Timeless Tales of Friendship

How to Align the Stars by Amy Dressler

Beatrice is a stubborn, no-nonsense astronomy professor at a small college in wine country. While working toward her tenure, she spends an inordinate amount of time avoiding Ben, an annoying librarian. Their rapid-fire exchanges could almost be mistaken for chemistry if he hadn’t done something unspeakable so many years ago.

Her younger cousin Heron is a wistful senior in college. The opposite of Beatrice, she is a hopeless romantic, pinning her hopes on a future with her boyfriend. After he proposes, Bea worries her younger cousin is making a mistake. Heron responds to Bea’s criticism with a matchmaking scheme.

Bea and Ben are the subjects of a hilarious opposites-attract experiment, while Heron begins to question if marriage is right for her. Her world comes crashing down when she is at the center of a campus scandal, reigniting anxiety from her mother’s sudden departure so many years ago.

As Heron and Bea deal with the fallout from the scandal, each finds herself questioning everything she thought she knew about the best course for the future. Each woman must make a decision: Bea between the comfortable role of merry spinster or a fulfilling partnership; Heron between marriage or reaching for a new dream.

Soul Dancing by Gail Priest

When ninety-year-old Shirlene Foster dies, she is shocked to wake up in another woman’s body. Even more surprising, she’s in a hospital delivery room, about to give birth. Fearing no one will believe her, she attempts to hide her true identity, but acting like a twenty-year-old proves impossible, and she realizes she must tell someone.

Cameron Michaels vowed to raise his niece after his brother abandoned his pregnant girlfriend, Rain. But after Rain has the baby, she changes… drastically. When Shirlene confesses she is inhabiting Rain’s body, Cameron hesitates to believe such a wild story, but it does explain Rain’s complete transition.

While adjusting to her new life and relishing her second chance at motherhood, Shirlene struggles to keep her growing attraction to Cameron in check. But Shirlene soon discovers that her new body may not belong to her for long.

Some Doubt About It by Marion McNabb

In this fun, feisty romp, a celebrity life coach collides with her former mentor as both women struggle with the choices they’ve made, the lives they have now, and the legacy they’ll leave behind. 

Caroline Beckett is living the dream. A self-help guru with a glamorous clientele and a marriage to a handsome photographer, she’s proof women truly can have it all. But one night leaves Caroline reeling, forcing her to reconsider everything she thought she knew about her life – and what (if any) business she has teaching anyone how to live theirs. 

Retired professor Devorah Van Buren is spending her time getting herself and her chihuahua, Mary Magdalene, kicked out of local restaurants for causing scenes with tourists. When she learns about Caroline’s rise to success and the personal scandal that followed, Devorah has a new purpose: to sue her former student for stealing the ideas that made Caroline famous. 

Back in her hometown to handle this new problem, Caroline is surprised to find reconnections with not only Devorah but her high school sweetheart too. After the way her life fell apart, Caroline is beginning to wonder if, with Devorah’s help, maybe she can build something better.

The Me List by Julee Balko

Ziplining despite being scared of heights. Learning yoga when you’re afraid of downward anything. Facing your strained relationship with your mother.

When Olivia writes a ME List, she picks 10 things to get her out of her suburban mom funk. But what she really needs is to figure out how to deal with her next-door neighbor, nemesis, and new boss-Patricia. Patricia is the top realtor in their town and has the perfect life. But when Olivia agrees to be Patricia’s assistant, she discovers Patricia’s life isn’t as perfect as she thought.

The Me List is a touching tale about the complexity of friendship, the importance of reserving judgment, and the rocky path that life takes as we get older. Julee Balko brings snark and heart to this journey of self-improvement with a keen eye for flawed characters.

The Lost Gift to the Italian Island by Barbara Josselsohn

When 32-year-old Tori discovers that her mother was adopted—and the grandmother she grew up with isn’t her grandmother at all—her whole world shatters. Jeremy, her boyfriend, wants to get married, but how can Tori commit when she doesn’t know who she truly is? The only clue to the identity of her biological family is a mysterious postcard with a photograph of an ornate wedding dress that her actual grandmother, Giulia, made, which was gifted to a museum on an Italian island. Determined to meet the woman, Tori heads to Italy, where she finds the museum and learns that Giulia was Jewish, and secretly lived on the island during World War Two. With the help of Emilio—the owner of the small hotel where Tori is staying and a part-time museum guard—Tori sneaks into the museum’s archives for clues to Giulia’s whereabouts. But she is shocked to find bullets sewn into the lining of one of Giulia’s dresses and a notebook claiming Giulia did something terrible during the war. Does Emilia hold the final link Tori is missing as she seeks a path toward Giulia? And will what she learns make her want to marry Jeremy—or turn away from love forever?

Toward the Corner of Peace and Mercy by Tracey D. Buchanan

It’s 1952 in the small town of Paducah and Mrs. Minerva Place would prefer everyone mind his own business, follow the rules, and if dead, stay dead. Nosy neighbors and irritating church members are bad enough but when residents of the local cemetery start showing up, the quirky widow wonders if she’s going crazy.

Just as bad, a new boy in the neighborhood seems intent on disrupting her life. Minerva, aggravated by the precocious six-year-old, holds him and his father at arm’s length. Nevertheless, with charming perseverance, they find a way into her closed-off life and an unlikely friendship begins.

But just when Minerva starts to let her guard down a tragic accident shatters her emerging reconnection with life. Now more than her sanity is at stake. With the help of the living and the dead, Minerva is forced to face issues she thought she had buried. She discovers the power of forgiveness and why it’s worth it to let others into your life, even when it hurts.

Rose House by Tina Ann Forkner

Still mourning the loss of her family in a tragic accident, Lillian Diamon finds herself drawn back to the Rose House, a quiet cottage where four years earlier she poured out her anguish among its fragrant blossoms. 

She returns to the rolling hills and lush vineyards of the Sonoma Valley in search of something she can’t quite name. But then Lillian stumbles onto an unexpected discovery: displayed in the La Rosaleda Gallery is a painting that captures every detail of her most private moment of misery, from the sorrow etched across her face to the sandals on her feet. 

What kind of artist would dare to intrude on such a personal scene, and how did he happen to witness Lillian’s pain? As the mystery surrounding the portrait becomes entangled with her estranged sister and the accident that claimed the lives of her husband and children, Lillian is forced to rethink her assumptions about what really happened that day.

Befriended by Kitty, an older and wiser gallery owner, as well as Paige, the Innkeeper where Lillian is staying, her new friends set out to help unravel the mystery. Lillian may learn more about love and friendship than she has ever imagined she deserves.

Rise on Eagles' Wings by Lois Kennis

Teen mom, Talitha Joy Dahlen fights to provide a life rich in love and integrity for her two sons, but can she let go of past hurts to trust a guide she cannot see?

A bookish girl with a wry sense of humor, Talitha survives enormous loss and hardship at a tender age. She is drawn into teen marriage to a man who isn’t an outright villain, but he’s not the hero Talitha perceives him to be either. Buddy seems more concerned with getting rich than wholeheartedly loving his children. And he’s not afraid to break the law to get what he wants. 

Miss Ella, a blind woman from war-torn Liberia—extends Talitha and her sons an invitation that could lead to safe haven—if Buddy doesn’t find them first. Rise on Eagles’ Wings is the hopeful story of a young mother’s tenacity, the ever-changing definition of family, and the redemptive power of community. Set in America’s Heartland during the final decade of the twentieth century, Rise on Eagles’ Wings intertwines contemporary voices with those of a pre-internet generation.

