Book picks similar to
Escaping the Twilight by Sigrid Weidenweber
fiction
historical-fiction
ebook
female-authors
Left Neglected
Lisa Genova - 2011
Between recruiting the best and brightest minds as the vice president of human resources at Berkley Consulting; shuttling the kids to soccer, day care, and piano lessons; convincing her son’s teacher that he may not, in fact, have ADD; and making it home in time for dinner, it’s a wonder this over-scheduled, over-achieving Harvard graduate has time to breathe. A self-confessed balloon about to burst, Sarah miraculously manages every minute of her life like an air traffic controller. Until one fateful day, while driving to work and trying to make a phone call, she looks away from the road for one second too long. In the blink of an eye, all the rapidly moving parts of her jam-packed life come to a screeching halt. A traumatic brain injury completely erases the left side of her world, and for once, Sarah relinquishes control to those around her, including her formerly absent mother. Without the ability to even floss her own teeth, she struggles to find answers about her past and her uncertain future. Now, as she wills herself to regain her independence and heal, Sarah must learn that her real destiny - her new, true life - may in fact lie far from the world of conference calls and spreadsheets. And that a happiness and peace greater than all the success in the world is close within reach, if only she slows down long enough to notice.
Spare Change
Bette Lee Crosby - 2011
A boy running for his life. A town defending them both.From award-winning USA TODAY Bestselling Author BETTE LEE CROSBY, the first book of a gritty, small-town, family saga in the tradition of the finest Southern fiction.Small-town gossip never much bothered Olivia Westerly. As a single career woman, she's weathered her share. It's easy to ignore the raised eyebrows over her late-in-life marriage to Charlie Doyle. But after he drops dead on their honeymoon, the whispers are salt on her raw grief. Especially when an orphaned, eleven-year-old-boy shows up on her doorstep, looking for the grandfather he never met.Behind Ethan Allen Doyle's wary blue eyes lie heavily guarded emotions that unexpectedly tug on Olivia's heart, and she finds herself wanting to win his trust. But when his murderous secret comes looking for him, the entire town embraces the lonely widow and desperate child to show its true heart when danger threatens one of its own.A heartwarming tale of love, loss and unexpected gifts, featuring a woman you'd like to call friend, a boy you will ache to hug, and a town you wish you could call home. USA TODAY BESTSELLER AND WINNER OF FIVE LITERARY AWARDS - Royal Palm Literary Award, Reviewer's Choice Award, FPA President's Book Award, IAN Outstanding Fiction Award, Eadon Contemporary Fiction Award
Best Friends and Bastards
Jaci Byrne - 2011
Living on Sydney's sublime northern beaches, she's a well-respected Nurse Unit Manager of a busy obstetrics unit and married to a successful realtor. She should have ‘no worries mate’, as the Aussie saying goes.However, for Angie, this is far from the truth. Although she suspects her husband George of having had past dalliances, she chooses to live in complete denial, believing that a baby will solve this dilemma. Only problem: her biological clock is ticking, and there's no baby in sight. And her interfering mother constantly adds fuel to the proverbial marital fire.Booking a romantic holiday to Bali for her and George in order to reinvigorate their marriage, Angie soon finds herself in a situation far out of her comfort zone when her husband backs out of the holiday and her best friend Charlotte takes his place. After arguing with Charlotte, Angie calls 'time out' and travels to the Ubud Writers' Festival where she fortuitously meets the loveable larrikin Jack Ambrose. Consumed with guilt towards her feelings for Jack, Angie flees Bali.On her return to Australia, she desperately attempts to bury her feelings and concentrate on her marriage, but when she begins to suspect her husband of being a right bastard, her world is turned upside down. And her best friend is no help at all - indeed, Angie discovers that Charlotte is part of the problem.Written with splashes of compassion, streams of humour, rivers of emotion and oceans of passion, ‘Best Friends and Bastards,’ by Jaci Byrne is a waterfall of brilliant reading and a real page turner packed with action and intrigue.
