American History
At the end of the Trail of Tears there was a promise. This book traces the history of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation from its inception to its resurgence in Oklahoma in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It explores the circumstances and implications of McGirt v. Oklahoma, likely the most significant Indian law case in well over a hundred years.
A Vietnam War combat nurse's 10-year fight to win women veterans a place of honor in Washington, D.C.. A powerful exposé of misogyny in veterans' groups and America.
Antebellum New Orleans sat at the heart of America's slave and cotton kingdoms. It was also where yellow fever epidemics killed as many as 150,000 people during the 19th century. Repeated epidemics bolstered New Orleans's strict racial hierarchy by introducing another hierarchy, what the author terms "immunocapital."
Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, was an eyewitness to America's founding, and helped guide the new nation through her advice to her famously prickly husband. Smith interweaves Abigail's colorful correspondence with a contextual narrative in this priceless documentation of one of the most important periods of world history.
Historian Ryan delivers an immersive study of a New York City women’s prison that operated between 1929 and 1971. The Women's House of Detention is the story of one building: the people it caged, the neighborhood it changed, and the resistance it inspired.
Contemporary Fiction
Bea, barely been scraping by since her husband died, loses everything in a telephone scam and is forced to abandon her trailer. Fifteen-year-old Allie is sent to a group home when her parents are jailed for fraud. She escapes only to find she has nowhere to go - until fate throws Allie in Bea's path. As the two warily make their way up the Pacific Coast in Bea's old van, they find the courage to forge their own unique family.
11 year old Stewie steadfastly tends the chickens left by his beloved late grandmother. And every day Stewie goes door to door selling fresh eggs from his wagon. His new customer, Marilyn, prickly and guarded, reminds the grieving Stewie of the grandmother he misses. But Marilyn has a secret and draws a line between herself and other people—one that Stewie is determined to cross. A heart-stirring novel about love, loss, and moving forward.
After 60 years of marriage and five daughters, Lynn "Lovey" White knows that all of us, from time to time, need to use our little white lies. Her granddaughter Annabelle, on the other hand, is as truthful as they come. But when Annabelle's world starts to collapse around her, she discovers nothing about her picture-perfect family is as it seems. And Lovey has to decide whether one more lie will make or break the ones she loves.
The second novel in her beloved Peachtree Bluff series, featuring a trio of sisters and their mother who discover a truth that will change not only the way they see themselves, but also how they fit together as a family. A charming and poignant story of first loves, missed opportunities, and second chances
Krause's whimsical linked character stories melding fantasy and reality feature a series of seemingly disparate offbeat characters who are facing the challenges of mental issues such as OCD, anxiety, and dementia. But the stories come together while still leaving listeners to conclude for themselves what was real and what was imagined.
Historical Fiction
In A Very Cold Winter, it is 1946 and Milan is in ruins. A woman named Camilla opens her illegally occupied attic to her extended family as they rebuild their lives among the rubble. A novel of secrets and female solidarity set in post-war Milan, by one of Italy’s most significant women writers. English translation by Julia Nelson.
Shenandoah Valley, 1933. A proposed scenic highway threatens family farms. But for 33-year-old Lum, an intersex woman, home shifts with the seasons and whichever family member demands her labor. As tensions over the highway escalate toward violence, and as loyalties are tested, Lum takes a bold step to create an independent life.
In 1969, as America celebrates the first steps on the moon, a category 5 storm threatens the Mississippi Gulf Coast. With Hurricane Camille stirring up havoc, two sisters longing for freedom embark on a journey where dreams are reborn and the power of friendship is revealed. An extraordinary story of courage, love and sacrifice.
Gzar explores the power of belief, the drive for escape, and the exhilaration of self-discovery in a daughter's runaway adventure and a father's quest to find her in early 20th century Basra, Iraq. You'll find rich detail and emotional undercurrents flowing through this search for belonging, meaning, and, most of all, family.
In 1960s Texas, Eliza Kratke's husband has a secret, and when he dies unexpectedly, this 57-year old woman is forced to rebuild her life. What emerges from this wreckage is a profoundly compelling portrait of a wonderfully nuanced woman who learns, with the help of aspiring young people at the Sweet Vidalia Motel, that she's made of strong stuff.
