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The Wisdom of the Willow: A Novel
by Nancy ChadwickIncluded in the "Most Anticipated Books of 2024" by the Chicago Review of BooksIn the backyard of Margaret and Joe Dowling’s new house in the north suburbs of Chicago, Joe plants a young willow tree as a symbol of home, belonging, and growth. As the years pass, the willow becomes a place for Margaret to share life’s wisdom with their four young daughters.Years after leaving the nest, now in their early forties, the Dowling women find themselves faced with changes that will define their lives. Debra, the oldest, is shattered when she is asked for a divorce. Rose, who has long hidden her true self, finally begins to evaluate her pattern of being in uncommitted relationships. Linney fears losing Magnolia, the magical shop where she works. Charlotte, the youngest, is the only one who knows their mother is terminally ill, and has been charged by her with keeping it a secret. And Margaret, now faced with the greatest of challenges and struggling with whether she has done enough to help her daughters find their way in life, calls them all to the family home to reunite under the willow one last time.A metaphorically rich and reflective tale of sisterhood and strength, The Wisdom of the Willow is a story of hope and healing, of the choices that shape our lives, and the challenges we all face as we seek to find our places in the world.
Malcolm and Me: A Novel
by Robin FarmerPhilly native Roberta Forest is a precocious rebel with the soul of a poet. The thirteen-year-old is young, gifted, black, and Catholic—although she’s uncertain about the Catholic part after she calls Thomas Jefferson a hypocrite for enslaving people and her nun responds with a racist insult. Their ensuing fight makes Roberta question God and the important adults in her life, all of whom seem to see truth as gray when Roberta believes it’s black or white.An upcoming essay contest, writing poetry, and reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X all help Roberta cope with the various difficulties she’s experiencing in her life, including her parent’s troubled marriage. But when she’s told she’s ineligible to compete in the school’s essay contest, her explosive reaction to the news leads to a confrontation with her mother, who shares some family truths Roberta isn’t ready for. Set against the backdrop of Watergate and the post-civil rights movement era, Malcolm and Me is a gritty yet graceful examination of the anguish teens experience when their growing awareness of themselves and the world around them unravels their sense of security—a coming-of-age tale of truth-telling, faith, family, forgiveness, and social activism.
The Veil Between Two Worlds: A Memoir of Silence, Loss, and Finding Home
by Christina VoChristina Vo has always struggled with the concept of “home.” The daughter of an emotionally distant father and a mother who died when she was just fourteen, she continues to grapple with that legacy of loss and her constant quest to, as a fortysomething, find a reconciliation with the shape her life has taken. In January 2021, feeling a call to be closer to the land, she decides to leave San Francisco—this time permanently, she hopes—and set off on a road trip with one of her closest friends, David.Christina and David begin their journey with an ayahuasca ceremony in Santa Barbara, then continue on to Ojai and ultimately Santa Fe—two magical lands that serve as deep portals for healing. Throughout their travels, Christina reflects on the recent and distant past: her relationships, her past experiences in Santa Barbara and Ojai (where she stayed for nine months around her fortieth birthday, two years ago) and her evolving understanding of her relationship with her parents. All the while, she ponders how the past has shaped her current identity as a single, childless, and motherless woman in her forties. Within the context of intimate friendship, she discovers how thin the veil between worlds can be, and gradually comes to realize that her mother’s spirit has accompanied her since day one of her journey.Deeply reflective and ultimately joyful, Vo’s memoir takes us on a journey between two worlds—the physical and the spiritual—that eventually brings her to a newfound understanding of how to deepen connections with others, as well as to a place of peace and home within herself.
