This month, WFWA celebrates fiction that highlights women’s strength and resilience: stories of women surviving — and thriving — when the cards are stacked against them.
A Powerful Season by Kathryn Dodson
At 60, Lacey thought her story was ending. Retirement, cruise ships, peaceful golden years ahead. But when climate reality crashes into her comfortable plans and her children’s activism opens her eyes, she faces a choice: retreat to safety or step into the fight of her life. Sometimes your most important chapter begins when you think the book is closed.
Make No Mistake by Julie Wise
Maggie Carpenter has faced it all — death threats, blackmail and financial disaster — building an international women’s rights organization over decades. The speed with which the newly elected president of the United States eliminated women’s rights caught her by surprise. With Congress, the Supreme Court and the police under his control, his plan to entrench white conservative ideals across the country seems unstoppable. But he has underestimated Maggie.
Her call to action, code name “Book Club,” sparks a revolution and a coalition of unlikely allies, including an undercover agent, an investigative reporter and the First Lady.
Make No Mistake is a novel about a women’s rights activist, a life-changing event she cannot remember and an underground book club poised to take down the patriarchy. The outcome may not be what you expect.
The Last Secret Kept by Elaine Stock
Fanny may be a small-town defense attorney in upstate New York alongside Lake Ontario, but it’s 1961, and she’s not about to listen to naysayers who encourage her to marry and to stay at home and raise a family. Fanny meets Gina, whose husband, Kenny, is perceived by society as a lesser man due to his limited intelligence.
When Kenny is accused of murder, Fanny takes on the case. Gina hopes for her grandmother’s support, but a hidden act of betrayal during the WWII years, when Gina and her grandmother lived in Berlin, Germany, threatens to unsettle Gina and destabilize the case Fanny is building on behalf of Kenny.
A blend of a tender love story, legal drama and found family, set against the backdrop of the Berlin Wall’s construction, The Last Secret Kept explores the beauty of individualism while breaking down the invisible walls built between ourselves and our loved ones.
The Winter Storm by Susan Specht Oram
Jacklyn Stone gathers friends on Christmas Eve to go to an island by boat and free four residents who were forced into Shore Lodge, a psychiatric unit, against their will. She fights for what is right and their freedom as they brave a violent winter storm and her son tries to thwart her every move.
Love Is for the Birds by Diane Owens Prettyman
A beach town destroyed. Her mother’s candy store swept away. This is what Teddy Wainsworth faces when she returns to Bird Isle. Meanwhile, Jack Shaughness, owner of a popular barbecue chain and widower still grieving the death of his wife, receives permission to cross over to the island with a smoker full of brisket to feed hurricane survivors.
Soon after arriving, he meets Teddy. In the wake of the hurricane, Bird Isle residents fear the Aransas Wildlife Refuge will not be ready for the whooping cranes’ annual migration south. Teddy and Jack work side by side to rebuild Bird Isle for the return of the cranes.
While restoring the refuge for the endangered cranes, they realize, “Not all storms come to disrupt your life, some come to clear your path.”
The Cicada Spring by Carolyn McBride
An empty nester abandons her “dream life” and returns to the family river house after the tragic loss of her mother. With the help of childhood friends and a captivating marsh man, she embarks on a journey to save her land and chart a new course toward a forever love.
Maeve In The Morning by Amanda Gale
Maeve Sheering is living fabulously. Fiercely independent and wickedly sharp, she’s the communications director for a lawmaker championing a promising water safety bill. Then a shadow from her past resurfaces: Kyle Langahan, a bright but arrogant scientist bent on taking down a local polluter. Back in high school, Maeve and Kyle were prone to fiery debates. When their rivalry triggered events that led to the worst night of her life, Maeve buried the memory.
But now Kyle’s partnering with her boss, forcing them into a collaboration that could derail the bill. Maeve, usually cool and composed, is frustrated by his tactics, which undermine her own. But even more unsettling is her suspicion that their differences make them stronger. Maeve in the Morning is about confronting the past, pushing back against sexism and injustice — and how self-discovery comes from the least likely of places.
The View From Half Dome by Jill Caugherty
1934. Isabel longs to escape her squalid San Francisco neighborhood. While her mother struggles to make ends meet and her older brother serves with the CCC at Yosemite, she manages the household and comforts her younger sister with stories about an idyllic imaginary world. Desperate for a taste of freedom, she takes matters into her own hands — with tragic consequences.
Distraught, she flees to Yosemite, where she falls in love with its majestic beauty. Inspired by Enid Michael, the park’s only female ranger-naturalist, Isabel hikes, learns new skills and discovers an inner strength she never knew she had. But even as she relishes her independence, she hides her grief, along with a terrible secret she fears will destroy relations with her family. And when she receives upsetting news from home, Isabel must decide if she can assist her family without sacrificing her chance at a new life.
The Last Beekeeper by Julie Carrick Dalton
A decade after the extinction of our pollinators, Sasha Severn returns to her childhood home in search of the mythic research her father, the infamous Last Beekeeper, hid before he was incarcerated.
Sasha finds a group of squatters occupying her family’s abandoned farm. The group soon becomes her newfound family, offering what she hasn’t felt since her father was imprisoned: security and hope. Then Sasha witnesses the impossible. She sees a long-extinct honeybee. Fighting to uncover the truth could shatter Sasha’s fragile security and threaten the lives of her newfound family ― or it could save them all.
The Crows Of Beara by Julie Christine Johnson
When Annie Crowe travels to an Irish village to promote a new copper mine, her career is hanging in the balance. Struggling to overcome her troubled past and a failing marriage, Annie is eager to rebuild her life. Yet when she arrives on the remote Beara Peninsula, Annie learns that the mine would encroach on the nesting ground of an endangered bird, and many in the community are fiercely protective of this wild place. Among them is Daniel Savage, a local artist battling demons of his own, who has been recruited to help block the mine.
Guided by ancient mythology and challenged by modern problems, Annie must confront the half-truths she has been sent to spread and the lies she has been telling herself. Most of all, she must open her heart to the healing power of this rugged land. The Crows of Beara is a breathtaking novel of how the nature of place encompasses everything that we are.
