Collection: Shop Woman

Penny is just four years old when she is snatched away from her all-American home by the Hungarian father who abandoned her when she was a baby. After facing isolation and neglect in a strange, dysfunctional household where heartache, rejection, and physical abuse rule her life, she escapes--only to find herself in a relationship with a man who's just converted to fundamentalist Christianity. Penny's road is long, winding, and often painful, but gradually she begins to listen to her inner voice, stand up for herself, and refuse to bow to the pressures of either her family or society--freeing herself to build a life on her own terms and find her way to happiness.

A rise-from-the-ashes hero's story of overcoming abuse, trauma, and unbearable odds, of being waylaid by both family and religion's promise of love, and harnessing the resilience to find the way home, Redeemed offers a rare window into Eastern European immigrant culture and reads like a page-turning thriller. Especially relevant today--a time when marginalized people are increasingly finding a voice--this memoir will serve as an inspiration to women everywhere, encouraging them to overcome their obstacles and go after their dreams.

For fans of Tara M. Stringfellow's Memphis and Abi Daré's The Girl with the Louding Voice comes a stunning literary debut about one intercultural family's search for home and the power of a lifelong dream.

It is summer 1969 in the Swiss countryside, and the house on the hill is busy. In the kitchen, Mama Eva and her sisters sing along to Congolese rumba, season fish, and pound garlic in preparation for the realization of a childhood dream: the grand opening of her Senegalese restaurant. Upstairs, African American daughter-in-law Bonnie paces across the floorboards, hopelessly waiting for news from the father of her unborn child.

Mansour has been gone for three months. His tour was only meant to last three weeks, but he and his band have yet to return.

In Mansour's absence, the people he left behind reckon with their memories of him: Mama Eva remembers his birth along a riverbank in rural Senegal; his aunt, the first time she saw him begging in the market; his childhood friend, the day he arrived in Paris. As Bonnie's anxieties mount, she plays his melodies in her head, calmed by the ghost of his voice, and putting a plan in action to find him.

Through tales that span generations and continents, these women paint Mansour's life in vivid color, and soon, both the lingering questions of their pasts and the truth of his disappearance are revealed.

Epic in scope but intimate in its portraiture, They Dream in Gold is a kaleidoscopic novel exploring the diasporic hunger for belonging. Moving through the hotbeds of the African Diaspora--from colonial West Africa on the brink of revolution to Brazil during Carnival season--it is a deeply affecting ode to the people and places that shape our identities, and a powerful testament to our shared humanity.

Macabre murders plague a rural town as a scam-artist psychic races to find the answers in this haunting thriller from award-winning author Jen Williams, perfect for fans of Camilla Sten and Alex North.

As a child, Ashley Whitelam could often see odd things nobody else could: quiet, watchful figures she called the Heedful Ones kept a strange vigil wherever she went. As an adult, she keeps these visions to herself, but she's turned her taste of the beyond into a career as a "psychic"­ - parting people from their money with a combination of psychology and internet research. When the Lake District is gripped by a series of grisly child murders, Ashley offers her services to the police for the free publicity. But as Ashley leads the police on a fruitless search around the small town of Green Beck, she catches a glimpse of those old ghosts of her childhood and, following them into the woods, she finds something she never expected: the corpse of the latest missing child.

The press fly into a frenzy and the police grow suspicious: either Ashley's psychic abilities are real, or she is guilty of murder. Hounded by interviews and interrogations, Ashley teams up with Freddie Miller, a podcaster covering the crimes. As they investigate, Ashley realises that there's no way to distance herself from these murders: whoever or whatever it is that's haunting the Lakes is haunting her, too.

Master of unsettling suspense Jen Williams is back with another chilling, dark read that will draw readers into a gruesome and atmospheric nightmare.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong delivers a fun romantic comedy about a woman writing under a male pseudonym and the man she hires to play the role in public.

Daphne McFadden already knows that as a female author, the cards are stacked against her. Now she knows just how much. Because her sudden whim to pose as an "outdoorsy hunk of masculinity" male author for her new book just resulted in the unthinkable: a bidding war, a huge book deal, and the kind of fame every author dreams of. Now she's in big trouble. Because she needs to convince the world that Zane Remington actually exists . . . but how?

By hiring an actor, of course.

