Small Press Pages September 2025
Small Press Pages September 2025
Autumn is, at least at this moment, my favorite season. I live in the Midwestern United States, and this time of the year brings with it cooler weather, vibrant trees, and pungent aromas. Apple picking and leaf stomping. Multiple layers of clothes, comfortable evening walks, and easier sleeping. Fall also brings fewer hours of daylight and an overwhelming urge to curl up with a warm beverage, a cozy blanket, and a good book. Consider putting these titles on your fall reading list!
What Ben Franklin Would Have Told Me by Donna Gordon (Regal House Publishing)
A heartwrenching novel set during the Reagan era with an unforgettable narrator who lives with a premature aging disease and, as his “final wish,” makes a journey to learn more about Ben Franklin.
Dancing Woman by Elaine Neil Orr (Blair)
An American woman follows her Nigerian husband to his native land in this story of longing, redemption, and transformation.
A Kind of Justice by Renee James (Oceanview Publishing)
A nuanced mystery/thriller featuring a transgender woman hair stylist that tackles justice, family, friendship, and the human condition.
A Life Came Calling by Ann Howard Creel (Wild Rose Press)
Historical, character-driven fiction set in 1945 in which a woman, “trapped by circumstance,” must face some demons and choose the life she’ll lead.
An Unintentional Accomplice: A Personal Perspective on White Responsibility by Carolyn L. Baker (2Leaf Press)
Personal narrative that looks at institutionalized discrimination and suggests ways to change direction and take action with the intention of making things better for everyone.
None But Witches: Poems on Shakespeare’s Women by Elizabeth Sylvia (Three Mile Harbor Press)
Poetry that brilliantly highlights women characters in Shakespeare’s work and provides a voice that the Bard himself did not.
Boyhood Reimagined: Stories of Queer Moms Raising Sons edited by Ada Malone and Gail Marlene Schwartz (Motina Books)
Personal essays by queer moms raising sons about parenting, feminism, male dominance, and how to cultivate positive rather than toxic masculinity.
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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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