October Recommended Reads

Engineering a Love Story, Kathleen Reidy

At the height of the boom, ambition is easy —love is the real gamble

It’s the year 2000—dot-coms, Bush v. Gore, and sky-high San Francisco rents. But while the country swoons with irrational exuberance, Chelsea Lefevre’s life is deflating faster than a tech bubble.

She’d had everything she thought she was supposed to want: a house on Boston’s North Shore, exquisite wedding china, a Waspy mother-in-law. A safe, steady marriage.

But after a mortifying slip-up, Chelsea finds herself heading into the 21st century alone. Her lifeboat? A new job advising tech execs, taken to escape the misogyny she endured as a software engineer—only to discover she has a surprising knack for spotting the next hot thing.

Determined just to stay afloat, Chelsea doesn’t have time to wonder if anything beyond safe and steady is possible.

Then, on a West Coast assignment, she meets Seth Murphy, a magnetic sales executive at one of the country’s hottest startups. Professional boundaries make him off-limits, but she can’t resist his pull. What begins as a secret, casual affair soon jeopardizes Chelsea’s career, her newfound independence—and her heart.

Witty and warm, Engineering a Love Story questions how much a smart woman can risk when she’s the only female in the room.

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Ink Honey Blossom, Liza Losada

800 years ago, the Blight Plague almost wiped out the male population. Now they must rely on young girls to survive.

Beyond the iron bars of Ink’s only window, grows a mass murderer of little girls in the form of a lush, golden tree. Eight hundred years ago, the Blight Plague almost wiped out the male population. Only the hallucinogen culled from the Sonagachi tree can slow the progression of the incurable disease. If not for the drug administered and catalyzed by imprisoned House Girls around the world, men would die young and by the thousands.

Each night, fifteen-year-old Ink and her friends at The Nectar House use the powerful hallucinogen to curate a bespoke trance-like experience which prolongs the life of their sick Blight customers by replenishing their health while simultaneously depleting their own. Years of captivity and the betrayal that got her sold have toughened Ink’s heart while her body weakens every day. Ink has no power, no freedom, and little sympathy.

Armed only with her wits and locked in her one room library, she tries to improve the brief and brutal life of the other House Girls, but only the girls Ink deems special and worthy of her altruism. When a beloved friend goes missing, Ink knows her efforts are not enough to bring her back or keep her other friends from being sold to other houses.

One night, a Blight arrives with a magical item that grants Ink an unprecedented ability and the possibility of escape. Ink must decide whether to stay and help those she can in the time she has left or lead a handful of friends to freedom. If either course fails, if she’s caught or outsmarted, she and everyone she’s trying to save will be buried along with the other dead House Girls who feed the vile Sonagachi tree.

For readers of Margaret Atwood and Octavia E. Butler.

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One of Us Must Die, Zelly Ruskin

For fans of Kimberly Belle and Apple TV+’s Bad Sisters, a domestic suspense exploring the lengths a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage by an ironclad trust fund clause will go to in order to escape her greedy, gaslighting husband.

She married for love. He married for trust. Specifically, her trust fund—the one with the iron-clad “no divorce, no matter the circumstances” clause her mother insisted on.

Sterling (not as good as gold) has always come second to her family’s wealth—but unlike her mother, she’ll do anything to protect her three children. For years, she’s kept up the perfect family illusion to shield them from their manipulative, gaslighting father. But now her husband is becoming more reckless, and her children more exposed. And when her daughter’s fiancé says he wants a marriage just like hers, Sterling knows her charade has gone too far.

To free herself, she must outwit her husband and the legal ties meant to trap her—before it’s too late. Because in this family, there’s only one way out: One of them must die.

“One of Us Must Die is a taut domestic thriller about generational wealth, marriage, and the slow erosion of morality. A truly chilling and thought-provoking read!”—Wendy Walker, USA Today best-selling author of Blade

“Zelly Ruskin has written another absolute stunner of a novel. It felt like I was right next to Sterling, kept in suspense as she uncovered layer upon shocking and twisty layer of her marriage. I can’t wait to read Zelly’s next book.”—Barbara Bos, managing editor of Books by Women

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Love and Other Incurable Ailments, Linda K. Sienkiewicz

Serenity Tomczyk isn’ t dying— she just has anxiety, a WebMD habit, and a cat named Margaret Thatcher. After breaking off her engagement and losing both parents, she retreats into a predictable life of retail shifts, group therapy, and the safety of solitude. Then a box of passionate letters appears in a dumpster behind her aunt’ s home dé cor shop, and Serenity becomes captivated by the mysterious man who wrote them. Soon, she’ s chasing a fantasy 900 miles from Michigan to Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, in search of the stranger she knows only as ” Birdy.”