LGBTQ+
Tiny McAllister never thought she’d get married. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she didn’t think girls from Connecticut married other girls. Yet here she is with Caroline, the love of her life, at their destination wedding on the Bermuda coast. But as the weekend unfolds, it starts to feel like there’s a skeleton in every closet of the resort.
1933 Shenandoah. Lum has always been on the outside. At eight, she was diagnosed with an intersex condition and told she couldn’t expect to marry. Now, at thirty-three, with no home of her own, she is shuttled from one relative’s house to another—valued for her skills, but never treated like a true member of the family. Lum’s courageous journey to selfhood makes her a heroine worth rooting for.
A lesbian mother and her gay son, estranged for years, must grapple with the shared secret that drove their lives apart in this enthralling story about family, forgiveness—and how a fleeting act of violence can change a life forever. With unsurpassed emotional depth, Mothers and Sons reveals all that is lost by looking away from the past and the love that might be restored by facing it.​ (New York Times)
It’s 2067 and Florida is partially underwater, but even that can’t bring down the residents of Palm Meridian Retirement Resort, a utopian home for queer women who want to revel in their twilight years. Inside, Hula-Hoopers shimmy across the grass, fiercely competitive book clubs nearly come to blows, and the roller-ski team races up and down the winding paths. Everywhere you look, these women are living large.
....a magnificent queer history of the notorious Women’s House of Detention in New York’s Greenwich Village that spans almost fifty years.
“Hugh Ryan’s crucial new book will change how you think about LGBTQ+ history…the most thorough collection of pre-Stonewall queer lives I’ve ever read.”―The Advocate
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Mystery and Suspense
Joe Arneson's ordinary life is upended by troubling dreams of himself. It isn't until he visits his estranged grandmother, Pearl, in her Wisconsin hometown that a startling connection emerges. Drawn into his family's past, Joe discovers secrets weighing on the old woman's soul: the tragic death of her sister Alice a half century ago and its ripple effect on all who loved her.
When filmmaker Tessa learns of a strange inheritance bequeathed by her mother, a derelict and isolated estate known as Fallbrook, it seems she's found the perfect escape from her troubles. A crumbling monument to a gruesome history, the mansion has been abandoned by all but two elderly sisters retained as caretakers. Tessa learns there’s no escaping the past in this chilling novel.
Middle Grade and Family
12-year old Frankie, on probation for misbehaving in New Jersey, is living with her aunt on a West Coast houseboat for the summer when she encounters a mermaid. She's convinced it is a dream but Sausalito is buzzing about a wealthy woman who disappeared into the Bay wearing a million dollar mermaid-shaped necklace. Frankie finds herself, with the help of her quirky houseboat friends, trying to prove her innocence. Book 2 in the Frankie Jackson Mystery series.
Lia and her Ninth Street Knitters have been knitting for the reenactment being held on the grounds next to the Crandalsburg Craft Fair. It’s all fun and battle games until one of the “injured soldiers” turns out to be the very real victim of a murder, and Lia’s friend and neighbor falls under deep suspicion. It will take the Ninth Street Knitters all the sleuthing skills they have to untangle the threads of a dyed-in-the-wool killer. Series of 3.
When vintage booksellers Molly O’Donnell and Emma Clarke meet at an estate sale, they are both there for the books. But Emma ventures past a “No Admittance” sign into the basement and finds not only a vast occult library, but also the dead body of a notorious book thief. First in a series of bibliomysteries featuring lesbian amateur sleuths Molly & Emma.
Science and Ecology
Living on a rapidly changing planet, you'd be wise to learn how it works. The giant old forests on a skinny stretch of land on the far west coast of North America have a lot to say about living in a twitchy world. Experience the temperate rainforest at the tumultuous edge of a shifting continent in a precarious moment of time, and discover what it means to be human in an ecological world.
