Fiction
Lynne Griffin
Sea Escape: A Novel (Simon & Schuster)
Acclaimed novelist and nationally recognized family expert Lynne Griffin returns with Sea Escape—an emotional, beautifully imagined story inspired by the author’s family letters about the ties that bind mothers and daughters. Laura Martinez is wedged in the middle place, grappling with her busy life as a nurse, wife, and devoted mom to her two young children when her estranged mother, Helen, suffers a devastating stroke. In a desperate attempt to lure her mother into choosing life, Laura goes to Sea Escape, the pristine beach home that Helen took refuge in after the death of her beloved husband, Joseph. There, Laura hunts for the legendary love letters her father wrote to her mother when he served as a reporter for the Associated Press during wartime Vietnam. Believing the beauty and sway of her father’s words will have the power to heal, Laura reads the letters bedside to her mother, a woman who once spoke the language of fabric—of Peony Sky in Jade and Paradise Garden Sage—but who can’t or won’t speak to her now. As Laura delves deeper into her tangled family history, she becomes increasingly determined to save her mother. As each letter reveals a patchwork detail of her parents’ marriage, she discovers a common thread: a secret that mother and daughter unknowingly share. Weaving back and forth from Laura’s story to her mother’s, beginning in the idyllic 1950s with Helen’s love affair with Joseph through the tumultuous Vietnam War period on to the present, Sea Escape takes a gratifying look at what women face in their everyday lives—the balancing act of raising capable and happy children and being accomplished and steadfast wives while still being gracious and good daughters. It is a story that opens the door to family secrets so gripping, you won’t be able to put this book down until each is revealed.
Life Without Summer (St Martin’s Press)
Lynne Griffin is a nationally recognized expert on family life. She is the author of Life Without Summer which Publishers Weekly calls, “…a spellbinding tale of loss and hard-won redemption.” (Starred Review) And Booklist says, “…this stirringly believable epistolary novel… [will be a] strong addition to women’s fiction.” Lynne is also the author of Negotiation Generation: Take Back Your Parental Authority Without Punishment (Penguin 2007). As the parenting contributor for Boston’s Fox 25 Morning News, she appears regularly in the segment Family Works. Lynne teaches in the graduate program of Social Work and Family Studies at Wheelock College, and at Grub Street Writers. She lives outside Boston with her family.
To learn more about Lynne, visit www.LynneGriffin.com
Seré Prince Halverson
THE UNDERSIDE OF JOY
“The writing in The Underside of Joy is as purely beautiful as the story is emotionally complex. When Ella Beene is wrenched from a state of unexamined happiness into confusion and grief, she finds that her only hope of emerging whole is to face searing and long-buried truths. Ella embarks on a difficult journey, both morally and materially, one that requires her to risk losing everything she most loves. I cheered (sometimes through tears) her every step.”
-Marisa de los Santos
“Seré Prince Halverson’s emotionally rich debut novel . . . weaves complex subplots with deceptive ease. . . . The strength of this novel is in its empathy for all its characters-and for two women who want what’s best for the children they both love with equal claim on motherhood.”
-Sarah Weinman, Publishers Marketplace
“Searingly smart and exquisitely written, Halverson’s knockout debut limns family, marriage and a custody battle in a way that gets under your skin and leaves you changed. To say I loved this book would be an understatement.”
Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You
Sarah Jio
THE BUNGALOW
“Mystery meets romance in this absorbing debut novel by Sarah Jio” … “readers will be enthralled from the start of the dual story lines, all the way through to the satisfying conclusion.”
–Woman’s Day on THE BUNGALOW
THE VIOLETS OF MARCH (Plume)
Eight years ago, Emily Wilson was on top of the world: She had a husband plucked from the pages of GQ, a book on The New York Times Bestseller List, and a one-way ticket to happily ever after. What she didn’t know, however, was that the trip would be a turbulent one. After seven excruciating years staring at the computer screen, Emily, now 35, and divorced, accepts an invitation from her great aunt, Bee, to spend the month of March on the shores of Bainbridge Island, Washington. As she attempts to let the water wash away her pain, the tide brings in its own secrets: a budding relationship with a handsome, yet mysterious, artist, her aunt’s murky past, and an unusual discovery in the guest bedroom: a mysterious red velvet diary from 1943. As she reads the brittle, yellowed pages, Emily finds herself entangled in a poignant love story, one that feels eerily familiar–as if she’s somehow living it herself. And while unraveling the mystery in the book’s pages, she makes a shocking discovery that has the power to heal the past, change her heart, and the course of her life.
