Gavin’s increasingly unstable behavior through her painting and new friendships that encourage her journey to self-discovery.
As Gavin resists treatment and goes off the rails, secrets of his family’s past threaten them all. The generational dysfunction in Kain’s award-winning Secrets In The Mirror continues, as Katie faces her own emotional wounds and must choose between saving her marriage or saving their child…and herself.
“A dramatic story about taking the hardest steps forward to confront the scars of our past. A thought-provoking sequel that dives deep into the way our histories shape us.” ― 5 Stars from Indies Today
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Adventures on Land and Sea: Searching for Culinary Pleasures in Provence and along the Cote d’Azur (Savoring the Olde Ways Series, Book 4), Carole Bumpus
Fans of Peter Mayle and Janine Marsh will enjoy this exploration of medieval villages, cultures, and recipes of France’s Provence. This travelogue is Book 4 in the author’s best-selling series, which has won the IPPY gold medal for Best Culinary Travel Series.
Join Carole Bumpus, her husband, Winston, and their friends in Book Four of Savoring the Olde Ways, her culinary-travel series. Following in the footsteps of writer Peter Mayle, Bumpus is on a quest to find the real Provençe. On three separate excursions—from Nice to Nîmes, Moustiers to Marseilles, and San Tropez to San Remy—and while sailing along the Côte d’Azur, she invites you to join her in uncovering the mysteries of Provençe. Are they hidden within their myths, festivals, or traditions? Is it possible they’re veiled in the sheer beauty of the land and sea? Could they be concealed in Roman arenas in Arles, Orange, or Glanum? Or, perhaps, within the ancient methods of traditional cooking or winemaking? Maybe they are hidden in plain sight among the locals who open their hearts, their bistros, and homes to strangers.
Yes, you may find it in chefs while cooking in ancient kitchens, in the smile of the shy barmaid who speaks no English, in the giggle of the Pizza Wagon baby, in the agreeable village baker, or in the patient waiter and harbor master—but you will most especially experience it through friends who fling open their doors to share their families’ recipes. Traveling alongside Bumpus, that is where you’ll discover the real Provençe.
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Soul-Happy: A Viking Woman’s Long Road Home, Anette Nilsson
A must-read for the millions who suffer from chronic illness, Soul-Happy is an inspiring and poetic account of navigating away from shame and life-threatening disease and into redemption and grace through a commitment to hard truths and unconditional love.
Nette Nilsson has big dreams and is in the midst of pursuing them—starting by leaving Denmark to attend university in Toronto, Canada—when she falls for a beguiling but volatile American. Their romance moves fast, and in what seems like no time she finds herself living a privileged but deeply unhappy life in New York with her now-husband, Cal. After suffering for too long, she finally begins to find her way onto a better path—only to be abruptly faced with a life-threatening physical condition. To survive and to heal, Nette must confront dark family lies and her hidden traumas and find her own power again.
In an era of increasing awareness regarding how many strong, intelligent women ignore their gut and lose themselves—and the lives they dream of having—when they become entangled with toxic men, Soul-Happy illuminates the underlying reasons for one promising young woman’s downhill slide after she falls for “the wrong kind of love,” and follows her harrowing battle to put herself back together again.
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How It Happens, Jean Alicia Elster
Intergenerational story of three Black women and their struggle to stake their claim to the American dream.
How It Happens follows the story of author Jean Alicia Elster’s maternal grandmother, Dorothy May Jackson. Born in Tennessee in 1890, Dorothy May was the middle daughter of Addie Jackson, a married African-American housekeeper at one of the white boardinghouses in town, and Tom Mitchell, a commanding white attorney from a prominent family. Through three successive generations of African-American women, Elster intertwines the fictionalized adaptations of the defining periods and challenges—race relations, miscegenation, sexual assault, and class divisions—in her family’s history.
A continuation of the plots begun in Elster’s two novels Who’s Jim Hines? and The Colored Car, How It Happens continues the story for an older audience and begins with Addie’s life before the turn of the century in the South as a married Black woman with three biracial daughters navigating the relationship between her husband and Tom Mitchell. Later the story shifts to Addie’s daughter Dorothy May’s experiences both as a child and later, as a teacher who, choosing between her career and marriage to a man she barely knows, moves to Detroit. The story moves along with Dorothy May’s daughter Jean, who, with the support of her mother and the memory of her grandmother, confronts and comes to terms with her role in society and the options available to her as a college-educated Black woman in the post–World War II industrial North. While there is struggle and hardship for each of these women, they each build off one other and continue to demand space in the world in which they live.
Written for young adult readers, How It Happens carries the heart through the obstacles that still face women of color today and persists in holding open the door of communication between generations.
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The Paper House, Barbara Josselsohn
It was a shop full of wonder; sheets of colorful paper, pots of ink on every surface, and spools of ribbon suspended on gleaming brass hooks. But it was even more magical when it was filled with people. Rumor was that the owner, Tilly, could send letters to long-lost loved ones if you penned them on the long wooden desk…
Everyone on the island would go there, not just to buy writing supplies, but to write these letters. To the people they’d not been able to say goodbye to, to the people they wished would come home. The Paper House was a place for grieving, for remembering, for forgiving.
And now, years later, as Kayla reopens the beautiful front door, and feels the memories of her Great Aunt Tilly come flooding back, it has the chance to become a place for someone who lost everything to finally find herself again.
If only Kayla can find the courage to face the ghosts of the past…
A compelling and captivating novel full of heart, imagination and magic, The Paper House is perfect for fans of The Lost Bookshop, The Glass House and The Keeper of Lost Things.
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Tabitha, Stay Up!, Lee Upton
After a shattering disappointment, Tabitha must find new ways to get up-and stay up. In this sequel to Tabitha, Get Up, she faces a determined antagonist and a possible new love, or the return of what appeared to be lost love.
She must save the world’s best bar, contend with diabolical twins and a persistent mystical vision, survive a former cowboy campground, refuse to count her blessings, and at last walk down the aisle again, although not in the way she anticipated. Tabitha continues her forays into philosophy-how to survive disaster, defy humiliation, and build a life where optimism may be renewed, whenever it needs to be renewed, which is by the minute.
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Remember To Eat and Other Stories, Meryl Ain
For fans of Hilma Wolitzer and Jhumpa Lahiri comes a collection of short stories about a mother and daughter as they navigate their changing roles through tumultuous times.
Following a Jewish family from before World War II to the not-too-distant future, this collection of loosely linked short stories explores the experiences of Marjorie, a baby boomer; her mother, Alice; and the friends and family that make up their community over the decades. As they each pursue higher education and choose career paths, both mother and daughter encounter challenges as they make choices within a changing society—from in-law problems to illness to antisemitism and beyond.
Sometimes poignant, sometimes humorous, Remember to Eat takes on themes including patriarchy, technology, the changing role of women, the challenges of raising children, the COVID-19 pandemic, complex family relationships, and what it means to be a Jew with empathy and insight. Ultimately, the twenty-two stories contained in these pages offer not only an intimate journey into these women’s lives but also an illuminating portrait of the times in which they live.
“Meryl Ain’s wonderful new story collection, Remember to Eat, takes its mother-daughter characters through almost a century of American Jewish life. Compelling, poignant, and often funny, the stories are well worth reading!”—Deborah Kalb, author of Off to Join the Circus
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Shades of Green (Colors, the Harper Loch Trilogy Book 3), Liz Flaherty
Pastor Cari Newland’s life is stuck in the middle.
Her friends and parishioners at Harper Loch are mostly older than her thirty-three years… or they’re younger. While she likes being a single minister, she would also like to meet someone who sees her as someone besides “Preach.”
She gets hugged a lot, she realizes, but she never gets held. She’s never been the daughter her parents wanted or the woman her long-ago fiancé needed. Her life is good, but it’s lonely.
Enter handsome navy pilot Zack Grant. Visiting his parents at the lake, he attends a wedding Cari officiates. They talk and they dance and they are … interested. But Zack’s life is a thousand miles away and Cari’s life is firmly in Harper Loch. When interested begins to grow into something more, Cari and Zack must decide how to fit into each other’s world and whether or not they can make a long-distance romance work.