Only Chris Stanton is not an actor--not officially. He's used to balancing the books, not pretending he wrote one. Still, he's mostly certain he can pose as some overly macho bro-author. But when the media descend on Daphne's gorgeous remote home in the Yukon, it's not enough for Chris to just be the face of Zane Remington--he'll have to become him. All while hilariously balancing the terrifying dangers of the wilderness, a massive femme fandom, and a serious crush on Daphne. But as the hype circus gets more out of control, it's just a matter of time before someone discovers their little write lie . . .

A New York Times Best Children's Book of 2020
Nominated for a 2021 Ezra Jack Keats Illustrator Award
Featured in 2021 Society of Illustrators Original Art Exhibition
A 2022 Book All Young Georgians Should Read
2020 Eureka! Nonfiction Children's Book Honor Award

I intend to stand firm and let the peacocks multiply, for I am sure that, in the end, the last word will be theirs. -- Flannery O'Connor

When she was young, the writer Flannery O'Connor was captivated by the chickens in her yard. She would watch their wings flap, their beaks peck, and their eyes glint. At age six, her life was forever changed when she and a chicken she had been training to walk forwards and backwards were featured in the local news, and she realized that people want to see what is odd and strange in life. But while she loved birds of all varieties and kept several species around the house, it was the peacocks that came to dominate her life. Written by Amy Alznauer with devotional attention to all things odd and illustrated in radiant paint by Ping Zhu, The Strange Birds of Flannery O'Connor explores the beginnings of one author's lifelong obsession.

Amy Alznauer lives in Chicago with her husband, two children, a dog, a parakeet, sometimes chicks, and a part-time fish, but, as of today, no elephants or peacocks.
Ping Zhu is a freelance illustrator who has worked with clients big and small, won some awards based on the work she did for aforementioned clients, attracted new clients with shiny awards, and is hoping to maintain her livelihood in Brooklyn by repeating that cycle.

Have you noticed people aren't as polite as they once were or that rudeness is no longer an exception but a lifestyle? Sure you have. All you need to do is set foot outside your door to see that bad manners are taking over everywhere. Just look and you'll see:

• People yak on cell phones in restaurants, and even at church.
• Folks in carpools wear enough cologne to make your eyes bleed.
• Family outings to the ballpark are ruined by rowdy drunks.
• People talk in movie theaters like they are in their living rooms.

Well, Whoopi Goldberg has noticed all this and more and asked herself, "Is it just me?" Unleashing her trademark irreverence and humor, her book of observations takes a funny and excruciatingly honest look at how a loss of civility is messing with the quality of life for all of us.

Sweeping from the eighteenth century to futurist fabulations, Black Bell harmonizes poetry with performance art practices in an investigation of fugitivity.

Inspired by the nineteenth century image of an enslaved woman wearing iron horns and bells, Alison C. Rollins's Black Bell continues an exploration of cataloging individual experience and collective memory. As Rollins sets out to resuscitate and embody the archive, we see a chorus of historical figures like Eliza Harris, Henry "Box" Brown, and Lear Green; readers can listen in as Phillis Wheatley takes a Turing test or venture through Dante's Inferno remixed with Wu-Tang Clan's 36 Chambers. Poems travel across time and space, between the eighteenth century and futuristic fabulations, vibrating with fugitive frequencies, sounds of survival, and nerve-wracking notes tuned toward love and liberation. Black Bell navigates what it means to be both invisible and spectacle, hidden and on display, allowing lyric language to become the material for fashioning wearable sculptures akin to Nick Cave's "soundsuits." Integrating performance art practices, metalwork, and sonic, Black Bell becomes multimedia meditation on freedom seeking, furthering the possibilities of both the page and the canvas of the poet's body.

With all the seaside charm and small-town heart that have made fans of Debbie Macomber and Elin Hilderbrand fall in love with her Martha's Vineyard-set novels, Jean Stone transports readers to a picturesque side of the island rarely visited by tourists, as an archeology professor inherits a quaint cottage that will change her life forever...

She's coming back to the home she didn't know she had . . .

The quaint, historic fishing village of Menemsha is a side of Martha's Vineyard that tourists don't always see. Maddie Clarke's late mother was born on the Vineyard, and Maddie hazily recalls childhood visits to her Grandma Nancy's cottage above Menemsha Harbor. Now divorced with a teenage son, Maddie is awaiting news of a tenureship at her Massachusetts college when a letter arrives that could change everything . . .

It turns out Grandma Nancy didn't die long ago, as Maddie believed. In fact, Nancy just passed away at 89--and left Maddie her gray-shingled cottage. Maddie intends her visit to Martha's Vineyard to be a brief one, just long enough to settle the estate and sell the cottage. But on arriving in Menemsha, she finds far more than memories . . .