The Blue Period
Luke Jerod Kummer - 2019
The two artists’ passion for Germaine will lead to a devastating turn. Amid soul-searching and despair, however, Picasso discovers a color palette in which to render his demons and paint himself into lasting history.Bringing the exuberance of the era vividly to life, this richly imagined portrait of Picasso’s coming of age intertwines the love, death, lust, and friendships that inspired the immortal works of a defiant master.
The City on the Sea
Heather Carson - 2020
Everyone in the city outside the wall does. If you never cause any trouble, you never disappear.Even after her father's mysterious death, she's always known she'll do whatever it takes to live a good life and earn her place on the land one day.But when the watchmen suddenly start following her every move, it doesn't matter if she's done anything wrong. Now she needs to find out why they are watching before she vanishes without a trace.The City on the Sea, book one in the City on the Sea Series, is the thrilling first installment to this futuristic dystopian story. Climate change and rising sea levels have forced humanity to live on the ocean in order to protect the precious bit of land remaining. In the midst of this cli-fi adventure, a strong female lead character discovers that her world isn’t what it seems and learns to fight for the truth no matter the cost.
Conversations With the Fat Girl
Liza Palmer - 2005
At 26, she's still serving coffee at The Beanery Coffee House, while her friends are getting married, having babies, and having real careers. Even Olivia, Maggie's best friend from childhood, is getting married to the doctor with whom she lives. Maggie's roommate? Her dog Solo (his name says it all). The man in Maggie's life? Well there isn't one, except the guy she has a crush on, Domenic, who works with her at the coffee shop as a bus boy.
The Practice House
Laura McNeal - 2017
Aldine’s sister converts and moves to America to marry, and Aldine follows, hoping to find the life she’s meant to lead and the person she’s meant to love.In New York, Aldine answers an ad soliciting a teacher for a one-room schoolhouse in a place she can’t possibly imagine: drought-stricken Kansas. She arrives as farms on the Great Plains have begun to fail and schools are going bankrupt, unable to pay or house new teachers. With no money and too much pride to turn back, she lives uneasily with the family of Ansel Price—the charming, optimistic man who placed the ad—and his family responds to her with kind curiosity, suspicion, and, most dangerously, love. Just as she’s settling into her strange new life, a storm forces unspoken thoughts to the surface that will forever alter the course of their lives.Laura McNeal’s novel is a sweeping and timeless love story about leaving—and finding—home.
Gone to Soldiers
Marge Piercy - 1987
A compelling chronicle of humans in conflict with inhuman events, Gone to Soldiers is an unforgettable reading experience and a stirring tribute to the remarkable survival of the human spirit.
The Korean Word For Butterfly
Jamie Zerndt - 2013
tank, The Korean Word For Butterfly is told from three alternating points-of-view:Billie, the young wanna-be poet looking for adventure with her boyfriend who soon finds herself questioning her decision to travel so far from the comforts of American life;Moon, the ex K-pop band manager who now works at the English school struggling to maintain his sobriety in hopes of getting his family back;And Yun-ji , a secretary at the school whose new feelings of resentment toward Americans may lead her to do something she never would have imagined possible. The Korean Word For Butterfly is a story about the choices we make and why we make them. It is a story, ultimately, about the power of love and redemption.*The author would like to note that this book deals, in part, with abortion. It tries, as best it can, to explore the issue with compassion rather than judgement.*"5 stars...full of fresh and original writing." -Kindle Book Review
Josephine Baker's Last Dance
Sherry Jones - 2018
In this illuminating biographical novel, Sherry Jones brings to life Josephine's early years in servitude and poverty in America, her rise to fame as a showgirl in her famous banana skirt, her activism against discrimination, and her many loves and losses. From 1920s Paris to 1960s Washington, to her final, triumphant performance, one of the most extraordinary lives of the twentieth century comes to stunning life on the page. With intimate prose and comprehensive research, Sherry Jones brings this remarkable and compelling public figure into focus for the first time in a joyous celebration of a life lived in technicolor, a powerful woman who continues to inspire today.
Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams: Short Stories, Prose and Diary Excerpts
Sylvia Plath - 1977
If I sit still and don't do anything, the world goes on beating like a slack drum, without meaning. We must be moving, working, making dreams to run toward; the poverty of life without dreams is too horrible to imagine."-- Sylvia Plath, from "Notebooks, February 1956"Renowned for her poetry, Sylvia Plath was also a brilliant writer of prose. This collection of short stories, essays, and diary excerpts highlights her fierce concentration on craft, the vitality of her intelligence, and the yearnings of her imaginaton. Featuring an introduction by Plath's husband, the late British poet Ted Hughes, these writings also reflect themes and images she would fully realize in her poetry. "Jonny Panic and the Bible of Dreams" truly showcases the talent and genius of Sylvia Plath.
The Earth Hums in B Flat
Mari Strachan - 2009
She leaves the bed she shares with her sister and soars into the night sky, listening to the nighttime sounds of her small Welsh village below. Irrepressible Gwenni -- a dreamer full of unanswerable questions and unbounded curiosity -- is childlike yet touchingly adult. Reluctantly facing a modern world, she prefers her nightly flights to school and her chores. Blessed with the uncommon insight of a young girl, Gwenni's view of the world is unparalleled.Quaint, odd, touched, funny in the head: Gwenni is all too familiar with the taunts of her peers and fields them with equanimity beyond her years. She knows she can no more change her nature than stop the sun from rising. And when a neighbour goes missing, Gwenni turns amateur sleuth, determined to solve the mystery of his disappearance. Little does she realize that the trail she's pursuing will bring her uncomfortably close to home, and a dark secret.
The Wideness of the Sea
Katie Curtis - 2017
When she returns home to mid-coast Maine for his funeral, she faces all that she left behind when she left seven years earlier. The pain of her own mother’s death, the fractured relationships with her father, and her first love. The life she had built for herself in New York - the art world, her boyfriend, her roommate who is also her best friend - allowed her to forget the grief and hurt she had left behind in Maine. But when her uncle leaves her a surprising inheritance, if forces her to face them, and the parts of her self she’s buried. As she searches for answers about herself, and where she belongs, she discovers how people and places shape us, and how understanding, forgiveness and grace have the power to transform us and the people we love.
Rodham
Curtis Sittenfeld - 2020
And then she meets Bill Clinton. A handsome, charismatic southerner and fellow law student, Bill is already planning his political career. In each other, the two find a profound intellectual, emotional, and physical connection that neither has previously experienced. In the real world, Hillary followed Bill back to Arkansas, and he proposed several times; although she said no more than once, as we all know, she eventually accepted and became Hillary Clinton. But in Curtis Sittenfeld’s powerfully imagined tour-de-force of fiction, Hillary takes a different road. Feeling doubt about the prospective marriage, she endures their devastating breakup and leaves Arkansas. Over the next four decades, she blazes her own trail—one that unfolds in public as well as in private, that involves crossing paths again (and again) with Bill Clinton, that raises questions about the tradeoffs all of us must make in building a life. Brilliantly weaving a riveting fictional tale into actual historical events, Curtis Sittenfeld delivers an uncannily astute and witty story for our times. In exploring the loneliness, moral ambivalence, and iron determination that characterize the quest for political power, as well as both the exhilaration and painful compromises demanded of female ambition in a world still run mostly by men, Rodham is a singular and unforgettable novel.
Adults
Emma Jane Unsworth - 2020
Supposedly. At thirty-five she owns her own house, writes for a cool magazine and has hilarious friends just a message away.But the thing is:• She can’t actually afford her house since her criminally sexy ex-boyfriend Art left,• her best friend Kelly is clearly trying to break up with her,• she's so frazzled trying to keep up with everything you can practically hear her nerves jangling,• she spends all day online-stalking women with beautiful lives as her career goes down the drain.And now her mother has appeared on her doorstep, unbidden, to save the day…Is Jenny ready to grow up and save herself this time?Deliciously candid and gloriously heartfelt, ADULTS is the story of one woman learning how to fall back in love with her life. It will remind you that when the world throws you a curve ball (or nine), it may take friendship, gin & tonics or even your mother to bring you back…