Thrown from her carefully padded comfort zone, Serenity discovers unexpected friendships, uncomfortable truths, and the possibility of love. But when her imagined happy ending begins to unravel, she must decide if holding on— or letting go— is the bravest thing she can do. With wit, heart, and irrepressible warmth, Love and Other Incurable Ailments is a story about connection, courage, and becoming yourself— just when you thought it was too late.

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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.

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The Big Day: Saying “I Do” Only to Discover I Didn’t – Another Mostly True Memoir, Lisa Cheek

For fans of Sloane Crosley, a sharp, funny memoir from the acclaimed author of Sit, Cinderella, Sit about love, commitment, and whether she’s ready for marriage right before turning fifty.

For years, Lisa Cheek has believed long-term commitment isn’t in her genes. Her romantic history has followed a familiar pattern: date a lot and widely, but never settle down. When anyone has wanted to marry her, she’s run away. So even she is surprised when, at forty-nine, she finally says “yes” to a proposal and commits fully to her boyfriend, Big Johnson. But when she finds out on their wedding day, after the vows, that they aren’t actually married, she hesitates. Should she take this as a sign to run while she still can?

In The Big Day, Lisa Cheek invites us inside one unforgettable wedding day, with its attending hilarity, chaos, and unexpected turns. As everything begins to unravel she looks back on a lifetime of relationships—her own and those of her family and friends—searching for patterns, meanings and the truth about what makes love last.

Witty, unflinching and deeply relatable, The Big Day is a memoir about late-in-life love, marriage, and the complicated question so many people face: When it really matters, do you stay or do you go?

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THE RIVER RUNS BLACK, Tessa Wegert

Up in the far corner of New York State, past the last of the cities, lies the North Country. Summer people come for the boats and the sunsets. Then the season turns, the water goes dark, and the river towns close in on themselves.

It’s an impossible place to police. But New York State Police Investigator Tim Wellington, born and raised here, will do whatever it takes to keep his community safe.

Three days before Halloween, a young woman staggers down a quiet street in Clayton. No shoes. No coat. Nothing but a bikini and a fist closed tight around something she won’t show anyone.

She won’t say where she came from. She won’t say what was done to her.

Then she runs.

The North Country is already reeling. A high-school senior is dead of an overdose. But the record haul seized from a speedboat doesn’t match the cocaine that killed him.

Someone else is still selling. And they are very close.

The clock is ticking for Tim to track down the drug dealers. Then another local girl disappears . . .

This twisty mystery coupled with heart-pounding suspense will appeal to fans of Melinda Leigh, Kendra Elliot, Lisa Regan, Danielle Girard, Paul Doiron and Karin Slaughter.

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Living with Strangers: Healing a Wounded Heart in a Distant Land—A Memoir, Robin Rosenbluth

A debut memoirist’s hopeful and brave coming-of-age story of surviving a turbulent youth—neglected first by her father, then as a teen in foster care—and going on to find a sense of belonging and a new lease on life in a semi-nomadic Kenyan community.

Eager to leave her life as a foster child behind, Robin Rosenbluth travels to a remote village in northern Kenya called Songa in 1973. As a white college student, she arrives in a desert-like environment to teach elementary school to Samburu and Rendille children. While befriending the residents, she learns to live in a mud hut, survive without modern conveniences, skin a cow, and kill a chicken for dinner.

Robin weaves stories about the challenges she faced growing up—her mother’s early death, her father’s abandonment, and her years in foster care—with her account of her time in Songa. As the only Jewish resident in a village influenced by Christian missionaries, she strives to fit in: adapting to the intense heat, endless insects, and close encounters with wild animals. Over time, she develops close friendships with a local teacher and a woman who becomes her surrogate mother, participates in local customs, and makes a place for herself in Songa.

Offering vivid insight into why a love-starved nineteen-year-old from New York City would choose to relocate to the other side of the world, Living with Strangers is a poignant chronicle of one young woman’s search for a place to belong.

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The Faerie Handmaid, Louisa Morgan

When the new king of Camelud is cursed, a magicless handmaid must embrace her own power and save the kingdom in this spellbinding coming-of-age tale from Louisa Morgan.