The Visitor by C. D'Angelo

Fiercely independent Mary Pontrelli is blindsided when the New Orleans building housing her New Age store and upstairs apartment is listed for sale. Worse yet, a developer wants to destroy it and her high school ex-boyfriend—ahem, nemesis—is leading their charge. But this budding sweet spot for that weasel from the past can’t happen since traitors never change. 

The best chance Mary has to save her cherished French Quarter building is to join forces with the other business owners whose livelihoods are also at risk. Too bad she avoids teamwork at all costs. Thankfully, a mystical new customer who shares Mary’s lost Italian heritage may be able to help alter her stubborn patterns. And, learning about the city’s history and her own Sicilian roots from the shopper may prove beyond merely engaging.

Even so, acquiring trust in strangers and accepting assistance requires more bravery than any societal expectation she’s challenged in her life. But if she doesn’t depend on her community and learn forgiveness, she may lose her career, home, and deeper relationships. No eccentric spirituality or heritage lessons can fix this … right?

No More Secrets by Joanne Guidoccio

Angelica Delfino takes a special interest in the lives of her three nieces, whom she affectionately calls the daughters of her heart. Sensing that each woman is harboring a troubling, possibly even toxic secret, Angelica decides to share her secrets—secrets she had planned to take to the grave. Spellbound, the nieces listen as Angelica travels back six decades to reveal an incredulous tale of forbidden love, tragic loss, and reinvention. It is the classic immigrant story upended: an Italian widow’s transformative journey amid the most unlikely of circumstances.

Inspired by Angelica’s example, the younger women share their “First World” problems and, in the process, set themselves free.

But one heartbreaking secret remains untold …

The Eves by Grace Sammon

The Eves is a multi-generational novel portraying lives lived well and lives in transition. Told through the voice of the psychologically complex Jessica Barnet, this is her story. As the primary witness in a messy trial she has been torn from the foundation of her existence – her connection to her children. With a partially finished doctoral degree, and incomplete renovations on her Washington, DC row house, she has let go of her ambitions and her appearance, but not her vodka or her sense of loss and guilt. 

When Jessica meets a group of diverse, determined, and sometimes ditzy old women who call themselves “The Eves” everything and everybody changes.  The women are committed to living their final years on a farm atop the cliffs of the Chesapeake Bay. These women of color and colorful women can reach back in time over 100 years even as they wrestle with the very real question of what story they will leave to the future.

Mountain Melodies by Elizabeth Wilmoth Solazzo

Dr. Katie Cook is beginning her medical practice in a small town at the base of Clinch Mountain, TN, at the turn of the twenty-first century. She is healing from a past relationship while carving out an independent life for herself in these starkly beautiful but fragile mountains. She is befriended by Lovey Lephew, a strong woman about to celebrate 100 years of wisdom gained from a life of unimaginable stories and lessons learned from the dark hollows of this lonely Appalachian mountain. As the women band together to protect their homes from a gang of drug dealers using the forested land for cover, they learn long-buried secrets from one another that will change both their lives.

A Measure of Happiness by Lorrie Thomson

Katherine Lamontagne isn’t Celeste Barnes’s mother, but ever since Celeste graduated high school and her parents abandoned Hidden Harbor, Maine, she’s acted the part. At twenty-two, Celeste worked at Katherine’s bakery, and hoped to buy the business once Katherine took early retirement. But when Katherine reconsidered that decision, Celeste fled to culinary school in New York—only to return two months later, a shadow of the girl who’d stormed out the door.

Katherine knows the signs of secret heartbreak. Years ago, she gave up her baby son for adoption—a regret she’s never shared with either her ex-husband or Celeste. She longs for Celeste to confide in her now. But it will be a stranger in town—an engaging young wanderer named Zach Fitzgerald—who spurs them toward healing. As both women are drawn into Zach’s questioning heart, they also rediscover their own appetites for truth and for love—and gain the courage to face the past without being imprisoned by it.Uplifting, emotionally rich, and deeply satisfying, A Measure of Happiness illuminates the nature of friendship, motherhood, hope—and the gifts of second chances.