Cynthia Newberry Martin
Love Like This

For the first time in a lifetime, Angelina and Will can choose again. After twenty-two years with children at home, she has no idea what she wants and is counting on the empty house to figure it out.

But he already knows-he wants her, all to himself.

Nine days into their child-free life, he quits his job and announces he's home to stay. So Angelina announces she's returning to nursing, this time in home health care.

In his new basement workroom, Will enjoys making boxes, but the quiet house sends him in search of music, where he meets Stella who reveals more than the magic of iPods.

Meanwhile, Angelina's first patient is an unpredictable woman named Lucy who reveals a particular magic of her own, as does her billboard-painting son John Milton. As Angelina and Will's life together becomes increasingly tense and their days apart become increasingly comfortable, it looks like Will may be the one to get the empty house.

Love Like This drops you inside a long-term marriage, where you'll be screaming either stay or go-as you weigh the value of sticking with the familiar versus the value of venturing into the unknown.

Ramona Reeves
It Falls Gently All Around and Other Stories

Winner, 2023 Sergio Troncoso Award for Best Book of Fiction, Texas Institute of Letters

Happiness and connection prove fickle in this debut collection of eleven linked stories introducing Babbie and Donnie. She is a thrice-divorced former call girl, and he is a sobriety-challenged trucker turned yogi. Along with their community of exes, in-laws, and coworkers, Babbie and Donnie share a longing to reforge their lives, a task easier said than done in Mobile, Alabama, which bears its own share of tainted history. Despite overwhelming challenges and the ever-looming specters of status, race, and class, the characters in It Falls Gently All Around and Other Stories strive for versions of the American dream through modern and often unconventional means. Told with humor and honesty, these stories remind us not only about the fallibility of being human and the resistance of some to change but also about finding redemption in unlikely places.

Ashley Wurzbacher
How to Care for a Human Girl

From "a writer at the top of her game" (The New York Times) comes a bighearted and sharply funny debut novel about two estranged sisters and the crossroads they face after becoming unexpectedly pregnant at the same time.

Two years after the death of their mother, Jada and Maddy Battle both navigate unplanned pregnancies. Jada, a thirty-one-year-old psychology PhD student living in Pittsburgh, quietly obtains an abortion without telling her husband, but the secret causes turmoil in her already shaky marriage. Back home in rural Pennsylvania, nineteen-year-old Maddy, who spends her time caring for birds at a wildlife rehabilitation center, is paid off by the man who got her pregnant to get an abortion. But an unsettling visit to a crisis pregnancy center adds to her doubts about whether to go through with it.

Although Maddy still hasn't forgiven Jada for a terrible betrayal, she goes to her for support, only to discover the cracks in the façade of her sister's seemingly perfect life. As their past resentments boil over, the sisters must navigate the consequences of their choices and determine how best to care for themselves and each other.

With luminous prose and laser-sharp psychological insight, How to Care for a Human Girl is a compassionate and unforgettable examination of the complexities of choice, the special intimacy of sisterhood, and the bizarre ways our heated political moment manifests in daily life.

Amanda Cox, Katie Anastassakis, and Lindsay Davis
Pour Parenting

Lindsay Davis: Ever wonder what wine would go best with a huge bowl of spilled cheerios? Or an unleashed toddler carrying a dirty diaper? Look no further! This book allows you to confidently pair your favorite wines with the ups and downs of motherhood!

Katie Anastassakis: This book was created to bring mothers together from all walks of life - because we all have that one thing in common... none of us have it all together! How could we, when we never know what new mess is waiting for us when we walk back into that room. Let us laugh together, learn together, and pick a great wine to cheers with together. We got this!

Amanda Cox: Motherhood is like wine. It can be sweet and gentle and fill you with a sense of satisfaction and happiness. It can also be nauseating, give you a headache and make you wonder about your life choices. You may not always choose the right wine, and you will never make all the right choices when it comes to motherhood, but neither should keep you from trying again and again to get that perfect pairing. This book is about finding comfort and humor knowing you are not alone in the struggle to achieve both.

Lavender Suarez
Transcendent Waves: How Listening Shapes Our Creative Lives

Sponsored by the @thejulemuseum alongside their exhibition “Invisible Thread” featuring contemporary artists who engage with questions of spirituality, faith, and transcendence, author @lavenderhealer will visit us to share her book on sound, listening, meditation, and mindfulness.

In the book “Transcendent Waves,” sound healing practitioner, meditation teacher, and artist Suarez outlines how listening can unlock moments of creative spark, self-awareness, and mindfulness in a work that is equal parts how-to guide and contemplative artist’s workbook. Suarez’s illustrated meditations combine the open-ended freedom of Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit with the profound psychological insights of Oliver Sacks to offer a modern take on the impact of listening in a world that gets louder every day. Featuring an introduction by Bibbe Hansen―artist, Warhol star, and daughter of Fluxus co-founder Al Hansen―Transcendent Waves compiles scientific evidence, anecdotes, and thoughtful prompts for readers to manifest a sense of wonderment and appreciation for the intricacies of listening and the new perspectives it can bring to our daily creative worlds.

Rachel Yoder
Nightbitch

A film adaptation of “Nightbitch” produced by Annapurna, directed by Marielle Heller, and starring Amy Adams will commence production in September 2022. Searchlight will distribute worldwide. Selected as an Indie Next Pick in August 2021, Nightbitch has gone on to be named a best book of the year by Esquire and Vulture and recognized as a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction, finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and shortlist for the McKitterick Prize. To date, Nightbitch has been translated into 13 languages.

Rachel is a graduate of the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program and also holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Arizona. With Mark Polanzak, she is a founding editor of draft: the journal of process.

Rachel grew up in a Mennonite community in the Appalachian foothills of eastern Ohio and now lives in Iowa City.

ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS of SUMMER 2021 according to Time Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Nylon, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, the Chicago Tribune, Business Insider, Bustle, Lit Hub, Book Riot, The Chicago Review of Books, Thrillist, The Millions, Amazon, and more…

Named a Best Book of the Year by Esquire and Vulture. Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction. Finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Shortlisted for the McKitterick Prize. Indie Next Pick for August 2021

Lydia Wilkes
Rhetoric and Guns

Rhetoric and Guns advances more direct, systematic engagement in the field and beyond by analyzing rhetoric about guns, guns in rhetoric, and guns as rhetoric, particularly as they relate to specific instances of guns in culture. The authors attempt to understand rhetoric’s relationship to guns by analyzing rhetoric about guns and how they function in and as rhetoric related to specific instances—in media coverage, political speech, marketing, and advertising. Original chapters from scholars in rhetorical studies, communication, education, and related fields elucidate how rhetoric is used to maintain and challenge the deadly status quo of gun violence in the United States and extend rhetoricians’ sustained interest in the fields’ relationships to violence, brutality, and atrocity.

Even as guns are wrapped up with other crucial areas of concern, they are also fundamentally a rhetorical concern. Guns and gun violence occupy a unique rhetorical space in the United States, one characterized by silent majorities, like most gun owners; vocal minorities, like the firearm industry and gun lobby; and a stalemate that fails to stem the flood of the dead. How Americans talk, deliberate, and fight about guns is vital to how guns are marketed, used, and regulated. A better understanding of the rhetorics of guns and gun violence can help Americans make better arguments about them in the world. However, where guns are concerned, rhetorical studies is not terribly different from American culture more generally. Guns are ever-present and exercise powerful effects, but they are commonly talked about in oblique, unsystematic ways.

Claire Lombardo
The Most Fun We Ever Had

Claire’s debut novel, The Most Fun We Ever Had, was an instant New York Times bestseller and has been translated or is forthcoming in over a dozen languages. Her second novel, World of Fools, is forthcoming in 2023-24 from Doubleday Books.

Claire is a graduate of the University of Illinois-Chicago and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her short fiction has appeared in, among others, Playboy, Barrelhouse Magazine, Little Fiction, and Longform. Her story, "I Only Want to Talk About the Nice Things," was one of 2016's Best of the Net, and was #1 on Longform's 2015 fiction list.

Prior to publishing The Most Fun We Ever Had, Claire spent several years working with homeless children and families in Chicago. She has also been a dog walker, a nanny, a temp, and a communications aide at a woodwind nonprofit. She is not herself a woodwind musician. She has taught fiction writing at the University of Iowa and currently teaches at Grinnell College. A native of Oak Park, Illinois, she now lives in Iowa City, Iowa, with her dog, Renee.

Josh Funk
Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast

A thoroughly delicious rhyming story about the funniest food fight ever—perfect for fans of The Food Group series.

A thoroughly delicious picture book about the funniest "food fight!" ever! Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast have a beautiful friendship—until they discover that there's ONLY ONE DROP of maple syrup left. Off they go, racing past the Orange Juice Fountain, skiing through Sauerkraut Peak, and reeling down the linguini. But who will enjoy the sweet taste of victory? And could working together be better than tearing each other apart? The action-packed rhyme makes for an adrenaline-filled breakfast . . . even without a drop of coffee!

Lisa Weldon
Twenty Pieces: A Walk Through Love,Loss and Midlife Reinvention

Lisa's world collapsed the year she turned 58. Her 25-year marriage ended; the only home her children had ever known fell into foreclosure; and her last child left the nest. Her financial lifeline, her career in advertising, had gone stagnant.

From under the crushing realities a wild idea popped into her head. What if she went away for 30 days, all alone to New York City and took a crash course to learn the new digital ways of her business? After class she could sneak in a 1-mile walk, each day treating herself to a different neighborhood of Manhattan, the place she'd always dreamed of living. Using the lessons she'd learn, she could share stories and photos from her daily walks, all in hopes of reinventing herself professionally.

It seemed like the perfect plan, and it was. However-the real truth she found on the streets of Manhattan never made it to her blog. Only in her personal diary did she share the rawness of what she learned about herself ... and all she needed to do to make the changes she wanted.

In her memoir, Twenty Pieces, Lisa Weldon shares what she learned.

Sam Hendrix
Auburn: A History in Street Names

How did Auburn, Alabama, get its name, and why is it referred to as “the loveliest village?” A new book, “Auburn: A History in Street Names,” authored by Sam Hendrix, provides a comprehensive history of the city of Auburn and so much more. The book tells the stories of the “village” and its people, street by street, act by act, over nearly two centuries.

By telling the history of Auburn, the volume creates future opportunities for today’s youth to tell stories of camp experiences. Proceeds from book sales will fund an endowment at Auburn University to provide academic camp scholarships for Auburn Youth Programs, or AYP. The “camperships,” which cover costs of registration, on-campus lodging and meals, provide the opportunity for local youth to attend week-long academic summer camps at Auburn University.

“It’s important to me that youth in Auburn get to experience life on campus,” Hendrix said. “There are so many bright young people who live near the university or pass by it each day, but don’t see attending college as a possibility. Academic camperships aim to change the dynamic for our underrepresented youth and lead these sharp, curious individuals to discover undreamt-of careers and carve new futures.”

Kelly Dean Jolley
Big Swamp

A Private Eye in a One-Eyed Place?

Ford Merrick is a softhearted detective in a sleepy southern town, Opelika, Alabama—a “one-eyed, blinking sort of place.” A provoking visit from beautiful Rachel Gunner complicates his work and his life. This stunning woman asks Ford to tail her uncle and discover what he is up to. Taking the case, Ford quickly finds himself swamped in mysteries: Who is Rachel's uncle, and what is his secret business? Then there’s the mystery of an earlier death at Noble Hall where Rachel and her uncle now live. But the greatest mystery may be Rachel Gunner herself. Mired, Ford struggles to find his way, unearths tragedies old and new, and exposes his heart to a hard test.

Ali B. McDonald
Laced with Venom and Honey

A liar. That’s all she’d ever been, but she’d never thought that the lying would force her here. She deserved it, though: all the pain and agony that was being brought down on her by the Head Court of Veltyn.

She deserved it all.

Waverly Harlow had spent her entire life trapped by Commander Blackstone’s laws forbidding any citizen of Veltyn from crossing into the other Ring territories. As a part of the Ocean Ring, one of the seven Ring territories of Veltyn, the walled land restrictions had always felt endlessly suffocating to her. But, her feelings were insignificant. She was insignificant in her world. She knew her responsibility and focus would always be on her father and younger brother, no matter what the cost.

To keep her family fed and safe every day, she does everything and anything her demeaning job requires. Wrapped in her lace attire that her clients love to see and lying to everyone she has ever cared for, Waverly supports her family and survives the unfair world that she lives in.

Working and surviving has always been her ultimate obligations until she becomes trapped in the Heir Audition for unknown reasons and against her freewill. Now, the only thing that matters is getting back to her Home Ring and her family.

She will take down anyone that tries to stop her.

DOUG LAMPLUGH
”Murder at Mardi Gras”

In this true crime-flavored novel, Detective William Boyett is called out on Mardi Gras evening in Mobile, Alabama to investigate the discovery of a young woman’s body wrapped in a carpet in a vacant lot a few blocks from the parade route.

Over the next two months, Boyett works hard to solve the case, but he’s frustrated by miscalculations and downright incompetence by other members of the law enforcement community. His investigation goes nowhere, and when he’s promoted and transferred back into patrol, the unsolved homicide falls into the cold case status.

A decade later, Boyett is assigned to a newly formed cold case squad. He soon picks up two cases he feels he can solve, one of which is the 2006 Mobile Mardi Gras murder he left behind. Now, with skilled, trusted colleagues at his side, he picks up the trail, determined to find the murderer, never expecting the horrific truth he will uncover.

A seat-of-your pants mystery thriller written by a thirty-year criminal investigator that you will believe is true. Doug Lamplugh brings his experiences with the criminal justice system, as well as his experience with multi-state, multi-jurisdictional investigations to life in this novel. The details of how a criminal investigation can change rapidly will astound you.

