Welcome, Book Lovers!

This book begins where most love stories leave off: at the beginning of real life. 

I Wanted to Be Wonderful follows the lives of two women in their first years of marriage and motherhood. One is a fictional character trying to live the happily-ever-after many imagine for themselves, and the second woman is inspired by the author herself, relating the most intimate moments of her life. 

Both couples start their marriages full of idyllic happiness, but as the stressors of everyday life seep into their daily lives, that spark of young love begins to dim. It’s a story of metamorphosis, from independent working woman to mother, helpless in the face of the discovery that her daughter may need more from her than she ever thought possible. 

In trenchant, thoughtful prose, Lihi Lapid tells a braided story of women struggling to live up to modern pressures: a story about shattered dreams, and about finding the strength to gather up the pieces and to learn to smile again.

Coming August 5, 2025 

The author of My What If Year is back with a fun, witty debut novel that takes you inside the world of extreme wealth and charitable giving. 

Lucia thought she had it all figured out—until life in London as a new mom and expat turns everything upside down. She’s just barely keeping it together when she unexpectedly lands a glamorous job as a philanthropic advisor to the poshest families in England. But is the world of the uber wealthy everything it’s cracked up to be? 

At work, she’s rubbing elbows with royals and taking champagne-fueled meetings with heirs to the next generation of wealth; while at home, her teething one-year-old is up at all hours of the night, and her husband’s growing connection to his ex-girlfriend is making her question their marriage.

Something’s gotta give in this relatable and heartwarming dramedy about a woman caught between her career ambitions, her family’s needs, and the person she’s becoming.  Can Lucia rediscover herself before it all falls apart? And can she still do some good in the world while she’s at it?

Coming September 23, 2025

The acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World returns with a stunning coming-of-age novel about girls, mothers, and finding one's way in the world. 

Seventeen-year-old Phoebe was never interested in her birth family. But on the cusp of her high school graduation, her adoptive mother, Greta, insists on a visit to meet her biological parents and siblings. The encounter is a jolt, a revelation that derails Phoebe.

With the help of her best friend Luna, Phoebe runs away—as far as their friend Patrick O’Connor’s chaotic home, where she hopes to go unnoticed among his thirteen siblings. But when Phoebe asks Patrick to chop off her hip-length hair, she’s suddenly transformed. Patrick’s older brothers can’t help but notice the striking, Peter Pan–like stranger who has suddenly appeared in their midst.

What starts as an adolescent rebellion soon spirals into a whirlwind of self-discovery and unexpected connections. As she grapples with her shifting identity and strained relationships, Phoebe must navigate the tumultuous road out of girlhood and chart a new and unknown course.

Coming December 2, 2025

What really happened all those years ago?

When Marlowe, an illustrator living in New York City, returns to her family’s bewitching Hudson Valley estate for the holidays, she discovers a murder on the property that draws her back into the haunting case of her teenage best friend’s disappearance twenty years earlier. Marlowe soon finds herself unraveling the tangled dynamics of this small town and the legacy of a summer home that holds both secrets and scars. What follows is a gripping mystery that weaves between past and present as Marlowe confronts the fallibility of her own memory, the shocking truth about her lost friend, and an ultimatum that will change the course of her life.

In this chilling debut novel, Julie Doar parses themes of family loyalty, class tension, friendship, and identity, building toward a dramatic payoff that keeps readers guessing until its final moment.

Coming July 1, 2025

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Paper Palace, a Reese’s Book Club Pick, comes a debut poetry collection that paints a moving portrait of a rich life from childhood to love to marriage to motherhood to divorce and beyond.

What the Deep Water Knows by Miranda Cowley Heller is a series of exquisite reflections on love in all its seasons. In poetry that is lyrical and quick-witted, gentle and devastatingly frank, Cowley Heller contemplates time, marriage, and motherhood. Her words will envelop you and bring you to the water’s emotional edge:

“I stand in bare feet at the break,
icy water soaking my cuffs.
A scoop of pelicans dives on bait fish
—relentless, cruel.
Kelp fronds mourn them in the glassy deep.
A hermit crab creeping on to shore
skittles its way across the sand.
In the blue, a soot tern wings loop-the-loops.
And I lift my face into the wind.”

from “Things the Tide Has Discarded”

Coming June 3, 2025

Does your past define your destiny? Told through multiple perspectives, rich with emotion and immersive dual timelines, The Summer We Ran weaves together a story of lost love, devastating secrets, shocking sabotage, and the painstaking decision two people must make in order to fulfill the futures they each desire.

In the summer of 1996, teenage Tess Murphy’s mom gave her two rules to abide by: keep quiet and stay out of trouble. Her mother landed a new job as a cook at an affluent Virginia estate and didn’t want anything to risk the opportunity, least of all her outspoken daughter. What no one saw coming was Tess falling deeply in love with the boy next door, high-society Grant Alexander.

Over a few wondrous and heat-filled months, Tess and Grant’s love blooms so ferociously it feels utterly impossible that anything can keep them apart, until tragedy strikes and the teenagers find themselves pained by betrayal with little hope to repair the damage that’s been done. 

Published April 1, 2025

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER 

"Razor-sharp, darkly comedic, and emotionally piercing. With the satirical bite of Richard Russo’s Straight Man, the introspection of Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove, and the reinvention of Andrew Sean Greer's Less, Kenney’s vivid prose transforms the mundane into unexpected hilarity."
—Booklist (starred review)

An Indie Next & LibraryReads Pick for April
Winner of the AudioFiles Earphones Award

The Office meets Six Feet Under meets About a Boy in this coming-of-middle-age tale about having a second chance to write your life’s story. 

Bud Stanley is an obituary writer who is afraid to live. Yes, his wife recently left him for a “far more interesting” man. Yes, he goes on a particularly awful blind date with a woman who brings her ex. And yes, he has too many glasses of Scotch one night and proceeds to pen and publish his own obituary. The newspaper wants to fire him. But now the company’s system has him listed as dead. And the company can’t fire a dead person. The ensuing fallout forces him to realize that life may be actually worth living. 

As Bud awaits his fate at work, his life hangs in the balance. Given another shot by his boss and encouraged by his best friend, Tim, a worldly and wise former art dealer who is now confined to a wheelchair, Bud starts to attend the wakes and funerals of strangers to learn how to live.

Thurber Prize-winner and New York Times bestselling author John Kenney tells a funny, touching story about life and death, about the search for meaning, about finding and never letting go of the preciousness of life.

A USA Today Bestseller
Featured in the Washington Post

“Zibby Owens has done the literary world a great service, collecting important views at a critical moment in history. As she says, this is not a time to lower your voice. Kudos to her and all the authors here for sharing valuable insight, emotion, and perspective on the often misunderstood Jewish experience.”
―Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays With Morrie

An intimate and hopeful collection of meaningful, smart, funny, sad, emotional, and inspiring essays from today’s authors and advocates about what it means to be Jewish, how life has changed since the attacks on October 7th, 2023, and the unique culture that brings this group together.

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On October 7th, 2023, Jews in Israel were attacked in the largest pogrom since the Holocaust. It was a day felt by Jews everywhere who came together to process and speak out in ways some never had before. In this collection, 75 contributors speak to Jewish joy, celebration, laughter, food, trauma, loss, love, and family, and the common threads that course through the Jewish people: resilience and humor. Contributors include Mark Feuerstein, Jill Zarin, Steve Leder, Joanna Rakoff, Amy Ephron, Lisa Barr, Annabelle Gurwitch, Daphne Merkin, Bradley Tusk, Sharon Brous, Jenny Mollen, Nicola Kraus, Caroline Leavitt, and many others. On Being Jewish Now is edited by Zibby Owens, bestselling author, podcaster, bookstore owner, and CEO of Zibby Media.

All profits will be donated to Artists Against Antisemitism. 