Bessie: A Novel
by Linda KassJust days after the close of World War II, Bess Myerson, the daughter of poor Russian Jewish immigrants living in the Bronx, is competing in the Miss America pageant. At stake: a $5,000 scholarship. The tension and excitement in Atlantic City’s Warner Theatre are palpable, especially for traumatized Jews rooting for one of their own. So begins Bessie.Drawing on biographical and historical sources, Bessie reimagines the early life of Bess Myerson, who, in 1945 at age twenty-one, remarkably rises to become one of the most famous women in America. This intimate fictional portrait reveals the transformation of the nearly six-foot-tall, self-deprecating yet talented preteen into an exemplar of beauty, a peripheral quality in her world, where success is measured by intellectual attainment. Yet it is the focus on her beauty, and the secular world of pageantry, that she must choose to escape her roots and fulfill her fierce desire to achieve and become someone for whom great things happen.Bessie is a tender study of a bold young woman living at a precarious moment in our cultural history as she searches for love and acceptance, eager to make her mark on the world.
Running on Two Different Tracks
by Eileen StukaneEvery woman who waited to have a child will understand this story. Eileen Stukane’s determination to become a mother led her to adoption. When agencies said she was “too old,” she found a country that considered her young. She would not be stopped—until a mystery in Italy almost ended everything. Confronting crisis, she learned how the edge of despair and the brink of salvation need not be two different points but one reality, conferring resilience and wisdom.
The Infinite Now: A Novel
by Mindy TarquiniOn a rainy night in Philadelphia's Ninth Street Market, sixteen-year-old Fiora, newly-orphaned by the 1918 influenza epidemic, is dumped at an old man's door. Daughter of the local fortune teller, Fiora arrives with a little money, a lot of attitude, and her mother's formidable reputation. The old man, a widowed shoemaker ticking down his clock, is the only person in their superstitious immigrant community brave enough to stand between Fiora and an orphanage. Fiora?s a modern, forward-thinking young woman, uninterested in using old-world magic to make a way for herself?but when her mother's magical curtain shows her that the old man will shortly die of a heart attack, Fiora panics, and casts her entire neighborhood into a stagnant bubble of time. A bubble where everything continues but nothing progresses?tomatoes won?t ripen, babies refuse to be born, and the sick suffer under the weight of a never-ending stream of unspent seconds. Not everything in the bubble is bad. Love, fresh and fascinating, ignites. Friendships take root. But as day drags into interminable day, the pressure inside the bubble world builds. Fiora must accept that not everything found can be kept, not everything saved will remain, and unless Fiora finds the courage to collapse the bubble, every one of her hopes will be trapped inside an unbearable, unyielding, unpredictable, and infinite Now.
What Was Lost: A Novel
by Melissa ConnellyReminiscent of Hello Beautiful and The Lying Life of Adults, this powerful narrative delves into social changes from 1970 to 2000 and captures a woman’s journey in a pre-#MeToo era via the tale of a mother who returns to her hometown to face the perpetrator of her childhood abuse.When a young girl feels complicit in her own abuse, how does that thwart her attempts to build a happy life as an adult woman? When disturbing memories begin to surface, Marti returns to the small Vermont town she ran away from thirty years ago to face her demons. She drags her unwitting teenage daughter along on the journey—heightening already existing tension between mother and daughter. But Marti is determined to achieve what she’s returned home for: forgiveness for lies told, and revenge for secrets held. Exploring the vast social changes that took place between 1970 and 2000 and turning a critical eye on times before language such as #MeToo helped give voice to these all-too-common occurrences, What Was Lost is a raw, powerful tale of one woman confronting the ghosts of her past.
An Upside-Down Sky: A Novel
by Linda DahlWhen Lidia, a blocked Latinx artist in her sixties, goes on a group tour of Namyan, a fictional Southeast Asian country reopened to the world after a long dictatorship, she gets much more than the vacation she thinks she’s signed on for. Against a backdrop of pagodas and enigmatic customs, she and the disparate crew of eighteen Americans on the tour encounter one adventure after another—experiences that challenge their assumptions about their host country’s placid surface of beautiful pagodas and wandering Buddhist monks. Along the way, Lidia finds companionship and sexual pleasure with Haynes, a Black man seeking adventure—even danger—in Namyan. On a nighttime excursion among mysterious ancient buildings, they watch the nighttime sky. Lidia remarks that the stars look upside down – a metaphor for Namyan as a foreign place and for her. She enjoys being with Haynes but is conflicted. The final chapter reveals a secret, the source of her conflict, and her steps towards a new freedom.An Upside-Down Sky’s cast of characters, including their Namyanese guide, mirrors America: straight, gay, gender-fluid, black, brown, white, progressive, conservative, artistic, repressed, old, young. Some of them accept Nanyam’s charming façade at face value, while others seek to understand the country’s brutal repression by the military and ongoing ethnic conflicts. And most, resistant as they might be to change, are transformed by their time there.