Julie Kraut
Slept Away (Random House)
Laney Parker is a city girl through and through. But this summer Laney’s mother has other plans for her sophisticated daughter. It’s called Camp Timber Trails and rustic doesn’t even begin to describe the un-air-conditioned log cabin nightmare. Laney is way out of her element—the in-crowd is anything but cool, popularity seems to be determined by swimming skills, and the activities seem more like boot camp than summer camp. Splattered with tie dye fall out, stripped of her cell, and going through Diet Coke withdrawal, Laney is barely hanging on. Being declared the biggest loser of the bunk is one thing, but when she realizes her summer crush is untouchably uncrushable in the real world, she starts to wonder, can camp cool possibly translate to cool cool? Summer camp might just turn this city girl’s world upside down!
Julie Kraut is the co-author of Hot Mess and author of Slept Away. She’s enthusiastic about a wide variety of cheese, the Internet, and free samples but definitely not about parallel parking or goatees. A self-declared phenom at karaoke, she’s available for freelance writing assignments, birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, and first dates. For more, check out JulieKraut.com.
Kirsten Lobe
PARIS, BABY! (St. Martin’s Press)
Is it possible to maintain chic as a single-mom-to-be in a city where it’s all supposed to be effortless and breastfeeding is a horreur? Does one live by the Parisienne’s pregnancy plan of smoking, drinking, and cheese-eating avec vin blanc, but jamais jamais gain more than six kilos? And how to handle a pickup attempt by a married man in the baby department of Bon Marché when you’re eight months along? After all, American girls do things differently: Lamaze class and baby showers, sensible prenatal care and…family to watch you proudly grow more and more pregnant.
Paris is full of delights for a new mom: the Luxembourg Gardens, baby boutiques too precious to be passed by, a petit brioche for a teething tot. But home exerts a powerful pull. Should your child grow up skipping by the Seine or scampering up a tree house? Should it be “Mommy” or “Maman”? And can a tall blonde with a taste for Veuve Cliquot and Vuitton ever make it in the land of mom jeans and Happy Meals?
Paris, Baby! is novelist Kirsten Lobe’s warm, funny memoir about Paris, Frenchmen, friendship, babies, and making it on one’s own.
Jael McHenry
THE KITCHEN DAUGHTER
“…an intelligent and moving account of an intriguing heroine’s belated battle to find herself.”
–Publishers Weekly on THE KITCHEN DAUGHTER
“Jael McHenry writes passionately about food and foodies…her fresh, sharp story has as many layers as a good pate a choux.”
–O Magazine on THE KITCHEN DAUGHTER
“Skillfully rendered from Ginny’s point of view, McHenry’s debut novel is a touching tale about loss and grief, love and acceptance.”
–Kirkus Review, February 1, 2011 on THE KITCHEN DAUGHTER
Rae Meadows
Calling Out (MacAdam Cage)
After getting dumped by her boyfriend, Jane quits her copywriting job in New York City and ends up answering phones at a Salt Lake City escort agency. As she descends into the strange, lonely word of sexual commerce in the heart of Mormon country, she must come to terms with a life she hadn’t planned. Rae Meadows was named one of Poets & Writers “Five Debut Writers to Watch” and Calling Out was chosen as one of the Chicago Tribune’s “Best Books of 2006.” She lives in Madison, WI.
Samantha is lost in the joys of new motherhood—the softness of her eight-month-old daughter’s skin, the lovely weight of her child in her arms—but in trading her artistic dreams to care for her child, Sam worries she’s lost something of herself. And she is still mourning another loss: her mother, Iris, died just one year ago.
When a box of Iris’s belongings arrives on Sam’s doorstep, she discovers links to pieces of her family history but is puzzled by much of the information the box contains. She learns that her grandmother Violet left New York City as an eleven-year-old girl, traveling by herself to the Midwest in search of a better life. But what was Violet’s real reason for leaving? And how could she have made that trip alone at such a tender age?
