Small Press Pages March 2026
March always feels like a month in transition—winter loosening its grip, spring beginning to stir, and the promise of longer days just around the corner. It’s the perfect time to gather a stack of books that reflect that sense of movement: stories that challenge, surprise, comfort, or simply keep us good company as the seasons shift. Here are a few titles to carry you through March’s in-between days.
All This Can Be True by Jen Michalski (Keylight Press)
A romance featuring Lacie Johnson, whose plans to start a new life are put on hold after her husband’s sudden stroke—until she forms an unexpected connection with Quinn, a grieving traveler passing through the hospital. As their relationship deepens, a secret tying Quinn to Lacie’s comatose husband threatens to upend everything.
Pearly Gates by Bonnie Solomon (Bonsol Press)
Fantasy about a dramatic former drag queen named Pearly who, after dying and getting dumped by her soulmate, becomes a spirit guide at a quirky café where she helps lonely souls find connection. Her already complicated job gets even more so when the café owner turns out to be her reincarnated ex.
Chocolate Chip City by Be Steadwell (Bywater Books)
A story about three sisters—a struggling baker, a weary bodyworker, and an ambitious housing activist—as they navigate love, work, and gentrification while slowly discovering their powers as conjurers. When their mother shares a prophecy involving princes, true love, and revolution, they’re skeptical—until a meeting with a wealthy developer and his two children suggests the vision may be coming true.
Harvesting Rosewater by Paria Hassouri (Koehler Books)
Historical fiction whose protagonist, Farah Afshar, is the first female chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Mount Sinai. She’s navigating divorce and an empty nest when global protests over Mahsa Amini’s death force her to confront painful memories of Iran’s revolution—and a secret she has hidden for decades.
How to Be Unmothered by Camille U. Adams (Restless Books)
Debut memoir that recounts growing up in Trinidad within a family shaped by generations of women who leave—whether fleeing violence, addiction, or circumstances that make staying unbearable. The book traces Adams’s struggle to survive and redefine what escape, freedom, and self-determination mean.
The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman by Niko Stratis
A collection about growing up as a closeted trans woman in the Yukon while working in her father’s glass shop and finding solace in so-called “dad rock.” Through personal essays about artists like Wilco, R.E.M., Radiohead, and Bruce Springsteen, the author explores how emotionally open music helped her imagine a different life and claim her identity.
Bitter Creek: An Epic Poem by Teow Lim Goh (Torrey House Press)
A collection that explores the 1885 Rock Springs Massacre, when white miners violently expelled Chinese workers from a Wyoming coal town. In the book, the author examines the labor tensions and racism behind the tragedy while asking how ordinary people become capable of brutality.
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Christina Consolino is the author of REWRITE THE STARS, THE WEIGHT WE CARRY, and THE MARRIAGE DEBT, all contemporary fiction. Her work revolves mainly around family, marriage, relationships, and physical or mental health issues. She also writes romance under the pen name Keely Stephens. She can be found most days running, reading, writing, teaching, or sitting with a warm cup of coffee.
THE MARRIAGE DEBT
Sex is never just about sex.
From the outside, Nika Stewart’s life looks perfect: two loving kids, a fulfilling job as an elementary-school librarian, and a wonderful second marriage to Ethan, her sexy husband. The only problem? She doesn’t want to have sex with him.
Maybe it’s the harrowing hot flashes and formidable fatigue, or maybe it’s trying to juggle a weed-junkie dad, an onerous stepsister, and the avalanche of responsibilities that have left sex just another chore to cross off the to-do list.
When an honest conversation with her best friend leaves Nika worried her aversion to sex might drive Ethan away, she begrudgingly agrees to see a sex therapist. But as the sessions go on, Nika discovers that talking about sex with a therapist isn’t the same as facing the problem with her husband and that sex with Ethan might not be the only problem after all.
Filled with humor, candor, and at least one pair of role-playing chaps, The Marriage Debt examines the hard truths about sex that overbooked women face in their forties, as well as the joys still to come once a woman knows who she is and how to ask for what she wants.
Category: On Writing
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