As an acolyte on the Isle of Apples, Braithe never dreamed she’d become a handmaid to Morgana, the most powerful priestess in all Camulod. When the two learn the king is cursed by powerful magic, they journey to the White City deep in fae country to investigate.

The magical city is nothing like Braithe imagined. The fae are cold and callous and quick to bewitch. Moreover, Morgana’s magic is unreliable, and it falls to Braithe to uncover who is behind the curse. But she will have to believe herself capable of more than she ever imagined.

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The First To Die, Suzanne Trauth

Connie Tucker, a free-spirited beach bartender, has been estranged from her family in New Jersey ever since her actress mother, Simone, disappeared one night during a violent storm at the theatre where she was rehearsing. Uncontrollable and in a rage at the loss of her parent, fifteen-year-old Connie is exiled to California, due to her delinquent behavior, to live with an aunt she doesn’t know.

Fifteen years later, Simone’s murdered remains are discovered at a construction site and Connie returns to the east coast for the funeral—she owes it to her mother. The cold case unit will take over now and solve the crime. But then she discovers a message her mother left behind. It feels like a dispatch from the grave.

Connie must face her tortured past, the guilt of concealing a devastating secret, and the part she played in her mother’s disappearance. Unearthing buried family history and childhood demons, she confronts the agonizing reality that she doesn’t know where she belongs, where to call home. Who to trust. When a second suspicious death occurs, Connie races to unravel the events of the night Simone disappeared. Her mother was the first to die…but not the last.

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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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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.

“This absolutely fascinating collection of stories held me on the edge of my seat from the very start! Gore, Lust, & Kin provides a deep dive into the human condition while racing into the otherworldly like a runaway train full of desire, terror, and tales that stick with you long after you turn off the lights. Mattaboni has a devilish way of bleeding one story directly into the next that barely let me stop to catch my breath.” -Misty Simon, author of the Charmed Inn Mysteries, the Sunny Side Up Mysteries, and more

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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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Mortal Zin: A Mystery Novel, 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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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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Twice the Family: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood, Julie Ryan 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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All Gifts: Finding Meaning in the Mess, Pandora Villaseñor

Pandora Villaseñor was four years old the first time she can remember love and pain living in the same house. She was fifteen when she became a mother. Seventeen when she left for college on a full scholarship. Thirty-one when she got sober. And forty-two when she finally understood that none of it – not the chaos, not the loss, not the dream she shelved to get out – had been wasted.

All Gifts moves across four decades, following Villaseñor’s investigation of the things you inherit and the things you leave behind. Through poverty, single motherhood, and religion, she doesn’t always choose the things that happen to her, but she chooses to see them as gifts.

Told in Villaseñor’s spare, declarative prose, All Gifts is for anyone who has ever stood in the wreckage of something and wondered if any of it meant anything.

It did. It does.

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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.

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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.

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Mine Again: Sunflower Book One (Sunflower Series 1), Andrea Thome

“Charming first installment in the Sunflower series.” ~Kirkus Reviews
Delilah Spencer is a rolling stone. A big city attorney from Chicago on a temporary work assignment in Sunflower, Montana.

Ranger Beckham’s Sunflower roots run deep. Three generations to be exact. The high school band director and single father is adrift, fresh out of a marriage of convenience. He’s all but given up on finding true love.

Until he bumps into Delilah, the fixer with trust issues who has a hard and fast rule: never get attached to the places she visits or the people in them. They strike a deal when the chemistry between them burns too hot to ignore, convincing themselves they’ll be able to part as friends when Delilah’s gig is up, no matter how scorching things get between them.

But the slower pace in tight-knit Sunflower is a balm for Delilah’s restless soul, and it becomes impossible to imagine leaving Ranger or Montana behind.

Will Delilah break her own rules and finally put down roots, or will she cut and run when her contract is up, leaving Ranger and the life she never knew she wanted in the rearview mirror?

“Charming first installment in the Sunflower series.” ~Kirkus Review
“Snappy…a charming opposites-attract romance” ~ Booklife review

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Wild Freedom: The Princess Who Found Her Name, On Fairy Tales, Imagination and the Creative Mind, Dale M. Kushner

In this meditation on the creative mind, poet, novelist, essayist and student of Jung, Dale M. Kushner revisits a fairy tale she wrote decades ago during a time of crisis and uncertainty to examine the condition of “self-enchantment,” a state of being that infuses life with the healing power of creativity and illuminates the luminous darkness within. Wild Freedom: The Princess Who Found Her Name, On Fairy Tales, Imagination and the Creative Mind, and Kushner’s accompanying essay present an unflinching and impassioned exploration of the persistence of the creative self and its not always peaceful coexistence with family, identity, motherhood and desire.