With engaging storytelling and a wealth of knowledge about bees and their ways, Dana Church unravels the complexities of human interactions with our winged friends and demonstrates how dangerously selfish our thinking can be. It's a wake-up call for us to embrace sustainable practices and protect these vital pollinators before it's too late.
Emily Levesque shares the stories of modern-day stargazers, the people willing to adventure across high mountaintops and to some of the most remote corners of the planet, all in the name of science. In this sweeping work of narrative science, she shows how astronomers are going beyond machines to infuse creativity and passion into the stars.
Pigeons coo, peck and nest all over the world, yet most of us treat them with indifference or disdain. So Rosemary Mosco, a bird-lover, science communicator, writer, and cartoonist, is here to give the pigeon's image a makeover. Part field guide, part history, part ornithology primer, this Pocket Guide is delivered with tongue-in-cheek humor to give the humble pigeon's image a much needed makeover.
Plastic pollution has reached crisis proportions, and false solutions abound. But there are real solutions out there. A powerful investigation into plastic’s impact on human health and the environment, and how we can fight back. Learn the history of plastic, its impact on marginalized communities, and its contribution to a warming planet. Then learn how to be a solution.
Second Chance Romance
Love In Provence Series
Suddenly single after twenty-two years of marriage, the calm of Katherine Price's midlife has turned upside down. With sunlit backdrops and plot twists as breathtaking as the beaches of Antibes, author Patricia Sands brings her trilogy about second chances to a provocative and satisfying close that proves that a new life just might be possible.
Peachtree Bluff Series
With the man of her dreams back in her life and all three of her daughters happy, Ansley Murphy should be content. But after secrets that were never meant to be told come to light, the powerful bond between the Murphy sisters and their mother comes crumbling down, testing their devotion to each other and forcing them to evaluate the meaning of family in this unputdownable exploration of sisterhood and family drama.
Sisters of the Heart Series
After years of heartbreaks and disappointments, Olivia is dealing with the unbearable loss of her family when she receives an unexpected letter. With her life in pieces, she accepts an invitation to return to Lavender Valley Farm to find respite in the small town to soothe her troubled soul. Will the sanctuary of her childhood home be the healing balm Olivia desperately needs?
Strong Women
Biographies and Memoirs
In 1961, when she arrived in Kabul with her Afghan bridegroom, authorities took away her American passport. Chesler was now the property of her husband's family with no rights of citizenship. Drawing upon her personal diaries, she recounts her ordeal, the nature of gender apartheid - and her longing to explore this beautiful and ancient country and culture. Chesler nearly died there, but she managed to get out and became an author and an ardent activist for women's rights throughout the world.
Forty Years chronicles Dolly Faulkner's gripping journey of establishing and adapting to life in a remote Alaskan homestead called White Bear with her husband. Through vivid storytelling, Faulkner intimately shares her struggles against nature's brutal forces, personal tragedies including domestic abuse, and an intense legal battle to preserve her beloved property. An inspiring tale of embracing the wild for its healing power.
Necole’s story is a tale of two lives, the CWO raised in a military family, and the woman coming to terms with her sexuality and her identity, in a time where the two could not co-exist. A lesbian member of the military police during the LGBTQ Purge in the Canadian Armed Forces, Necole would achieve success and promotion in her military career despite a near-constant struggle for identity. This book is a story of self-discovery through adversity, of resilience in the face of discrimination, and pride amid prejudice.
In this collection of twenty-five essays, ‘a renowned and multi-generational group of women and nonbinary authors come together to pay tribute to Sinéad’s impact on their own lives as humans and artists and on our world at large.’ Most essays comprise deeply personal stories, yet there are recurrent themes such as surviving abuse, what it means to mother, grief, feminist resistance, and the role of religion and faith in women’s lives. This highly acclaimed anthology features 5 diverse narrators.
This book paints a respectful picture of the first lady of country music. Learn how Parton went from dirt-poor Appalachian to self-made musical legend as she fought for equality in a male-dominated business while penning more than 3,000 songs. Through fascinating analysis of many of her greatest hits, the author reveals the songwriting skill and dedication of one of the nation’s most revered country and pop musicians.
