Book picks similar to
The Lightness of Water and Other Stories by Rhonda Browning White
short-stories
short-story-collection
cross-cultural
family
The Secret Daughter
Kelly Rimmer - 2015
As she was taken from me I knew I might never see my daughter again. 38 years later… ‘You were adopted’. Three short words and Sabina’s life fractures. There would forever be a Before those words, and an After. Pregnant with her own child, Sabina can’t understand how a mother could abandon her daughter, or why her parents have kept the past a secret. Determined to find the woman who gave her away, what she discovers will change everything, not just for Sabina, but for the women who have loved her all these years. From the bestselling author of Me Without You comes another touching, beautifully told story about the pain of separation and the enduring strength of love.
Come Walk with Me
Joan Medlicott - 2007
When Claire Bennett's husband died, she felt directionless. Their thriving antiques business and beautiful house in the Hamptons, the social scene and her volunteer work -- all seemed empty without Phillip. Estranged from her adult daughter and son, Claire knows that in the depths of her heart she still mourns a terrible loss from a tragic accident years ago. Fleeing her memories, Claire moves to a condo in Florida, then impulsively leaves to visit her engaged daughter in North Carolina. From the sandy beaches of Boca Raton to a tiny farm tucked high in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Claire gains self-awareness through the unexpected kindness of strangers, and finally forces herself to confront some hard truths from the past. Finding a joy in life that has been missing for many years, Claire at last reaches out to her son and daughter. And when the healing of old wounds leads her to a new love, Claire realizes that her travels have brought her to a place where she will never again walk alone.
Through the Brown Mountain Lights: (Brown Mountain Lights Book 1)
C.C. Tillery - 2016
When their van breaks down outside of Morganton, North Carolina, the group decides to hike up nearby Brown Mountain while they wait for the repairs to be finished. Lizzie’s interest in nature prompts her to go on a walk by herself, hoping to get a glimpse of the legendary Brown Mountain Lights. When she unexpectedly encounters one, she naively reaches out to touch it and is thrown back in time to a place and lifestyle she comes to hate—the Antebellum South. Lizzie is taken in by three sisters who are healers. With them, she is able to put her knowledge as a medical student to good use. She finds a trusted friend in Abbie, the youngest sister, and through a budding romance with the son of a plantation owner is drawn into the dangerous world of the Underground Railroad. With a bloody and violent war looming on the horizon, at a time when women are looked upon as less than equal, Lizzie struggles to accept the differences that surround her every day in this new and challenging world. Wanting nothing more than to return home, she and Abbie continually search for the light Lizzie travelled through, hoping it will take her back to her time. But if she finds it, will she decide to stay or go?
Mothers' Boys
Margaret Forster - 1994
Sheila Armstrong's grandson Leo, usually a quiet, well-behaved boy, was found holding a knife. Harriet Kennedy cannot cope with her son's continuing pain; Sheila, who reared Leo, cannot bear the lasting guilt. In a powerful and moving tale of suffering and forgiveness, the two women confront the complex range of emotions that motherhood entails.
Famous Baby
Karen Rizzo - 2014
Karen Rizzo wraps a timeless drama about the love between mothers and daughters in a fresh, snappy package for the social media age.” —CHRISTINA SCHWARZ, author of The Edge of the Earth and Drowning Ruth, an Oprah’s Book Club SelectionBefore there were Real Housewives and Tiger Moms, the was Ruth Sternberg, the hugely popular First Mother of Mommy Blogging—or, as Ruth’s daughter, Abbie prefers to call her, the First Lady of Cyber Exploitation.Eighteen year-old Abbie has finally found her way out of the limelight, by moving a solid five hundred miles away from Ruth and her “maternal instincts.” But when she hears that her ailing, beloved grandmother is moving in with Ruth, she suspects that her mother has found a new blog subject to exploit. Abbie kidnaps Grandma to save her from the same fate, and thus begins an uproarious battle of wills. Famous Baby wisely and hilariously explores mother love, identity, and the hazards of parental over-sharing in the social media age.Karen Rizzo, who lives with her actor husband and two children in Los Angeles, California, is the author of Things to Bring, S#!T to Do… and Other Inventories of Anxiety, a memoir centered around her penchant for lists. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Salon, Fit Pregnancy, and women’s humor anthologies, and her plays have been staged at several theatres. Famous Baby is her first novel.