Augmenting Kushner’s tale and reflections are three revelatory essays and a foreword by distinguished Jungian analysts Henry Abramovitch, Kenneth W. James, Dariane Pictet and Murray Stein. Together, the story and the essays invite readers on a journey of self-discovery through the wetlands and forests of soul.

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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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Forget the Fairy Tale and Find Your Happiness, Deb Miller

Once upon a time, girls dreamed a prince would deliver their happily ever after. For readers who loved Belle Burden’s Strangers, Deb Miller’s inspiring memoir proves that Prince Charming is overrated—and that the most powerful happily ever after is the one you create yourself.

From stay-at-home mom to globetrotting executive and single parent, Deb Miller navigates love’s many plot twists while discovering that happiness isn’t something another person can provide.

Drawing striking parallels to Disney’s evolving princesses—from damsels in distress to fearless warriors—Miller offers a fresh perspective on how women’s roles have transformed and how modern women have discovered the power of riding their own white horse.

Part memoir and part cultural commentary, Forget the Fairy Tale and Find Your Happiness is an uplifting story of reinvention, resilience, and self-reliance that encourages readers to write their own ending.

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Every Precious and Fragile Thing, Barbara Davis

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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The Mrs. Astor: A Gilded Age Novel of Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, Deanna Lynn Sletten

Inspired by true events, this richly researched novel offers an intimate portrait of the woman who reigned over America’s Gilded Age—and the unforgettable night that tested her power, her convictions, and her heart.

New York City, 1896

On the eve of her annual winter ball, Caroline Schermerhorn Astor reflects on her life and all that has led up to this moment. She is about to reintroduce her daughter, Charlotte, into society after a scandalous divorce. Society dictates that divorced women simply disappear, but Caroline refuses to ban her daughter from her rightful place. After all, Caroline is the woman who runs New York City society. If anyone can break the rules, it’s her.

From her privileged childhood among the families of the oldest Dutch settlement in New York to her marriage to William Backhouse Astor, Jr., one of the richest men in the country, Caroline has done everything expected of a proper society wife. With elegance, determination, and an unwavering belief in tradition, she raised the Astor name to even greater heights and created an exclusive world where only the most distinguished families belonged. But now, all that could disappear if New York society rejects her because of her daughter’s scandal.

Whatever the consequences, Caroline will hold her head high, because she is The Mrs. Astor, and no one can take from her what she values the most—her precious family.

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Radical Return: Reclaiming My Body Through Coffee, Drugs, Dance, and Psychoanalysis, Natalie R Cohen

Radical Return fuses personal storytelling with professional insight to explore the transformative potential of psychedelics. A memoir-in-essays tracing Natalie’s experience healing from sexual violence, ancestral trauma, medical trauma, and institutional betrayal, this fearless reflection challenges the medicalized narrative of healing. Clinical psychologist Dr. Natalie R. Cohen recounts her recovery through guided journeys with ketamine, MDMA, psilocybin, and ayahuasca.

But the real story unfolds after the medicine fades-through dance, ritual, tattooing, dreamwork, and psychoanalytic reckoning. Blending lived experience with clinical insight, Cohen centers a woman’s body as both witness and site of transformation. Urgent, embodied, and culturally resonant, Radical Return offers a new blueprint for integration-one rooted not only in science, but in voice, movement, and a radical return to one’s whole self.

Where BODY, MIND, HEART, and SPIRIT meet.

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Christmas on Goose Island (The Southern Isles Book 5), Laurie Beach

What if you woke up knowing the exact date and time you would die?

Dorothea Boone is no sissy. She knows full well that her amateur prognostications aren’t always spot-on, but this one has her reeling—especially since it was clear that she might drop dead early Christmas morning. So, when John Stanley enters her life, she doesn’t know whether to run toward him, or sprint away as fast as she can.

She’s supposed to have half of her life left to figure things out. Which means she absolutely cannot leave Earth while she still has a strong sense that something is missing. But what is it? Is it the fact that she’s been closed-off to men since her surprise unwed pregnancy? Or that her children are all off living their own lives without her? The uncertainty of her life stirs up old memories and mysteries from childhood that have her spinning.

So when Christmas approaches and John is determined to make sure she sticks around, will she allow him in? Or will she simply let fate take its course?

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing