Collection: Shop Woman

Uprooted from her childhood in Germany and set adrift in the American Midwest, Maureen was raised by a kind but neglectful mother who loved Jesus more than her own child and a stern, disinterested grandmother who waxed nostalgic about Nazi Germany. Growing up queer and isolated, Maureen often felt unmoored and unloved.

Years later, Maureen reflects upon her complicated past. Queen of Snails follows Maureen through time and memory in her quest to untangle the trauma passed down to her over three generations of women. Part memoir and part family history, Queen of Snails is a beautifully drawn, powerful story that examines and transmutes the emotional baggage of violence, abandonment, and displacement.

The Vet's Daughter combines shocking realism with a visionary edge. The vet lives with his bedridden wife and shy daughter Alice in a sinister London suburb. He works constantly, captive to a strange private fury, and treats his family with brutality and contempt. After his wife's death, the vet takes up with a crass, needling woman who tries to refashion Alice in her own image. And yet as Alice retreats ever deeper into a dream world, she discovers an extraordinary secret power of her own.

Harrowing and haunting, like an unexpected cross between Flannery O'Connor and Stephen King, The Vet's Daughter is a story of outraged innocence that culminates in a scene of appalling triumph.

A glimpse of a quickly melting corpse at the foot of a volcano has amateur sleuth and food enthusiast Valerie Corbin shocked. But how can she investigate a murder, when there's no evidence the victim ever existed?

The first Orchid Isle cozy mystery, set in tropical Hilo, Hawai'i, introduces a fun and feisty LGBTQ+ couple who swap surfing lessons for sleuthing sessions!

Retired caterer Valerie Corbin and her wife Kristen have come to the Big Island of Hawai'i to treat themselves to a well-earned tropical vacation. After the recent loss of her brother, Valerie is in sore need of a distraction from her troubles and is looking forward to enjoying the delicious food and vibrant culture the state has to offer.

Early one morning, the couple and their friend - tattooed local boy, Isaac - set out to see an active lava flow, and Valerie is mesmerized by the shape-shifting mass of orange and red creeping over the field of black rock. Spying a boot in the distance, she strides off alone, pondering how it could have gotten there, only to realize to her horror that the boot is still attached to a leg - a leg which is slowly being engulfed by the hot lava.

Valerie's convinced a murder has been committed - but as she's the only witness to the now-vanished corpse, who's going to believe her?

Determined to prove what she saw, and get justice for the unknown victim, Valerie launches her own investigation. But, thrown into a Hawaiian culture far from the luaus and tiki bars of glossy tourist magazines, she soon begins to fear she may be the next one to end up entombed in shiny black rock . . .

The amiable characters, stunning backdrop and culinary delights make this the perfect cozy of fans who enjoy a tropical vacation with a twisty murder mystery and compelling Hawai'ian culture - paired with an added bonus of recipes of local Hawai'ian dishes!

In Nancy Coco's eighth Candy-Coated Mystery, Christmas on Mackinac Island brings a flurry of festive activity for fudge shop owner Allie McMurphy--but also a body in a snowbank. With fun recipes, cute pets, quirky characters, and an endearing young protagonist, the Candy-Coated Mysteries have the perfect ingredients for cozy mystery fans!

All Allie wants for Christmas is for renovations to be finished on the Historic McMurphy Hotel and Fudge Shop so she can move back home for the holidays. But for now she's staying in her friend Frances' apartment, busily baking batches of holiday fudge. After someone leaves a mysterious note on the door to meet up, the curious fudge maker goes to the rendezvous with her Bichonpoo, Mal--only to discover a woman facedown in a snowdrift. With her dying breath, the woman gasps, "Frances." The police suspect she named her killer, but Allie knows that's impossible. She needs to wrap up this case before the trail runs cold--and give her friend the gift of freedom this Christmas season...

"Beautiful . . . Compelling . . . Cusk [is] an extraordinary writer of the female experience." --Financial Times

In the winter of 2009, Rachel Cusk's marriage of ten years came to an end. Candid and revelatory, Aftermath chronicles the perilous journey as the author redefines herself and creates a new version of family life for her daughters. She discovers previously unknown strengths and freedoms but also finds herself suddenly vulnerable to outsiders, unwelcome advice, social displacement, and the absence of a clear authority. The pressure to reconstruct a "normal" life for her daughters competes with the sense that nothing feels normal at all.

Aftermath is a classic: a masterly work in which the author, at her most ruthless and rigorous, charts the largely unwritten journey back to order from the chaos that is left when a family breaks apart.

Charlotte Holmes is accustomed to solving crimes, not being accused of them, but she finds herself in a dreadfully precarious position as the bestselling Lady Sherlock series continues.

Charlotte's success on the RMS Provence has afforded her a certain measure of time and assurance. Taking advantage of that, she has been busy, plotting to prise the man her sister loves from Moriarty's iron grip.

Disruption, however, comes from an unexpected quarter. Lord Bancroft Ashburton, disgraced and imprisoned as a result of Charlotte's prior investigations, nevertheless manages to press Charlotte into service: Underwood, his most loyal henchman, is missing and Lord Bancroft wants Charlotte to find Underwood, dead or alive.

But then Lord Bancroft himself turns up dead and Charlotte, more than anyone else, meets the trifecta criteria of motive, means, and opportunity. Never mind rescuing anyone else, with the law breathing down her neck, can Charlotte save herself from prosecution for murder?

A raw and masterful memoir about becoming a woman and going mad--and doing both at once.

When Suzanne Scanlon was a student at Barnard in the 90s, grieving the loss of her mother--feeling untethered and swimming through inarticulable pain--she made a suicide attempt that landed her in the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

After nearly three years and countless experimental treatments, Suzanne left the ward on shaky legs. In the decades it took her to recover from the experience, Suzanne came to understand her suffering as part of something larger: a long tradition of women whose complicated and compromised stories of self-actualization are reduced to "crazy chick" and "madwoman" narratives. It was a thrilling discovery, and she searched for more books, more woman writers, as the journey of her life converged with her journey through the literature that shaped her.

Transporting, honest, and graceful, Committed is a story of discovery and recovery, reclaiming the idea of the madwoman as a template for insight and transcendence through the works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Janet Frame, Audre Lorde, Shulamith Firestone, and others.

In Victorian-era Louisville, the Home for Friendless Women is run by benevolent benefactors with one mission: to reform the fallen women who live there into pious mothers and wives through religious lessons and hard work.

For Ruth, a college student who's expelled after a campus sexual assault, the Home is a purgatory to endure before she can get her life back. For Belle, a queer sex worker who exchanged her bed at a brothel for one in the Home, it's a safe place to rest her feet until she can track down her missing lover. And for Minnie, the daughter of the religious couple who founded the charity, the Home is her mother's idea of a cautionary tale.

But as Minnie prepares for the Home's silver anniversary party, she finds herself questioning the true cost of good intentions--and grappling with a terrible secret that has the power to unravel the Home entirely.

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER - Drawing on the diaries of one woman in eighteenth-century Maine, "A truly talented historian unravels the fascinating life of a community that is so foreign, and yet so similar to our own" (The New York Times Book Review).

Between 1785 and 1812 a midwife and healer named Martha Ballard kept a diary that recorded her arduous work (in 27 years she attended 816 births) as well as her domestic life in Hallowell, Maine. On the basis of that diary, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich gives us an intimate and densely imagined portrait, not only of the industrious and reticent Martha Ballard but of her society. At once lively and impeccably scholarly, A Midwife's Tale is a triumph of history on a human scale.

Six summers to fall in love. One summer to change everything.

Liv and Finn meet six summers ago working in a bar on the rugged Cornish coastline, their futures full of promise. When a night of passion ends in devastating tragedy they are bound together inextricably. But Finn's life is in LA with his band, and Liv's is in Cornwall with her family - so they make a promise. Finn will return every year, and if they are single they will spend the summer together.

This summer Liv crosses paths with Tom - a mysterious new arrival in her hometown. As the wildflowers and heather come into bloom, they find themselves falling for one another. For the first time Liv can imagine a world where her heart isn't broken every autumn. Now Liv must make an impossible choice. And when she discovers the shocking reason that Tom has left home, she'll need to trust her heart even more . . .

The National Book Award-winning novel--and contemporary classic--that launched the brilliant career of Gloria Naylor, now with a foreword by Tayari Jones

"[A] shrewd and lyrical portrayal of many of the realities of black life . . . Naylor bravely risks sentimentality and melodrama to write her compassion and outrage large, and she pulls it off triumphantly." --The New York Times Book Review

"Brims with inventiveness--and relevance." --NPR's Fresh Air

In her heralded first novel, Gloria Naylor weaves together the stories of seven women living in Brewster Place, a bleak-inner city sanctuary, creating a powerful, moving portrait of the strengths, struggles, and hopes of black women in America. Vulnerable and resilient, openhanded and openhearted, these women forge their lives in a place that in turn threatens and protects--a common prison and a shared home. Naylor renders both loving and painful human experiences with simple eloquence and uncommon intuition in this touching and unforgettable read.

"Visceral and moving," (Andra Watkins, New York Times bestselling author), It Could Be Worse is a tale of acceptance and awakening--but not necessarily forgiveness--that reminds us we can choose how our stories end.

Mired in self-doubt and blind loyalty, Allegra Gil suspects her charmed life may be a gilded cage. She has a devoted husband, Benito, two loving children, a thriving therapy practice, and lifelong friends. But when a surprising discovery in a piano bench reveals a shocking family secret, Allegra questions everything she thought she knew about the two people who raised her. Was it true? Did her father, a respected pediatric neurosurgeon, harm instead of heal? And Allegra's mother--how much did she know?

As the past threatens the present, Allegra plays the song of what was, what is, and what may never be in this "powerful and poignant story about letting go" (Jean Meltzer, international bestselling author of The Matzah Ball).

Composed with the cadence of a waltz--up, up, down--through flashbacks to childhood memories in Miami and a music camp in Michigan, It Could Be Worse is a heartwarming, at times heart-wrenching, multigenerational story of a woman supported and embraced by many while shaken to the core by a few. "The gorgeous prose and raw, unflinching narrative both heal and inspire. A stunning debut." (Samantha M. Bailey, USA Today and #1 international bestselling author of Woman on the Edge)

Dara Levan writes about love, loss, resilience, and how radiance emerges from our breaking points. She's the founder and host of the Every Soul Has a Story podcast and blog. A graduate of Indiana University, Dara is a former pediatric speech-language pathologist who lives in Fort Lauderdale. Learn more at daralevan.com.

Multi-award winner, including a National Book Award, Jean Valentine published twelve full-length collections of poetry during her lifetime, and all of them--plus an entirely new, unpublished manuscript--can be found in this masterful collection of her life's work.

The new poems acknowledge the inevitability of death while tenderly musing on what remains from a world left behind. The poems have an intricate balance between the sadness of a life lived and illuminating how the remaining love is steadfast, irreversible, and abiding even as we transcend from this earth.

In her later years, Jean would write poems on napkins, random scraps of paper, and even on a typewriter, and those close to her would collect these writings and transcribe them into a Word document so they wouldn't be lost. Even Jean's therapist transcribed a poem that she spoke in one of their sessions--a poem that can be found in this new work. Jean was always writing poetry wherever inspiration struck her, even through the struggle of her declining health. It was Jean's wish that her work landed back at her first home, Alice James Books--back to her origin point as a writer, coming full circle.

In these last prayerful poems, the poet visits loss, death, and transitional states. Full of longing, connections, and intergenerational knowledge, Valentine continues the mystical journey that has carried her through a lifetime devoted to poetry. Spirits connect. Guides are everywhere as she is "leaving all worlds behind." Love doesn't disappear but is steadfast and without boundaries. A poet of deep tenderness for everything living, from a dying cricket to her living and lost friends, Valentine is full of gratitude for this world, writing: "This is happiness. Old life, / I'm glad, all my rubbed life/ I was found, / I was written on a wall in air." The reader too is full of gratitude for these moving last missives from a great poet.

Ada Limon states, "The extraordinary poems of Jean Valentine have often existed in the between spaces, the caves, the secret rooms of the mind. They are gorgeous wonders and curiosities that bring us a new kind of light. The Collected Poems of Jean Valentine will no doubt serve as an essential handbook for anyone looking to lean into the knotty questions of human existence."

Longlisted for the National Book Award

Four siblings, two summer houses, one terrible secret--the "prickly, persuasive" bestseller from one of Norway's most celebrated novelists, perfect for readers of Rachel Cusk and Karl Ove Knausgaard (New Yorker)

" . . . Hypnotic. Hjorth works finely parsed and brilliant variations on her unrelenting theme of familial mistrust and misunderstanding." --New York Times

When a dispute over her parents' will grows bitter, Bergljot is drawn back into the orbit of the family she fled twenty years before. Her mother and father have decided to leave two island summer houses to her sisters, disinheriting the two eldest siblings from the most meaningful part of the estate. To outsiders, it is a quarrel about property and favoritism. But Bergljot, who has borne a horrible secret since childhood, understands the gesture as something very different--a final attempt to suppress the truth and a cruel insult to the grievously injured.

Will and Testament is a lyrical meditation on trauma and memory, as well as a furious account of a woman's struggle to survive and be believed. Vigdis Hjorth's novel became a controversial literary sensation in Norway and has been translated into twenty languages.

An astonishing debut collection of poems about desire and the chaos of youth.

In her stunning debut collection, Madeleine Cravens explores desire in all its transgressive power and wildness. Pleasure and pain are inextricable in these carefully observed poems, capturing a young woman on the threshold of adulthood as she seeks to understand herself. With a hard-edged vulnerability and singularly bold style, Cravens is unsparing about the struggle to make sense of one's longings.

Taking us from the parks and plazas of Brooklyn to the freeways of California, these poems allow us to watch a life unfold where "womanhood felt like an incorrect container," and love is performed "in the historic way, with bartering and harsh alliances." As Cravens casts her questioning eye across the possibilities of queer relationships and the curious shapes of family bonds--both the ones we're born into and the ones we choose--she urges readers to consider how we become ourselves.

Moving, captivating, and funny, Pleasure Principle heralds the arrival of a fearless and vibrant new voice in American poetry.

Discover the life of Ruby Bridges--a story about bravery and breaking down barriers for kids ages 6 to 9

Ruby Bridges was the first Black student to attend an all-white public school in the southern United States. Before she helped desegregate schools and change the course of history, she was a happy girl who helped take care of her younger siblings and loved to play outside. Her life changed when she was chosen to attend William Frantz Elementary, where she became a civil rights leader at a very young age. Explore how Ruby went from being a thoughtful girl growing up in Mississippi to a national leader in the fight for equality.

• Independent reading--This Ruby Bridges biography is broken down into short chapters and simple language so kids 6 to 9 can read and learn on their own.
• Critical thinking--Kids will learn the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How of Ruby's life, find definitions of new words, discussion questions, and more.
• A lasting legacy--This Black History Month, find out how Ruby Bridges made an impact on African American history, and helped make the world a better place for future generations, including you!

How will Ruby's courage inspire you?

Discover activists, artists, and athletes, and more from all across history with the rest of The Story Of series, including famous figures like: Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, Jackie Robinson, and Barack Obama.