Destination Gacy: A Cross-Country Journey to Shake the Devil's Hand
by Nancy RommelmannIn 1994, journalist Nancy Rommelmann accompanied Rick Gaez, a 26-year-old pen pal of John Wayne Gacy, on a road trip from Los Angeles to Illinois, to visit the serial killer before his execution. Along the way, she took the moral temperature of people on college campuses, in bars, in churches, asking how they felt about Gacy and his being sentenced to death, for the torture and murder of 33 young men and teenage boys. Shackled in a tiny visiting room on death row, Gacy nevertheless turned on the charm. Chatty, slick, acting the father figure, albeit one who wants to know a little too much about your sex life, Gacy offered his hand and said, “Ask anything you want—I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve ever done.”
Left on Rancho: A Novel
by Francesco PaolaFor fans of Tod Goldberg’s Gangster Trilogy and Tim O’Brien’s America Fantastica, this contemporary noir follows a burned-out tech entrepreneur into the Wild West of California cannabis and the converging worlds of contraband weed and illegal immigration.It’s October 2019 and Andrew Eastman, a tech entrepreneur with a bank account running on fumes, has just ridden into Adelanto, a desolate outpost in the Mojave Desert, to help an old friend. The ask: turn around a fledgling legal cannabis operation. Andrew, the outsider, asks too many questions—about the viability of the legal market, the inoperative surveillance cameras in the factory, and the dominance of the illegal trade—and makes himself a target. Undeterred, he journeys from Adelanto to West Hollywood to the underbelly of Los Angeles on a hunt for contraband. When he lands at the intersection of cannabis and immigration, and as bodies pile up around him, he is left with one last decision—one that will forever change him.
Raver Girl: Coming of Age in the 90s
by Samantha DurbinA PopSugar Best New Books of 2021 Selection Weed inspires her. Acid shows her another dimension. Ecstasy releases her. Nitrous fills her with bliss. Cocaine makes her fabulous. Mushrooms make everything magical. Special K numbs her. Crystal meth makes her mean. Sixteen-year-old Samantha, raver extraordinaire, puts the “high” in high school. A ’90s time capsule buried inside a coming-of-age memoir set against the neon backdrop of the San Francisco Bay Area's rave scene, Raver Girl chronicles Samantha’s double life as she teeters between hedonism and sobriety, chaos and calm, all while sneaking under the radar of her entrepreneur father—a man who happened to drop acid with LSD impresario Owsley Stanley in the ’60s. Samantha keeps a list of every rave she goes to—a total of 104 over four years. During that time, what started as trippy fun morphs into a self-destructive roller coaster ride. Samantha opens the doors of her mind, but she's left with traumas her acid-fried brain won't let her escape; and when meth becomes her drug of choice, things get progressively darker. Through euphoric highs and dangerous lows, Samantha discovers she’s someone who lives life to the fullest and learns best through alternative experience rather than mainstream ideals. She’s a creative whose mind is limitless, whose quirks are charms, whose passion is inspirational. She’s an independent woman whose inner strength is rooted in unwavering family ties. And if she can survive high school, she just might be okay.
Even if Your Heart Would Listen: Losing My Daughter to Heroin
by Elise SchillerIn January 2014, Elise Schiller’s youngest child, thirty-three-year-old Giana Natali, died of a heroin overdose while a resident in a treatment program in Boulder County, Colorado. Even if Your Heart Would Listen is about Giana’s life, which was full of accomplishments, and her mental illness, addiction, and death. Using excerpts from the journals, planners, and letters Giana left behind, as well as evidence from her medical records, Schiller dissects her daughter’s treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) at the five residential and several outpatient programs in eastern Pennsylvania where she tried to recover, taking a close look at the lack of continuity and solid medical foundations in the American substance-use treatment system even as she explores the deeply personal experience of her own loss. Poignant and timely, Even if Your Heart Would Listen is a meditation on a family’s grief, an intimate portrayal of a mother-daughter bond that endures, and an examination of how our nation is failing in its struggle with the opioid epidemic.