In confronting secrets from her family’s past, Sam comes to terms with deep secrets from her own. Moving back and forth in time between the stories of Sam, Violet, and Iris, Mothers and Daughters is the spellbinding tale of three remarkable women connected across a century by the complex wonder of motherhood.
Jael McHenry
THE KITCHEN DAUGHTER (Simon & Schuster)
Julie & Julia meets Jodi Picoult in this poignant and delectable novel with recipes, chronicling one woman’s journey of self-discovery at the stove.
After the unexpected death of her parents, shy and sheltered twenty-six-year-old Ginny Selvaggio, isolated by Asperger’s Syndrome, seeks comfort in family recipes. But the rich, peppery scent of her Nonna’s soup draws an unexpected visitor into the kitchen: the ghost of Nonna herself, dead for twenty years, who appears with a cryptic warning—before vanishing like steam from a cooling dish.
A haunted kitchen isn’t Ginny’s only challenge. Her domineering sister Amanda insists on selling their parents’ house in Philadelphia, the only home Ginny has ever known. As she packs up her parents’ belongings, Ginny finds evidence of family secrets she isn’t sure how to unravel. She knows how to turn milk into cheese and cream into butter, but she doesn’t know why her mother hid a letter in the bedroom chimney, or the identity of the woman in her father’s photographs. The more she learns, the more she realizes the keys to these riddles lie with the dead, and there’s only one way to get answers: cook from dead people’s recipes, raise their ghosts, and ask them.
Offering a fascinating glimpse into the unique mind of a woman struggling with Asperger’s and featuring evocative and mouth-watering descriptions of food, this lyrical novel is as delicious and joyful as a warm brownie.
Martha Moody
Sometimes Mine (Riverhead)
From the best-selling author of Best Friends comes Sometimes Mine a novel of midlife romance, and opening your heart to the people in your life. Genie Toledo is a divorced cardiologist consumed with her practice; Mick Crabbe is a college basketball coach, married with children, who counts “loyalty” as one of his virtues. For ten years they’ve been meeting every Thursday night at a hotel in a city between them. Then Mick gets sick, and everything changes.
To read more about her and her work, go to www.marthamoody.net
Meg Mitchell Moore
THE ARRIVALS (Reagan Arthur Books)
It’s early summer when Ginny and William’s peaceful life in Vermont comes to an abrupt halt.
First, their daughter Lillian arrives, with her two children in tow, to escape her crumbling marriage. Next, their son Stephen and his pregnant wife Jane show up for a weekend visit, which extends indefinitely when Jane ends up on bed rest. When their youngest daughter Rachel appears, fleeing her difficult life in New York, Ginny and William find themselves consumed again by the chaos of parenthood – only this time around, their children are facing adult problems.
By summer’s end, the family gains new ideas of loyalty and responsibility, exposing the challenges of surviving the modern family – and the old adage, once a parent, always a parent, has never rung so true.
Camille Noe Pagan
THE ART OF FORGETTING (Dutton)
A moving and insightful debut novel of great friendship interrupted. Can the relationship survive when the memories are gone?
Marissa Rogers never wanted to be an alpha; beta suited her just fine. Taking charge without taking credit had always paid off: vaulting her to senior editor at a glossy magazine; keeping the peace with her critical, weight-obsessed mother; and enjoying the benefits of being best friends with gorgeous, charismatic, absolutely alpha Julia Ferrar.
And then Julia gets hit by a cab. She survives with minor obvious injuries, but brain damage steals her memory and alters her personality, possibly forever. Suddenly, Marissa is thrown into the role of alpha friend. As Julia struggles to regain her memory- dredging up issues Marissa would rather forget, including the fact that Julia asked her to abandon the love of her life ten years ago- Marissa’s own equilibrium is shaken.
With the help of a dozen girls, she reluctantly agrees to coach in an after-school running program. There, Marissa uncovers her inner confidence and finds the courage to reexamine her past and take control of her future.
The Art of Forgetting is a story about the power of friendship, the memories and myths that hold us back, and the delicate balance between forgiving and forgetting.