But Cari’s life is in the small lake community in Michigan. Zack’s is in the Florida Panhandle. And neither of them has any intention of changing locations.
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Don’t Look in the Freezer: The Very Strange Life of a Veterinarian’s Wife, Patti Eddington
For James Herriot fans and pet lovers, a modern-day, funny-yet-poignant memoir about what it is like to be the only person in a small family not employed in the veterinary profession.
Patti Eddington should have known when she married her veterinary student boyfriend that she would spend anniversary and birthday dinners not sitting at tables at fancy restaurants but kneeling under a surgery table in a cocktail dress, desperately trying to mop up a steady stream of blood and urine with cheap paper towels. She should have guessed that every knock at the door or ring of the phone would mean her husband would be torn away from the family for hours—sometimes returning deflated, sometimes smiling. But she could never have dreamed that her beautiful, curly-haired young daughter would one day bathe and sleep with an inflatable tick (until the day it was mysteriously punctured by a salad fork) or that she would go through her marriage of forty-five years opening every freezer door with caution.
Don’t Look in the Freezer is a humorous, poignant, loving look into the sometimes strange, mostly unglamorous, life of a veterinarian’s wife. Patti’s little family is not at all like that of famous veterinarian James Herriot’s—but is still absolutely filled with compassion and love for animals and the people who adore them.
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Waiting for the Kick: A Midwife’s Grief and Rebirth in Africa, Sheila Kimble-Haas
After heartbreak in Pennsylvania, a forty-five-year-old widow journeys to Sudan’s war zone, where a chaotic maternity ward teaches her a new kind of strength—and becomes her path to healing.
When Sheila’s husband died, grief didn’t just visit—it swallowed her whole. She didn’t want casseroles or kind words. She wanted out.
Broken and carrying a battered rucksack, she joined a humanitarian mission in war-torn South Sudan, where gunfire drove her under delivery-room tables and days blurred as she triaged mothers and children ravaged by tropical disease. But even the pulse of the frantic mission could not strip away her sorrow until she heard the ululation of the Sudanese women: a fierce, haunting cry, to celebrate life, to exorcise sorrow, and to rip the past from the body to make space for the now.
Waiting for the Kick: A Midwife’s Grief and Rebirth in Africa recounts Sheila Kimble Haas’s journey from a home thick with loss in America to the edge of the world, where she delivers babies in mud-walled clinics, navigates tribal customs and civil unrest, and stands shoulder-to-shoulder with women whose strength redefined survival.
This powerful memoir of loss, reckoning, and unexpected transformation is both a tribute to the unbreakable spirit of women and the story of a midwife who discovered that healing begins not in comfort, but in surrender.
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Every Precious And Fragile Thing, Barbara Davies
A mother and daughter try desperately to reconcile just as a decades-old secret threatens to shatter their relationship forever in this powerful story from the bestselling author of The Echo of Old Books.
For social worker Mallory Ward, working with at-risk youth is a calling. But when one of her clients is tragically killed, she finds herself at a crossroads. Despite long-held resentments toward her distant mother, Mallory retreats to her childhood home on the Rhode Island coast to contemplate her future. Instead, she’s confronted by her past, not only in the renewed tensions with her mother but in the unexpected appearance of a familiar face―and the wrenching losses that drove her away a decade ago.
Helen Ward’s home is filled with precious keepsakes from her patients, a testament to decades spent caring for the terminally ill. Her work has always come first, though, leaving little time to connect with her daughter. Over the years, the rift between them has become a chasm, so when Mallory appears unannounced, Helen sees it as an opportunity to repair their broken relationship.
But hidden among Helen’s mementos are the keys to her past…and a terrible secret that threatens to destroy the fragile new trust between them forever.