doG Backwards
Guy A. Johnson - 2012
'Really liked! V interesting, gripping and unusual!' - Sophie Hannah, bestselling author of 'Little Face' and 'Kind of Cruel.' doG Backwards is the story of six lives that come together through an unimaginable opportunity: to meet with the dead for just one hour. Michael works in an office and is mourning the loss of his five-year-old daughter, Milly. Barbara has her own cleaning company and the death of her stepfather, Eric, hangs heavy on her conscience. Connor is ten and, despite having the love of his aunt and uncle, still misses his mother, who has been dead for over a year. Liam lives in his big family home all by himself, where he hides from his past and yearns for the return of his mother, father and sister, all of whom are gone for good. Shelley, friend and lover to Liam, also has her losses, but keeps these a secret from him. Their reactions are very different. Michael’s is very positive: he simply cannot believe his luck. The others, however, do not react in the same way: Shelley is disgusted, Barbara cannot face making a decision and ten-year-old Connor simply doesn’t understand. There are further complications. Michael has to consider his estranged wife, Susan: she has not been chosen for the program. Barbara discovers the experience is likely to leave her penniless. Connor has not only lost his mother, but also his father. So he is faced with a dilemma that no ten-year-old boy should ever have to face: which one to choose?
A Free Woman
Libby Purves - 2001
Sarah has married and settled contentedly into small-town life. Maggie has spent fifteen years drifting around the world with a backpack. Now Maggie has come home to a dank, dull British winter, supposedly for just a few months. The Penn children are delighted to have their exciting aunt stay with them, but fate has an unexpected adventure in store. It rocks the whole family, bringing up dark shadows from their common past, and confronts Maggie with the hardest decision of her life.
A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness: Four Chapbooks of Short Short Fiction by Four Women
Amy L. Clark - 2008
The four chapbooks collected in A PECULIAR FEELING OF RESTLESSNESS, three of them finalists and one of them the winner of the Rose Metal Press first annual short short chapbook contest, all revel in the succinctness of their form, the underlying tension anchored beneath each story of 1,000 words or less. These stories are peculiar; they resonate with restlessness. They are deft, they are gritty, and they are lyrical. Laughter, Applause. Laughter, Music, Applause by Kathy Fish, Wanting by Amy L. Clark, Sixteen Miles Outside of Phoenix by Elizabeth Ellen, and The Sky Is a Well by Claudia Smith combine four multi-layered portrayals of beautiful uneasiness into a collection rich with wit, grace, and originality.
Out of The Wild
Mark Rashid - 2016
About a worn out cowboy and a wild mustang
This Telling
Cheryl Strayed - 2020
Ever since, she’s lived an alternative narrative. Decades later, it’s time for Geraldine to reconcile the telling of her life, to finally grieve, and to discover what happened to that part of her past that slipped away.Cheryl Strayed’s This Telling is part of Out of Line, an incisive collection of funny, enraging, and hopeful stories of women’s empowerment and escape. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.
The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake
Breece D'J Pancake - 1983
In 1983 Little, Brown and Company's posthumous publication of this book electrified the literary world with a force that still resounds across two decades. A collection of stories that depict the world of Pancake's native rural West Virginia with astonishing power and grace, The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake has remained continuously in print and is a perennial favorite among aspiring writers, participants in creative writing programs, and students of contemporary American fiction. "Trilobites", the first of Pancake's stories to be published in The Atlantic, elicited an extraordinary immediate response from readers and continues to be widely anthologized.
Sweet Home
Carys Bray - 2012
An outsider builds a gingerbread house at the edge of an English village. A woman is seduced into buying special-offer babies at the supermarket. A father is reminded of his son as he watches the rescue of a group of Chilean miners. A little boy attempts to engineer a happily ever after following the death of his sister. With psychological insight and a lightness of touch frequently found in fairy tales, Bray delves under the surface of ordinary lives to explore loss, disappointment, frustrated expectations and regret. Described as ‘not just excellent, but significant,’ by poet and critic Robert Sheppard, these dark and lyrical stories illuminate extraordinary and everyday occurrences with humanity and humour.
Mad Woman: Love Drove Her Crazy
Lady Lissa - 2017
After finding out that his wife is pregnant, his bond with her strengthens, while leaving Maddie alone again. But, Maddie refuses to just give up without a fight. How far is Maddie willing to go to sustain her relationship with Lincoln? Would she really stoop so low as to do the unthinkable? Find out just how crazy love can make you in the first episode of Mad Woman: Love Drove Her Crazy...