Contributors:
Abby Stern
Ali Rosen
Alison Hammer
Alison Rose Greenberg
Alix Strauss
Aliza Licht
Alli Frank
Alyssa Rosenheck
Amy Blumenfeld
Amy Ephron
Amy Klein
Anna Ephron Harari
Annabelle Gurwitch
Barri Leiner Grant
Bess Kalb
Beth Ricanati
Bradley Tusk
Brenda Janowitz
Cara Mentzel
Caroline Leavitt
Corie Adjmi
Courtney Sheinmel
Danny Grossman
Daphne Merkin
Dara Kurtz
Dara Levan
David K. Israel
David Christopher Kaufman
Debbie Reed Fischer
Diana Fersko
Eleanor Reissa
Elizabeth Cohen Hausman
Elizabeth L. Silver
Elyssa Friedland
Emily Tisch Sussman
Harper Kincaid
Heidi Shertok
Ilana Kurshan
Jacqueline Friedland
Jamie Brenner
Jane L. Rosen
Jeanne Blasberg
Jennifer S. Brown
Jenny Mollen
Jeremy Garelick
Jill Zarin
Joanna Rakoff
Jonathan Santlofer
Judy Batalion
Julia DeVillers
Keren Blankfeld
Lihi Lapid
Lisa Barr
Lisa Kogan
Lynda Cohen Loigman
Mark Feuerstein
Nicola Kraus
Noa Yedlin
Rebecca Keren Jablonski
Rachel Barenbaum
Rachel Levy Lesser
Rachelle Unreich
Rebecca Minkoff
Rebecca Raphael
Renee Rosen
Rochelle B. Weinstein
Samantha Ettus
Samantha Greene Woodruff
Sharon Brous
Shirin Yadegar
Stacy Igel
Steve Leder
Talia Carner
Toby Rose
Zibby Owens

Published February 4, 2025

Are they hot flashes? Or is it just getting hot in here?

Lisa Darling, a high-flying TV executive and twice-divorced mother of two, is navigating life with an opinionated teenager and a pet-obsessed grade schooler, organizing PTA events, and supporting her best friend through breast cancer treatment, all while in the throes of perimenopause. It’s no wonder her to-do list is on overdrive and she never has time for pilates or that DIY interior design project she keeps setting aside. 

But when LA-based media hotshot Zach Russo swoops in as a temporary stand-in for her best friend’s job, Lisa starts feeling overheated and flustered. But that’s just the menopause, right? She chooses to believe her hormone replacement therapy needs some adjusting, until she finds herself in a sexy—and seriously ill-advised—cinch with him. As things snowball, Lisa has to confront these long-forgotten feelings and ask herself what it is she wants and what it is she’s ready for. 

Hilarious, relatable, and delightfully swoon-worthy, It’s Getting Hot in Here is the laugh-out-loud, coming-of-middle-age, rom-com meets mom-com readers have been waiting for.

Published March 4, 2025

A girl takes on a series of identities to survive, shrouding herself in layer upon layer of secrets, until one morning years later when she is forced to reckon with her past.

On an ordinary day in an upscale suburb of Atlanta, Maya is making breakfast for her two sons, when her husband drops a red-and-blue striped envelope on the counter and asks a devastating question: Who is Sunny? 

Maya is sent reeling back to her childhood in Guyana—a time when Sunny was her only name. Unbeknownst to her husband, Maya is not who she claims to be. The letter, from her long-lost sister Roshi, now threatens to expose her true identity and shatter the seemingly perfect existence Maya worked so hard to build. 

As she frantically weighs the impact of the truth on her future, Maya relives the harrowing details of her past—her journey to America on the “backtrack,” the shock of being delivered into the hands of an abusive family while being severed from her own, and her many evolutions of self as she struggles to find a path forward against all odds.

But the letter contains urgent news which cannot be ignored. She has no choice but to confess her story of illegal immigration, abuse, addiction, and identity transformation to her unsuspecting husband, no matter the consequences.

Steeped in sensory detail, this striking debut transports the reader from the sugar cane fields of Guyana to the world of immigrant laborers in Miami to the affluent suburbs of Atlanta. Nanda Reddy takes us on a wrenching journey of assimilation, survival, and reinvention that explores the very construct of identity—all the while underscoring the strength of chosen family, love, and the resilience of the human spirit. 

Published December 3, 2024 

A Washington Post Noteworthy Book!

EVERY FAMILY HAS AN EDGE

In this hilarious, heartwarming tale, mother-daughter skiing champs face the bumps in their own relationship when an avalanche in a Swiss village forces them together.

Alpine skiing G.O.A.T. Claudine Potts and her daughter Wylie have been bred for gold medal glory. They’re skiing their way to fame, but this gilded future is cut short when a fall forces Claudine’s retirement and Wylie’s debilitating anxiety sends her off the slopes. 