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A Dream Life, Wendy Swift
“A brutally honest portrayal of the emotional, psychological, and economic struggle to keep one’s family intact while enduring the acute financial betrayal and emotional abuse of a rogue spouse.” Lisa Lawler, Founder of The White-Collar Wives Project
When Wendy Swift discovers a letter demanding nearly two million dollars in restitution from her attorney husband, she realizes that her life as a suburban stay-at-home mother has been built on illusion. Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, she believed the quintessential dream life she shared with her husband and three daughters was secure and enduring. A Dream Life traces Swift’s search for validation through marriage, motherhood, and social mobility, and the unraveling that follows.
After her husband begins his incarceration in the 1990s, Swift becomes solely responsible for supporting her three young daughters as they navigate loss, shame, and uncertainty. Her path forward is uneven and hard-won, revealing resilience, reflection, and growth, as well as the perils of blind materialism.
This powerful memoir illuminates the complex challenges families face when confronted with addiction, mental illness, and incarceration. Swift blends unflinching truth-telling with wry self-reflection, awakening readers to the consequences of denial and the restorative power of self-possession. A Dream Life ultimately affirms that anyone can unknowingly fall prey to false beliefs, but once the truth is revealed and the fear of dislocation and upheaval is faced, renewal and strength can emerge.
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Mortal Zin, Diane Schaffer
A crusading attorney’s death. Sabotage at a family winery. Secrets buried in California’s past…
When corporate attorney Noli Cooper visits her godparents’ Santa Cruz Mountain winery, she’s hoping for a few quiet days to consider her future. But the future will have to wait. The body of her childhood mentor, a crusading social justice lawyer and local hero, is discovered in a rocky ocean cove. The sheriff is quick to call it suicide. Noli knows he’s wrong. Teaming up with PI Luz Alvarado, Noli dives into a world where nothing is as it seems.
As threats mount and the winery teeters on the brink of ruin, Noli and Luz must navigate a treacherous landscape of greed, revenge, and long-buried secrets. Their investigation weaves through the rich tapestry of California’s vineyard history, the mystery of zinfandel grapes, and the haunting legacy of the Vietnam War. With a murderer on the loose, predatory neighbors circling, and Noli’s godfather framed for murder, the clock is ticking. Can two fearless women from different worlds unravel the truth before it’s too late?
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Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew, Ellen Notbohm
Essential for any parent, teacher or caregiver of an autistic child. Unreservedly recommended. — Midwest Book Review
Hopeful and highly informative, quite possibly the best book on parenting a child with autism. — Chanticleer International Book Awards
The 20th Anniversary Edition of Ellen Notbohm’s Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew commemorates the timeless insights of one of the autism community’s most beloved classics. Translated into more than 25 languages, Ten Things has transcended geographic, cultural, and socio-economic boundaries to guide and inspire millions of families and professionals worldwide.
Framed with humor and compassion, the book helps to illuminate— not define—autistic children. A child’s voice leads into each chapter, opening a window to understanding ten core characteristics of autism and their influence on how our children see, hear, feel and react to their physical, sensory and social-emotional environments.
And, in a new section exclusive to the 20th Anniversary Edition, Ellen gives us The 11th Thing, her wise and thought-provoking response to one of Ten Things readers’ most frequent requests.
Ellen’s experiences as a parent, author, advocate, and contributor to numerous parenting, education, and health publications coalesce to create this perceptive, informative, and highly relatable guide empowering all who interact with someone on the autism spectrum.
WINNER OF
Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal
Chanticleer International Book Awards Grand Prize
Eric Hoffer Book Awards, Grand Prize Short List
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Dear Missing Friend, Susan McGuirk
Recommended for readers who enjoy The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams and An American Beauty by Shana Abé
Three hearts. Love lost. One impossible choice.
A character-driven historical saga featuring the love triangle of a seaman, a governess and a wealthy speculator. Told through letters, the sweep of 19th century events like the gold rush, whaling voyages, and the streets of Manhattan unfold.
At the height of the 1840s whaling era, Catherine McGuirk arrives in Sag Harbor, New York. She has already spurned a marriage proposal from Patrick Lynch on her passage from Ireland and is confident she will find work as a governess, or at least a teacher. The local schoolmaster dismisses her with a smirk. Settling for hotel work has its upside when Cath meets a handsome seaman, Michael Heffernan. Just as she falls in love, he is off on a whaling voyage.