Allison Winn Scotch
The One That I Want (Shaye Areheart Books)
The new novel from NY Times bestselling author Allison Winn Scotch that asks: If we are granted a look into our future, can we change what lies ahead…and should we? Tilly Farmer is 32 years old and has the perfect life she always dreamed of: married to her high school boyfriend, working as the school guidance counselor, trying for a baby. Perfect. But a chance meeting with a childhood friend in a fortune teller’s tent at the local fair changes everything. “I’m giving you the gift of clarity,” her friend says, “It’s what I always thought you needed.” And soon enough, Tilly starts seeing things: Her alcoholic father relapsing, staggering out of a bar with his car keys; her husband uprooting their quiet life, a packed U-Haul in their driveway. And even more disturbing, these visions start coming true. Suddenly Tilly’s perfect life, so meticulously mapped out, seems to be crumbling around her. And as she furiously races to keep up with–or even change–her destiny, she faces the question, which is the life she wants? The one she’s carefully nursed for decades–or the one she never considered possible.
Time of my Life (Shaye Areheart Books)
Allison Winn Scotch is the New York Times best selling author of Time of My Life and The Department of Lost and Found. Her next novel, The Happiest Days of My Life, will be published by Random House in 2010. Previously freelance journalist, she now focuses on celebrity interviews and profiles for a wide variety of national magazines.
To read more about her and her work, go to www.allisonwinn.com
Aaron Starmer
THE ONLY ONES
“One of the most unique, captivating books I’ve ever read. I was completely pulled into its pages and they never let me go.”
–James Dasher, bestselling author of THE MAZE RUNNER
“Both literary and engaging, this is the kind of book readers will want to return to for new discoveries.”
– Kirkus Reviews on THE ONLY ONES
Dweeb: Burgers, Beasts and Brainwashed Bullies (Random House)
Strange things are happening at Ho-Ho-Kus Junior High. The cafeteria is covered in a sea of burger wrappers. Bullies aren’t bullying anymore. And there’s an eerie growling coming from the walls. If anyone can get to the bottom of these mysteries, it’s Denton, Wendell, Eddie, Elijah and Bijay. They may be misfits, but they’re also the smartest kids in the eighth grade. Aaron Starmer’s writing has appeared in guidebooks and a variety of humor magazines including McSweeney’s. He lives with his wife in New Jersey.
Bianca Turetsky
THE TIME-TRAVELING FASHIONISTA (Poppy)
Seventh-grader Louise Lambert–obsessed with vintage clothing, but with only a few vintage outfits to her name–longs for excitement in her life. It arrives in the form of a mysterious invitation to the Traveling Fashionista Vintage Sale. When Louise finds the perfect dress there with the help of some eccentric saleswomen, she discovers that the “traveling” part of the sale is literal: upon trying on the dress, Louise passes out and awakens in the body of Alice Baxter (the dress’s former owner), a silent film star and currently a passenger on the Titanic. At first Louise enjoys her luxurious new life, not to mention wardrobe, but when she realizes she is on the ill-fated ship, she is up against the clock to either change the course of history or return home before it’s too late. First in a planned series, Turetsky’s debut breezily incorporates past and current pop culture references; with a spunky main character and breathless descriptions of glamorous clothing, it’s entertaining wish fulfillment for those as fashion-focused as Louise. Suy contributes full-color illustrations, not seen by PW.
Therese Walsh
The Last Will of Moira Leahy (Shaye Areheart Books)
When Maeve Leahy lost her twin sister, Moira, to tragedy nearly a decade ago, she buried her adventurous spirit to become a workaholic professor of languages instead. Until one night at an auction when she wins something that reminds her of her carefree, piratical youth: a Javanese dagger called a keris. Days later, a book is nailed to her office door, followed by anonymous notes, one inviting her to Rome to learn more about the blade. Soon, she’ll learn that nothing can be taken at face value—including the face she’s been presenting to the world—and that the keris might play a role in slicing away her many self-protective layers, once and for all. Therese Walsh lives in upstate New York with her husband and two children, where she is hard at work on her second novel.
You can learn more about Therese at her website, www.ThereseWalsh.com, or her blog, www.WriterUnboxed.com.
Non-Fiction
Sara Barron
People Are Unappealing (Three Rivers Press)
Sara’s collection of comic essays was published by Three Rivers Press in Spring 2009. Her work has also appeared on Showtime’s “This American Life” NPR’s Weekend Edition, The Today Show and at the HBO Comedy Festival. She hosts of The Moth: Stories Told and teaches Humor Writing at Gotham Writer’s Workshop.