Faraway and Forever: More Stories
by Nancy Joie WilkieThis collection of novelettes takes the reader from the not-to-distant future to a time when travel between worlds is a common occurrence. Each stop along mankind’s journey outward to the stars is accompanied by a deeper look inward—from examining how extraterrestrial beings might use our own biology against us, to whether a human consciousness can survive in a virtual environment, to how wishes are really granted. Original and thought provoking, these stories—which include an interstellar religious thriller involving a second coming of Christ—will stimulate the intellect and engage the imagination.
Diary of a Slut: Stories
by Kathryn TruebloodWhen your daughter wants to pry into your past, how selective are you about your answers? Furthermore, how do you love the girl you once were? Trueblood’s tales unfold in remote places—a hippie high school on an island off the West Coast and a roadhouse in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest—places where only situational ethics seem to apply. At once stories of sexual abandon and sexual entrapment, they present two snapshots of the same woman and her coming-of-age where the road ends.
Caley Cross and the Hadeon Drop: The Caley Cross Series, Book One
by Jeff RosenCaley Cross has always known she's not a “normal” thirteen-year-old (her ability to create zombie animals was her first clue). Still, she never expected to be whisked off to a faraway world—Erinath—where she is Crown Princess and people have “baests” that live inside them, giving them fantastic, animal-like powers. Which would be cool, except that Caley’s baest turns out to be an ancient monster that can swallow planets. Despite this, Caley manages to make the first friends of her life, Neive Olander and Kipley Gorsebrooke. They help her navigate the Erinath Academy, where students train to compete in the annual—and deadly—Equidium contest, flying giant, dragonfly-like orocs. But to add to her usual (bad) luck, an evil “Watcher” known as Olpheist is seeking her, anxious to retrieve something that will make him immortal. The first in an epic fantasy series from Jeff Rosen that will keep readers laughing and on the edge of their seats.
The Ogma Stone: Legends of Galaway, Book One (Legends of Galaway)
by Alane AdamsIn the two years since Surt and his army of red giants were defeated, life in Orkney has been quiet. Too quiet for a he-witch like Sam Baron. Until a messenger arrives from Galaway—a mysterious realm whose gods, the Tuatha de Danann, pleaded with Odin to take their small islands into the Ninth Realm the same as Orkney. The news is dire—Balor, a famed Fomorian sorcerer has his malevolent gaze set on raising the Ogma Stone, an ancient tablet that holds the secrets to the gods’ powers. Balor will stop at nothing to gain the stone and return the magic taken from his people by Odin. To do so Balor must obtain one of the ancient treasures of Galaway, the Retaliator Sword, and use it to shed the blood of a royal offspring—one his sorceress has foreseen the return of. Could Eithan, an orphaned slave who roams the lands with Fenrir the wolf, be the true heir to the Vanirian throne? With the help of a shadow elf named Seeth, Sam and his closest allies must join forces to stop Balor before the Blood Moon returns and Balor has the power to raise the stone; a stone which threatens to cause all-out war between the gods to possess it. Rich with Celtic lore and dark sorcery, The Ogma Stone will take readers on a wild new adventure.
'Til All These Things Be Done: A Novel
by Suzanne MoyersSet against the rich but often troubled history of Blacklands, Texas, during an era of pandemic, scientific discovery, and social upheaval, the novel offers a unique—yet eerily familiar—backdrop to a universal tale of triumphing over loss. Even as dementia clouds other memories, eighty-three-year-old Leola can’t forget her father’s disappearance when she was sixteen. Now, as Papa appears in haunting visions, Leola relives the circumstances of that loss: the terrible accident that steals Papa’s livelihood, sending the family deeper into poverty; a scandal from Mama’s past that still wounds; and Leola’s growing unease with her brutally bigoted society. When Papa vanishes while seeking work in Houston and Mama dies in the “boomerang” Influenza outbreak of 1919, Leola and her young sisters are sent to an orphanage, where her exposure of a dark injustice means sacrificing a vital clue to Papa’s whereabouts. That decision echoes into the future, as new details about his disappearance suggest betrayal too painful to contemplate. Only in old age, as her visions of Papa grow more realistic, does Leola confront her long-buried grief, leading to a remarkable family discovery that could offer peace, at last.