Spending her romance alone spurs Cath to continue her correspondence with Patrick. His ascent as a successful businessman in New York is swift, while Michael promises to give up the sea for marriage to Cath. Yet, when the Gold rush calls, he cannot resist. A brokenhearted Cath moves to New York to revive her dream of becoming a governess. Once in Manhattan, she continues to be torn between her own ambition, her missing husband, and her former beau.
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Reframing Aging (New Biological Anthropology), Melissa K. Melby
How do we age? Why do we age? How and why does menopause happen? Do different cultures have different approaches and attitudes to, and experiences of, aging and menopause? Reframing Aging: Insights from Biology and Culture of Midlife Japanese uses a biocultural framework to try to answer these questions, and gain insights on aging and menopause in Japan, the United States, and beyond.
Drawing on years of fieldwork and lab work in Japan, and over a decade of living and working in Japan at several universities and the National Institute of Health and Nutrition, with follow‑up interviews spanning over 20 years, Melissa Melby challenges what are often considered “normal” experiences of aging and menopause. This book introduces a proximate‑ultimate biocultural framework to guide the reader through questions of how (proximate) and why (ultimate) we age, and experience menopause, as we do. Drawing insights from evolutionary biology and societal‑level phenomena, and the language of lived experience, it explores how cross‑cultural variation in expectations, medicalization, collectivism, lifestyles, and other factors may influence how symptoms of aging and menopause are perceived, experienced, and treated.
Reframing Aging: Insights from Biology and Culture of Midlife Japanese offers new approaches and insightful perspectives for students of biological/cultural/medical anthropology, gerontology, Asian studies, women and gender studies, medicine, and public health.
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Gore, Lust & Kin: Stories of Women on the Brink, Suzanne Mattaboni
Gore, Lust & Kin is a genre-crossing collection blending horror, dysfunctional romance, and familial obligations. Its 24 stories feature agonized women (plus a few guys) on the cusp of either finding themselves or destroying themselves. Meet murderous Charlene, who goes to explosive lengths to drum-up business for her family’s funeral home. And struggling researcher Jackie, forced to make a heartbreaking decision between her relationship and her own body. Or Aphrodite, a reanimated Goddess on a bloody rampage. And dramatic pixie dream girl Marena, who finally gets to tell a story from thepixie’s POV. These girls will thrill you-or kill you.
“Suzanne Mattaboni spins real magic with this collection of feminist tales. Daring, insightful, heartfelt, and unflinching. Highly recommended… but buckle up!” -Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of NecroTek and Ink
“A riveting collection of shape-shifting stories that take us into dark hearts and bloodied trauma, all told with a lightness of touch and an insouciant literary flair.” -Simon Petherick, author of Jack and Barry and Like Fire Unbound
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The Pond Beyond the Forest: Reflections on Childhood Trauma and Motherhood, Shigeko Ito
For fans of Stephanie Foo’s What My Bones Know, a memoir of a middle-aged Japanese immigrant mother’s struggle to raise her teenage son and save her marriage when she finds herself triggered by memories of her own childhood trauma as he enters adolescence.
At age twenty-two, Shigeko Ito immigrated to America to escape Japan’s rigid society and a neglectful childhood home that landed her in a mental hospital at seventeen. She thrived in her new, healthier environment and thought her traumatic past was all behind her.
Until it wasn’t.
Motherhood, she realized, was far more challenging than she could have ever imagined. But it was her son’s high school years that proved to be particularly daunting, and that was when her past reemerged—in the form of intense flashbacks to her childhood trauma and tumultuous teenage years. With the stream of daily stresses compounded by menopausal irritability, Shigeko often found herself regressing into a bunker-like mentality with childish coping mechanisms, a pattern that threatened to undo her most prized achievement: her happy family.
In The Pond Beyond the Forest, Shigeko faces her past head-on, taking the reader along on her quest to uncover the root causes of her lifelong struggles—a journey that leads to deeper self-awareness, understanding, and acceptance, and ultimately saves her family and marriage.