Betsy Lowery
Love Ever Green

Bored with her current work and living arrangements, Gina takes a temporary undercover job evaluating a fledgling retreat site in the woods. All she has to do is pose as a guest needing R & R and quiet time for serious thinking. But she's not prepared for how the surroundings are going to affect her, nor for how attached she's in danger of becoming to the hosts - and to one of them in particular! What will happen if Gabe and his family find out she's been lying to them?

Walk a trail of sweet romance in this story inspired by the forestlands of Alabama and set in the city of Auburn. Betsy Lowery

(A Stranger's Promise, No Doubt It's Love) delivers the flavor of classic Christian romance in this modern tale that will have you laughing, guessing, hoping, and cheering!

Donna Everhart
The Saints of Swallow Hill

Where the Crawdads Sing meets The Four Winds as award-winning author Donna Everhart's latest novel immerses readers in its unique setting—the turpentine camps and pine forests of the American South during the Great Depression. This captivating story of friendship, survival, and three vagabonds' intersecting lives will stay with readers long after turning the final page.

It takes courage to save yourself...

In the dense pine forests of North Carolina, turpentiners labor, hacking into tree trunks to draw out the sticky sap that gives the Tar Heel State its nickname, and hauling the resin to stills to be refined. Among them is Rae Lynn Cobb and her husband, Warren, who run a small turpentine farm together.

Though the work is hard and often dangerous, Rae Lynn, who spent her childhood in an orphanage, is thankful for it--and for her kind if careless husband. When Warren falls victim to his own negligence, Rae Lynn undertakes a desperate act of mercy. To keep herself from jail, she disguises herself as a man named "Ray" and heads to the only place she can think of that might offer anonymity--a turpentine camp in Georgia named Swallow Hill.

Swallow Hill is no easy haven. The camp is isolated and squalid, and commissary owner Otis Riddle takes out his frustrations on his browbeaten wife, Cornelia. Although Rae Lynn works tirelessly, she becomes a target for Crow, the ever-watchful woods rider who checks each laborer's tally. Delwood Reese, who's come to Swallow Hill hoping for his own redemption, offers "Ray" a small measure of protection, and is determined to improve their conditions. As Rae Lynn forges a deeper friendship with both Del and Cornelia, she begins to envision a path out of the camp. But she will have to come to terms with her past, with all its pain and beauty, before she can open herself to a new life and seize the chance to begin again.

Kelsey Barnard Clark
Southern Grit: 100+ Down-Home Recipes for the Modern Cook

From preeminent chef, multitasking mom, proud Southerner, and 2016 Top Chef winner Kelsey Barnard Clark comes this fresh take on Southern cooking and entertaining.

In Southern Grit, Kelsey Barnard Clark presents more than 100 recipes that are made to be shared with family and friends. Indulge your loved ones in delicious modern Southern meals, including Bomb Nachos, Savannah Peach Sangria, Roasted Chicken and Drippin' Veggies, and six variations of Icebox Cookies.

Featuring beautifully styled shots of finished dishes and the Southern home style, as well as Kelsey Barnard Clark's tips for stocking the pantry, entertaining with ease, and keeping your house guest-ready (with or without toddlers).

Readers of Magnolia Table by Joanna Gaines and Whiskey in a Teacup by Reese Witherspoon, fans of Kelsey Barnard Clark and her stint on Top Chef, and any home cooks who love cooking and serving Southern food, have a young family, and like to host guests will appreciate these modern homemaking tips, the approachable instruction, and the contemporary repertoire of recipes that brim with flavors of the Deep South.

Anna Penland and Anna Moates
Almost Twins

From the moment Anna and Anna met at Auburn University, they realized they had so much in common, they HAD to call each other "twin." Many people celebrate that people are all the same, but the twins respectfully disagree- which is why this duo dubbed themselves as the Almost Twins. This "almost" signifies the beautiful difference in not only someone with Down syndrome and their typical peers but each and every one of us. We all have something unique to celebrate. Take a look around- maybe you have an almost twin too! Visit our website at www.thealmosttwins.com to learn more about our story and for helpful materials on how to celebrate our differences.

Chris Richie
The Ladybug’s Gift

The Ladybug's Gift is a story based on a unique ladybug encounter that brought us peace shortly after our mother passed away. This book is for children of all ages written from the ladybug's point of view and teaches us that our loved ones are never really gone. Our story also teaches that everyone has a gift that is meant to be shared with the world. The reader will feel the ladybug's concern while she searches for her special gift and will rejoice when she discovers her own "gift" through the help of a guardian angel. The simple act of a ladybug's visit reminded us of the power of Faith, Hope, and Love and that our departed loved ones remain with us, in more ways than one. The authors felt compelled to share this incredible experience in the hopes it will help others cope with the loss of a loved one by experiencing God's peace.