All Shook Up: A Novel
by Enid LangbertThis YA debut speaks to the continued interest in the teen culture of the 1950s—Elvis Presley, teenage rebellion—with a young girl embarking on adventure and music, ultimately uncovering family secrets.Being fourteen is especially hard in 1956, when the world is changing around you. Honor student Paula Levy was born into a family of historical victims: her mother’s youth was lost in the Depression and her father’s was destroyed in the Holocaust, an as-yet-unnamed event about which no one speaks. But Paula has heard the new music taking hold of the nation—rock and roll—and it has given her hope. And she has two friends to get her through life’s ups and downs: Holden Caulfield, hero of Catcher in the Rye, who shares her view of the world, and Barbara, a “cool” girl in her high school who unexpectedly shares Paula’s view of Holden. Paula’s mother is not a fan of Barbara, and she prohibits her daughter from associating with her. Paula manages to get around her mother’s rule and see Barbara anyway—but when Paula asks the wrong questions about her father’s past and Barbara is caught with her “boyfriend,” their private world of Holden, rock, and Elvis Presley crumbles. Angry with the adults in their lives, the two girls run away to find Barbara’s real father, a jazz musician. Disappointingly, he does not live in a mansion or socialize with Elvis—but Paula and Barbara may find something even better.
Klara's Truth: A Novel
by Susan Weissbach FriedmanIt is May 2014, and Dr. Klara Lieberman—forty-nine, single, professor of archaeology at a small liberal arts college in Maine, a contained person living a contained life—has just received a letter from her estranged mother, Bessie, that will dramatically change her life. Her father, she learns—the man who has been absent from her life for the last forty-three years, and about whom she has long been desperate for information—is dead. Has been for many years, in fact, which Bessie clearly knew. But now the Polish government is giving financial reparations for land it stole from its Jewish citizens during WWII, and Bessie wants the money. Klara has little interest in the money—but she does want answers about her father. She flies to Warsaw, determined to learn more. In Poland, Klara begins to piece together her father’s, and her own, story. She also connects with extended family, begins a romantic relationship, and discovers her calling: repairing the hundreds of forgotten, and mostly destroyed, pre-War Jewish cemeteries in Poland. Along the way, she becomes a more integrated, embodied, and interpersonally connected individual—one with the tools to make peace with her past and, for the first time in her life, build purposefully toward a bigger future.
Beyond the Next Village: A Year of Magic and Medicine in Nepal
by Mary Anne MercerBeyond the Next Village is Mary Anne Mercer’s memoir of discovery, growth, and awakening in 1978 Nepal, which was then a mysterious country to most of the world. After arriving in Nepal, Mercer, an American nurse, spent a year traveling on foot—often in flip-flops—with a Nepali health team, providing immunizations and clinical care in each village they visited. Communicating in a newly acquired language, she was often called upon to provide the only modern medicine available to the people she and her team were serving. Over time, she learned to recognize and respect the prominence of their cultural beliefs about health and illness. Encounters with life-threatening conditions such as severe malnutrition and ectopic pregnancy gave her an enlightening view of both the limitations and power of modern health care; immersed in villagers’ lives and those of her own team, she realized she was living in not just another country, but another time. This unique story of the joys and perils of one woman’s journey in the shadow of the Himalayas, Beyond the Next Village opens a window into a world where the spirits were as real as the trees, the birds, or the rain—and healing could be as much magic as medicine.