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You Go, Girl!, Elaine Insinnia
You Go, Girl! is a fictional tale based on real-life experiences. It offers a nostalgic glimpse of growing up in 1959 and centers on heartwarming stories about a grandmother’s past and her granddaughter’s present.
During a week-long visit, twelve-year-old Suzie agrees to read her grandmother Elaine’s journal from 1959, curious about life in the “old days” before cell phones and social media. As Suzie delves into the journal, she peppers Elaine with questions about the restrictions imposed on girls in the past, sparking discussions about gender norms and empowerment.
Through their shared stories, secrets are unveiled and a deeper bond between generations emerges. Suzie learns valuable lessons on facing bullies and fighting for gender equality, inspired by her grandmother’s resilience and spirit.
As the week comes to an end and Suzie prepares to return home, both she and Elaine are transformed by their time together, forever changed by the revelations and connections forged across generations.
—
“Insinnia’s writing is sharp and is a delightful read for anyone who enjoys stories that give a bit of history while building up heartwarming relationships. Very highly recommended.” – Readers’ Favorite
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The Faerie Handmaid, Lousia Morgan
When it’s revealed that the new king of Camelud is cursed, Braithe, handmaid to the most powerful priestess in the realm must travel to the land of the fae to break the curse, but to do so Braithe must step out of her mentor’s shadow and into her power, in this bewitching coming of age tale from Louisa Morgan.
When Braithe was left as an acolyte on the Isle of Apples, she never dreamed she’d become handmaid to Morgana, the most powerful priestess in all of Camelud, but now she is content to live out her days in service to the Priestess. But when a powerful mage comes to Morgana and Braithe with concerns that the new king of Camelud is being cursed by powerful magic, the two must journey to the White City deep in fae country to investigate.
The magical city is nothing like Braithe imagined and the fae are cold and callous toward humans and quick to bewitch. Despite the constant threat of danger, Braithe just may be the key to discovering who is cursing the king, but to do so she will have to step into her own power.
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Twice The Family, Julie McGue
Growing up as an adoptee and identical twin, Julie McGue will take you on her journey for identity and individuality, searching for answers through tragedy and adversity.
“A heartfelt exploration of connection, community, and the unbreakable bond between sisters . . . Her journey beautifully reminds us of the strength we find within ourselves as we seek to uncover where we truly belong.”— Simone Knego, author of The Extraordinary UnOrdinary You
In this coming-of-age memoir, set in Chicago’s western suburbs between the 1960s and ’80s, adopted twins Julie and Jenny provide their parents with an instant family. Their sisterly bond holds tight as the two strive for identity, individuality, and belonging. But as Julie’s parents continue adding children to the family, some painful and tragic experiences test family values, parental relationships, and sibling bonds.
Faced with these hurdles, Julie questions everything—who she is, how she fits in, her adoption circumstances, her faith, and her idea of family. But the life her parents have constructed is not one she wants for herself—and as she matures, she recognizes how the experiences that formed her have provided her a road map for the person and mother she wants to be.
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Our Mother’s Secret, Alison Ragsdale
When my sister tells me time is running out for her life-saving transplant, tears roll down my cheeks. But she isn’t crying, she’s staring at our mother, who says words that will change my life forever. ‘It’s time for me to tell you the truth…’
I can barely breathe as my mother tells us there is a possibility that the father we adored might not be our birth father. Before I can process the secret she has kept from us, she takes my hand firmly in hers. ‘You have to find him Mairi, the other man. He is our last chance to save your sister.’
When I tell my husband Tom what my mother has asked me to do, I can see the pain on his face. All he wants is for me to rest and protect the precious life inside of me, the baby we hoped for all these years. How can I put my own happiness ahead of saving my sister’s life?
But finding the man my mother loved all those years ago is only the beginning. Because my sister is also hiding something, and it will change everything I thought I knew about our family. Am I truly prepared for what I will discover when I unravel the secrets of those I love the most? And will I be ready to make the most impossible choice of all?
An utterly gripping and heart-wrenching story about a devastating family secret. Perfect for fans of Kate Hewitt, Jodi Picoult and Diane Chamberlain.
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