Dara Chadwick
You’d Be So Pretty If: Teaching Our Daughters to Love Their Bodies-Even When We Don’t Love Our Own (DaCapo Press)
who wrote a Weight Loss Diary column for Shape, lost 26 pounds over the course of one year. During the process, the mother of two worried about how her weight-loss project would affect her 13-year-old daughter, and she began to explore her own feelings about how her mother had negatively influenced her body image. Through interviews with experts, mothers and daughters, and personal reflection, Chadwick concludes that moms hold a crucial key to how girls will feel about themselves for years to come.
Lennard Davis
DNA and Dad: One Man’s Obsession to Find Himself, His Origins, and the Meaning of Life Through Genetic Testing (Bantam)
Davis’s science-memoir follows the author from a phone call that casts doubts on his paternity through his detective adventure to find out who his father really is. Lennard Davis, director of Project Biocultures, is a professor of English, medical education, and disability studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago; he is also an NPR commentator, journalist, op-ed writer, and novelist.
You can learn more at his website: www.lennarddavis.com
Stephan Faris
Forecast (Henry Holt)
Stephan is a contributor to Atlantic Monthly and Fortune. FORECAST is a surprising investigation into the varied ways — political, strategic, and economic — that climate change will affect the world in the near future.
For more about Stephan, go to www.stephanfaris.com
Jessica Grose
LOVE MOM: Poignant, Goofy, Brilliant Messages from Home (Hyperion)
Grose (along with Doree Shafir) is the creator of the online sensation PostcardsFromYoMomma.com the basis of the book, LOVE MOM a collection of laughoutloud emails, text messages, and instant messages from technologically inept mothers to their adult children. Grose is Managing Editor for Double X, Slate’s site for women, and was formerly an editor at Jezebel.com. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times and Salon.com, among other places. Both women live in Brooklyn, New York.
Sarah Maizes
GOT MILF? (Berkley)
For thousands of years, women have been expected to hang up their “hotness” once they had kids. They disappeared behind their families and the dashboards of minivans…Until now! Whether sporting a cardigan and jeans, sweats or a business suit, today’s Mom is a shining example of confidence, poise, and age-defying beauty. Even as she juggles carpool, PTA, and the demands of the office, or shrieks, “GET IN THE TUB, NOOOWWW!”, she’s pretty darn hot.
Dani Klein Modisett
Afterbirth: Stories you Won’t Read in Parenting Magazines (St. Martin’s Press)
Chocked full of wildly courageous, funny and heartwarming stories about how becoming a parent changed the lives of these writers unexpectedly and forever is based on the author’s hit show. Modisett spent ten years as a stand up comic and when the going got rough for her as a new mother she turned to her community of witty friends to help her laugh her way out of parental paralysis. “Afterbirth…” the show caught on with audiences quickly and garnering great reviews from The LA Times, The LA Weekly and NPR. “Afterbirth…” was equally well received in New York City where it started running last year. The NY Post called it, “…the vagina monologues for the stroller set.” Contributors include: Matthew Weiner (creator, Emmy winner, “Mad Men”), Cindy Chupack (Emmy winner “Sex And The City”), Moon Zappa, Dana Gould (comedian and Emmy winner, “The Simpsons,”), Modisett, and 32 others.
Trish Ryan
A Maze of Grace: A Memoir of Second Chances (FaithWords)
The author of He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not shares lessons learned in the early years of her marriage and faith in this encouraging and entertaining memoir. In her first book, Trish Ryan chronicled the ways in which finding faith lead her to the happily-ever-after ending that had eluded her for so long. Only it wasn’t an ending. It was a beginning. In A MAZE OF GRACE, Ryan picks up where she left off, sharing the early years of her marriage, and the challenges that both shaped and startled her: temptations regarding fidelity, the anxiety of shifting body image, the awkward nature of following Jesus in a decidedly secular city, and struggles (depression, trying to conceive) that made her wonder if God had lost her file. With appealing candor, Ryan sweeps the reader into her life and ponders questions and issues that we all face, dropping nuggets of wisdom along the way that are sure to inspire, encourage and help women in all walks of life. “One of my favorite songs,” says Ryan, “promises that if I follow God, He’ll lead me through a maze of grace…. I think God promises us two things to help us through the maze: encouragement and information. That’s what this book is about. I want to encourage you that there’s grace in the maze, that God cares about us – individually, personally – and how our lives go. In a way, tapping into this grace is like accessing a Divine GPS system: it might take some effort to recalibrate, but the results are worth it.”