There are other family secrets waiting to be uncovered, and a Native American heritage Maddie knew nothing about. Most surprising of all, there is the glimmer of a very different future--a chance to connect with her people and find herself, and perhaps find love, on this beautiful, celebrated island . . .

Driving an ambulance in France after the fall of Dunkirk, an American nightclub singer races to evacuate a British pilot and a Jewish orphan across more than 4,000 miles towards a precarious freedom in this emotional, action-packed story of sacrifice, hope, and devotion inspired by real wartime events.

France, 1939: A talented singer, Ruth Lacroix has left Maine to live with her aunt and uncle, dreaming of performing at the Casino de Paris. But with the outbreak of war, and the heartbreaking news that her cousin has been killed by German forces, that goal is supplanted by another--to support France in any way she can.

Though Ruth has never driven a vehicle larger than the tractor on her parents' farm, she joins a friend in enlisting as a driver for the French ambulance corps. On their way to transfer injured soldiers to Dunkirk for evacuation, they encounter Jimmie, a British Royal Air Force pilot with No. 73 Squadron RAF, who has bailed out of his burning plane. As Dunkirk falls, blocking off the route to the northern coast, word spreads of a daring Allied plan to rescue the remaining troops and civilians from ports in western France: code name Operation Aerial.

Over two hazardous weeks, Ruth and Jimmie will journey hundreds of miles together, helping other refugees as they rush to reach the sea before they are overtaken by the Germany army. But all their courage and resilience offer no certainty in wartime, when a single stroke of luck, or a split-second decision, can mean the difference between life and death . . .

In a Season filled with surprises, the irrepressible Worthingtons welcome thrilling new love matches into their lively extended family . . .

Intelligent. Kind. Must like children. Passable looks. A man of means. Must make us laugh . . . For Lady Alice Carpenter, these are some of the "musts" on the checklist for eligible bachelors compiled with her sisters as they husband-hunt among the ton. Yet when she encounters a striking nobleman on her morning ride in Hyde Park, Alice soon tallies another list of first impressions . . .

Shallow. Flirtatious. Without seriousness of purpose. Impossible to avoid . . .
Gifford, the Marquis of St. Albans, must wed in order to wrest his estate from his controlling father. How hard could it be to snag a suitable match? Waltzing with lovely Lady Alice at the Season's whirl of balls and soirees however, defies Giff's expectations: his dance moves are smooth but their small talk is excruciating--he offers up gossip sheet tidbits while she interrogates him on his charitable works--or lack thereof!

Charming. Amusing. Irresistible . . . A disastrous idea?
Alice is willing to entertain the possibility that there is more to the man than meets the eye--though what meets the eye is quite attractive. But when Giff's true character is tested, she realizes it takes more than a list to reveal the heart of a worthy and honorable gentleman . . .

Growing up in a half-white, half-brown town and family in South Texas, Stephanie Elizondo Griest struggled with her cultural identity. Upon turning thirty, she ventured to her mother's native Mexico to do some root-searching and stumbled upon a social movement that shook the nation to its core.

Mexican Enough chronicles her adventures rumbling with luchadores (professional wrestlers), marching with rebel teachers in Oaxaca, investigating the murder of a prominent gay activist, and sneaking into a prison to meet with indigenous resistance fighters. She also visits families of the undocumented workers she befriended back home. Travel mates include a Polish thief, a Border Patrol agent, and a sultry dominatrix. Part memoir, part journalistic reportage, Mexican Enough illuminates how we cast off our identity in our youth, only to strive to find it again as adults -- and the lessons to be learned along the way.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD NOMINEE - This "beautifully crafted" (The New York Times Book Review), haunting, profoundly disquieting novel manages to be at once sparse and lush, to combine Biblical simplicity with Gothic intensity and strangeness.

It is the story of Kate, despised by her mother, bound to her father by ties stronger and darker than blood. It is the story of her attempted escapes--in detached sexual encounters, at a Southern college populated by spoiled and perverse beauties, and in a doomed marriage to a man who cannot understand what she is running from. Witty, erotic, searing acute, State of Grace bears the inimitable stamp of one of our finest and most provocative writers.

There are two sides to every love story--and every breakup. Get ready for an emotional roller coaster of family, marriage, and divorce that will have you both laughing and crying, from the bestselling author of Before We Were Strangers.