Unruly Human Hearts: A Novel
by Barbara SouthardA tale of faith, passion, idealism, and betrayal, perfect for book clubs, fans of Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings, and those fascinated by love triangles, contradictions between public images and private lives, and the limitations faced by women in the nineteenth century.Elizabeth Tilton, a devout housewife, shares liberal ideals with her husband, Theodore Tilton, and their pastor and close friend Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, both influential reformers of the Reconstruction Era who promote suffrage for women and former slaves and advocate for the spiritual power of love rather than Calvinistic retribution. Elizabeth is torn between admiration for her husband’s stand on women’s rights and resentment of his dominating ways at home. When Theodore justifies his extramarital affairs in terms of the free love doctrine that marriage should not restrict other genuine loves, she becomes closer to Henry, who admires her spiritual gifts—and eventually falls passionately in love with him. Once passion for her pastor undermines the moral certainties of her generation, Elizabeth enters into uncharted emotional and ethical territory. Under what circumstances should she tell the truth? If she does, will she lose her children and her marriage? Will she destroy her own reputation and the career of the reverend who has done much good? Can a woman accustomed to following the leadership of men find her own path and define her own truth?
The Art of Reassembly: A Memoir of Early Mother Loss and Aftergrief
by Peg ConwayIf your mom is dead, is she still your mom? At twenty-five—nearly two decades after losing her mother to breast cancer as a little girl—an accident on a downtown street unleashes startling emotional reactions in Peg Conway, and this question starts to percolate. She comes to understand what she’s experiencing as long-buried childhood grief, and as she marries and becomes a mother herself, Peg’s intense feelings challenge her to offer herself compassion. Gradually she confronts how growing up surrounded by silence in a family that moved on from sorrow had caused her to suppress her mother’s memory for far too long. Ultimately, after excavating all the layers, Peg finds her mom again, and in the process discovers that truth, no matter how painful, heals.
Every Mother Has a Story: A Shebooks/Good Housekeeping Anthology
by Jackie Mercurio Jacinta Hart Kehoe Cynthia LeonardThe winners of the Shebooks/Good Housekeeping memoir contest offer three slices of life as a mother. In “People Don’t Get Me, Mom,” Jackie Mercurio carries a troubling secret that will change the life of her brilliant, misunderstood boy. Then a family trip to the Butterfly Garden takes them to a place of healing and wonder. In “Coyote Tales,” Jacinta Hart Kehoe recovers from an accident she wasn’t supposed to survive but struggles to help her adopted daughter learn to love and trust again. And in “Pulling Rabbits from a Hat,” Cynthia Leonard tells her fascinating story of growing up in a magical act, with a mother who disappeared and reappeared nightly.
Bear Witness: A Novel
by Melissa ClarkWhat if you witnessed the kidnapping of your best friend? This is when life changed for 12-year old Paige Bellen. Just three years after her friend Robin’s kidnapping and murder, Paige is expected to continue on with life as usual. Now, with her closest friend out of the country, a messy relationship with Robin’s boyfriend, and a family that handles her with kid gloves, Paige isn’t sure if she’ll ever be able to move forward in life. Bear Witness explores the aftermath of a crime in a small community and what it means when tragedy colors the experience of being a young adult. USA Best Book Awards: Fiction: Young Adult, Finalist
How to Age Gracefully: Essays About the Art of Living
by Barbara Hoffbeck ScoblicFor readers curious about life in assisted living facilities comes a collection of essays that break stereotypes and distill vital lessons from people in later life.A thoughtful and poignant meditation on aging and mortality, How to Age Gracefully tells the story of author Barbara Scoblic’s life inside an assisted living facility through essays and conversations. When she entered an assisted living facility in Bethesda, Maryland, at age eighty-three, journalist and memoirist Scoblic wasn’t expecting to find such rich subject matter. But the residents and staff surprised her with their kindness, wisdom, and sometimes wicked sense of humor—and inspired her to begin taking notes on their conversations, both those she was a part of and those she overheard. The pieces in this collection, which consider grief, the occasional indignities of living in an aging body, the importance of friendship and community, and the surprising ways we can grow more creative as we grow older, are born of Scoblic’s observations and experiences of life in assisted living. The resulting work is essential for anyone entering the later years of life—or anyone who intends to.