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not: A Memoir of Finding Faith, Hope, and Happily Ever After (Warner Faith, 2008)
A hilarious, honest, and thoughtful memoir about one woman’s search for the right God…and the right guy. ard at work on her next book, A MAZE OF GRACE: FURTHER THOUGHTS ON HAPPILY EVER AFTER (Hachette 2010).
To read more go to www.trishryanonline.com
Jodyne Speyer
Dump ‘Em: How to Break Up With Anyone From Your Best Friend to Your Hairdresser (HarperCollins)
Everybody has that special someone in their life that they can’t wait to get rid of. Whether it’s a housekeeper, a therapist or a personal trainer, the time comes when you have to pull the plug on the relationship. Featuring personal stories, useful scripts, and interviews with experts such as Bob Harper from The Biggest Loser, funnyman Adam Carolla, and Michael Jackson’s attorney, Thomas Mesereau. Dump ‘Em is a practical guide for giving any bad relationship the boot. Jodyne L. Speyer provides a roadmap to finding your own way of saying “thanks, but no thanks.” Written with honesty, empathy, and ruthless wit. Dump ‘Em will teach you to conquer your fear of confrontation and master the art of the peaceful and permanent breakup. Jodyne is a writer and recovering avoidant who lives and works in Los Angeles. She has produced documentaries for National Geographic and worked on such shows as Joe Millionaire, Shear Genius and The Supreme Court of Comedy.
For more information about Jodyne go to www.JodyneSpeyer.com
Sarah Sentilles
A Church of Her Own: What Happens When a Woman Takes the Pulpit (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Sentilles enters the lives of female ministers to paint the first real portrait of what it’s like to serve as a woman of faith today. Sentilles was almost a priest. She earned her master of divinity degree from Harvard and is the author of Taught By America: A Story of Struggle and Hope in Compton.
BREAKING UP WITH GOD (HarperOne)
“Honest, like down-to-the-core honest, beyond what most people are capable of, especially in public on the topic of faith.” —Kelly Corrigan, New York Times bestselling author of The Middle Place
In the tradition of Barbara Brown Taylor and Sue Monk Kidd, Sarah Sentilles offers a poignant, beautifully wrought memoir of her personal crisis of faith. Sentilles was on the way to becoming a priest when she ultimately faced the truth: she no longer believed. Her moving story examines the question of how you leave the most powerful being in the universe—and, if you do, where do you go? Breaking Up with God is an inspiring reflection no matter where you stand on the matter of faith.
Hannah Seligson
A LITTLE BIT MARRIED: How to know when it’s time to walk down the aisle or out the door (DeCapo Press)
She is also the author of New Girl on the Job: Advice from the Trenches is a workplace primer for young women about how to navigate the ins and outs of the workplace, based on over 100 interviews with young women. Hannah’s writing has appeared in, among others, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, The Boston Globe, and The Village Voice. She has been featured in news outlets such as The Today Show, Fox News, USA Today, and Glamour. Hannah graduated from Brown University in 2004. Please visit www.hannahseligson.com to learn more.
Valerie Young
THE SECRET THOUGHTS OF SUCCESSFUL WOMEN
“A can’t-miss primer for businesswomen everywhere.” (Oct.)
–STARRED Publishers Weekly Review on THE SECRET THOUGHTS OF SUCCESSFUL WOMEN
“A realistic self-examination of work and life successes; a realization that occasional doubts will still linger; and a continuous mantra, such as, “Each time you judge yourself, you break your own heart.”
–Barbara Jacobs BOOKLIST Review
“Verdict: Given how prevalent the research shows this issue to be among successful women, the market for this book should be quite large. And the author acknowledges that men can also benefit from her book, though its focus is on the ways in which women experience the impostor syndrome.”-Carol J. Elsen, Univ. of Wisconsin-Whitewater
–Library Journal