Literary Life Lessons: 7 Titles About the Power of a Great Mentor

Miss Janie’s Girls by Carolyn Brown

Miss Janie’s Girls (Montlake 2020)
by Carolyn Brown

Topics: broken families, sisters, emotional healing.

Miss Janie, the foster mother to Theresa and Kayla, is dying. But she’s not ready to end her journey without seeing her girls. It’s been ten years since Theresa and Kayla left Birthright, TX, with the intention of never looking back or looking at each other. When a private investigator who happens to be Miss Janie’s handsome nephew tracks them down, both girls know they have to return and see her. But tensions flare once again when they are under the same roof, and one last time, Miss Janie helps them discover a new beginning.

Drawing Lessons by Patricia Sands

Drawing Lessons (Lake Union 2017)
by Patricia Sands

Topics: dementia, loss, female friendships

Sixty-two-year-old Ariana leaves her home in Toronto for a two-week trip to Arles, France, to paint in the same poppy and sunflower fields that inspired Van Gogh. She is heartbroken about her husband Ben and his dementia diagnosis. She can’t imagine a life without him. 

She finds encouragement from fellow artists at the retreat and under the guidance of the retreat’s guest lecturer, Jacques de Villeneuve. Slowly she rediscovers her inner artistic passion and learns to embrace the life and light in front of her, instead of the one she must let go.

Face Down in Rising Sun by K.D. Allbaugh

Face Down in Rising Sun (Battle Ridge Rising Sun Press 2020)
by K.D. Allbaugh

Topics: mental illness, murder, physical abuse

Based on the tragic, true-life story of Clara Olson, this historic novel set in the Roaring Twenties takes readers on a journey as small-town girl Clara Olson falls under the tutelage of the dashing Erdman Olson. He dangles an underground world of speakeasies and bootlegging during Prohibition. Though Clara craved the excitement, it changed her life and shocked the world, leaving her family searching for answers.

Nowhere Near Goodbye by Barbara Conrey

Nowhere Near Goodbye (Red Adept 2020)
by Barbara Conrey

Topics: cancer, pregnancy, working mothers

Oncologist Emma Blake has dedicated her life to finding a cure to the rare brain cancer that killed her childhood friend Kate. When Emma discovers she’s pregnant, a true miracle baby, she’s torn between the needs of her family and her career. As her husband Tim decorates the nursery, Kate’s father, Ned, pushes her to work harder to fulfill her promise to find a cure.  Emma must reconcile with her past and present and learn to balance the challenges of being a physician and a mother. When a secret Ned has been hiding comes to light, Emma’s world cracks once again. Can failure lead to second chances?

Shades of Brilliance: The Master’s Protégé by Eleanor Chance

Shades of Brilliance: The Master’s Protégé (Darlington Publishing 2020)
by Eleanor Chance

Topics: poverty, alcoholism

Set during the Italian Renaissance, Celeste Gabriele’s life is upended when she finds herself moving from the highest echelons of Venetian society to the dismal slums, needing to protect her younger siblings from starvation. She is given the chance to nanny for a seven-year-old boy. During one of his art lessons, his maestro Luciano Vincente finds one of her sketches and begs her to study with him in secret. She agrees and becomes obsessed with her own painting. When her secret is discovered she is thrown back into the streets needing to survive again on her own and find a way to be with the man she loves.

The Wrong Kind of Woman by Sarah McCraw Crow

The Wrong Kind of Woman (Mira Books 2020)
by Sarah McCraw Crow

Topics: widowhood, single mother, social upheaval, working women

Set during the political and social upheaval of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Virginia Desmarais finds herself a single mother and widow when her husband, a professor at an elite New Hampshire college, drops dead from a heart attack. Alone and heartbroken, she must now support her family and find a new path for herself. She finds herself depending on four women professors dubbed the Gang of Four by their male counterparts. She, too, once held prejudices against them, parroting her husband’s beliefs. When the violent social protests smoldering across the country reach their community, Virginia must decide whether she’s willing to risk herself and her family for a cause that she never intended to make her own.

Zetty by Debra Whiting Alexander

Zetty (Luminare Press 2017)
by Debra Whiting Alexander

Topics: mental illness, child abandonment

It’s 1963 and Marjorie McGee has disappeared from her Southern California beach home, leaving her nine-year-old daughter Zetty behind. Told in alternating points of view, the story follows both Marjorie and Zetty. Marjorie’s mental illness progresses and Zetty gives up hope of her return. When Zetty is seventeen, she seeks answers. She finds herself in a circle of unconventional women who speak their minds and their truth. Through their friendship and guidance, Zetty begins her own spiritual and emotional journey to find her mother, never imagining the tragedy yet to come or the power of early childhood bonds.