After twenty-two years together, Danielle and Alex are getting a divorce. Once fiercely in love, they can barely stand the sound of each other's voice. Instead of shuttling the kids between two broken homes, Alex and Dani decide to share a nesting apartment while swapping days with their two teenage boys at the family home.

In the apartment, Dani and Alex, on their own, begin to reflect on the last two decades--why they fell in love and why the marriage fell, spectacularly, apart. With the newfound space and time, they are given a chance to rediscover their autonomous selves again. They both get back in the dating pool. Dani finds major success at work as a showrunner on her own TV project, while Alex faces the challenges of a new relationship.

Still, they find that they just can't stay away from each other, and somehow, the distance allows them to remember (for the first time in years) what each used to love about the other. When a family crisis draws them back into each other's orbit, Dani and Alex are once again put to the test, which leads to a dramatic conclusion that will have readers weeping.

Inspired by the #1 New York Times bestseller She Persisted by Chelsea Clinton and Alexandra Boiger, a chapter book series about women who spoke up and rose up against the odds--including Naomi Osaka!

Naomi Osaka grew up in Japan and the US, with one foot in each place. But wherever she was, she loved to play tennis--and she worked hard at it too, always practicing and improving. Many people doubted that she would make it as a professional player, but she persisted and showed the world that she is a champion. Her talent on the court and her activism for racial justice and mental health causes off it have made Naomi an inspiration to fans everywhere.

In this chapter book biography by NAACP Image Award-winning author and Coretta Scott King Honor recipient Kekla Magoon, readers learn about the amazing life of Naomi Osaka--and how she persisted.

Complete with an introduction from Chelsea Clinton, black-and-white illustrations throughout, and a list of ways that readers can follow in Naomi Osaka's footsteps and make a difference! A perfect choice for kids who love learning and teachers who want to bring inspiring women into their curriculum.

And don't miss out on the rest of the books in the She Persisted series, featuring so many more women who persisted, including Florence Griffith Joyner, Diana Taurasi, Simone Biles, and more!

From a highly lauded modern voice in feminism and racial justice comes a deeply personal and insightful testament to the power of reimagining to dismantle the frameworks and systems that no longer serve us while building new ones that do.

"Powerful . . . You will leave these pages changed for the better."--Gabrielle Union, New York Times bestselling author of We're Going to Need More Wine

There are breaking points in all our lives when we realize that the way things have been done before just don't work for us anymore, be it the way we approach our relationships, our belief systems, our work, our education, even our rest. For activist, philanthropist, and CEO Rachel E. Cargle, reimagining--the act of creating in our minds that which does not exist but that we believe can and should--has been a lifelong process. Reimagining served as the most powerful catalyst for Cargle's personal transformation from a small-town Christian wife to an incisive queer feminist voice of a generation.

In A Renaissance of Our Own, we witness the sometimes painful but always inspiring breaking points in Cargle's life that fostered a truer identity. These defining moments offer a blueprint for how we must all use our imagination--the space that sees beyond limits--to live in alignment with our highest values and to craft a world independent of oppressive structures, both personal and societal. Cargle now invites you to acknowledge ways of being that stem from societal expectations instead of your personal truth, and to embark on a renaissance of your own. She provides the very tools and prompts that she used to unearth her own truth, tools that opened her up to being a more authentic feminist and purpose-driven matriarchal leader.

A Renaissance of Our Own gives us the courage to look at the world and say "I want something different." It serves as a reminder of the power and possibility of reimagining a life that feels right, all the way down to the marrow of your bones.

"Country Girl is Edna O'Brien's exquisite account of her dashing, barrier-busting, up-and-down life."-National Public Radio

When Edna O'Brien's first novel, The Country Girls, was published in 1960, it so scandalized the O'Briens' local parish that the book was burned by its priest. O'Brien was undeterred and has since created a body of work that bears comparison with the best writing of the twentieth century. Country Girl brings us face-to-face with a life of high drama and contemplation.

Starting with O'Brien's birth in a grand but deteriorating house in Ireland, her story moves through convent school to elopement, divorce, single-motherhood, the wild parties of the '60s in London, and encounters with Hollywood giants, pop stars, and literary titans. There is love and unrequited love, and the glamour of trips to America as a celebrated writer and the guest of Jackie Onassis and Hillary Clinton.

Country Girl is a rich and heady accounting of the events, people, emotions, and landscape that have imprinted upon and enhanced one lifetime.