With the collapse of their ski careers, their relationship falters and now it’s been years since Wylie and Claudine have even spoken. They live on opposite coasts, pursuing different passions, until a chance opportunity to pair up in a European fitness competition drives them back together. Can this duo survive snow-buried regrets and family secrets and have the happy reunion they’re hoping for?

 Set in a dreamy Swiss village with a colorful cast of characters, Bluebird Day will make readers laugh and swoon, as Claudine and Wylie slalom through the complicated terrain of lost ambition, past mistakes, and mother-daughter love.

Published November 12, 2024

A PEOPLE Magazine's Best Book of November 2024

A November 2024 Book of the Month Selection 

A USA Today Bestseller 

From the author of the global breakout bestseller The Last Love Note comes the story of a young woman struggling to piece her life back together in the wake of a tragic accident, and the man who gives up everything to help her. 

If you knew then what you know now, would you make the same choices? Imagine having a second chance with the one you never forgot. 

When Evie Hudson wakes in an unfamiliar hospital room, she thinks she’s fresh out of a teenage party with her best friend, Bree. Except, Bree isn’t around anymore and high school was years ago. Evie had just survived the crash that killed her husband, Oliver—whom she can't remember either. After suffering a traumatic loss of memory,  she’s left to connect the dots. But how?

Enter: Drew, a promising photographer whose chance encounter with Evie unravels the elusive details of her marriage and her husband’s death. As Drew watches Evie stitch the story of her life together, secrets emerge that might shatter both of their worlds.

This tangled second-chance romance leads Evie to question every decision she ever made. This time around, she’s seeing all the things she missed–and the life she gets to choose . . . again.

A wife, mother, and frustrated writer faces an impossible deadline for turning her life around in a hilarious debut novel about family, friendship, success, and exhilarating self-(re)discovery.

Pippa Jones is a fortyish former literary sensation who fears she will be a one-hit wonder. After the follow-up book she was almost done writing, Podlusters, had to be tossed (it ended up sharing a plot and title with superstar author Ella Rankin's summer blockbuster!), she couldn't write a thing. Months of staring at a blank page made her confidence vanish like a one-night stand. When she finds out that she has only five days left to finish (or rather, start) or repay an advance she's already spent, Pippa has a brilliantly original idea. Okay, fine, her twelve-year-old son came up with it as a joke, but Pippa and her teenage daughter approved.

Pippa's not only going to make a bold statement, but she'll change the book world while she's at it! Can she pull it off? At this point, she doesn't have a choice.

When Pippa's publisher gets intimately involved, it unlocks a series of plot twists she never saw coming. From the courtyards of posh Beverly Hills hotels and Malibu mega-mansions to Brentwood and Santa Monica bookstores, Pippa races against time--in her used Volvo--and discovers more about her career, marriage, family, friends, and herself than she ever could have dreamed up.

Published October 8, 2024

“The Undercurrent is a mystery of remarkable scope, bristling with intelligence, beauty, and humanity. It is, quite simply: stunning.” —Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl

Now featured in E! Fall Books of 2024

An overwhelmed new mother becomes obsessed with the unsolved disappearance of a young girl from her small Texas hometown—and unearths her own family’s dark secret.  

It’s 2011 and Deecie Jeffries’s missing person’s case in Austin, Texas, is still cold. New mom Bee, struggling with postpartum depression, is living in Portland, Maine, having left Austin–and those memories–far behind. Until Leo, her childhood crush and her estranged twin Gus’s best friend, suddenly resurfaces, drawing Bee back into their shared past. 

Bee’s predictable life is upended, pushing her to return to her childhood home and piece together a neighborhood’s shattered history. Bee becomes consumed with a need to uncover the truth about Deecie’s disappearance and what happened to the families who lived across the field from one another—Gus, Leo, and their mothers: Mary, a homemaker, whose only escape is the local community theater, and Diana, a serious academic dedicated to her studies.

Published January 7, 2025

“In this honest, insightful, and often hilarious account, Amy Wilson explores her experience and frustrations as a people-pleaser—her story will resonate with anyone who has said, 'Happy to help!' one too many times. I couldn’t put it down.”—Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project

Award-winning podcast host Amy Wilson has always been an ultimate helper. As a big sister, Girl Scout, personal assistant, sitcom sidekick, and, finally, mother of three, Amy believed it was her destiny to be a people pleaser. She learned to put others first and to look like she had everything under control, even when she very much did not.

Along the way, Amy started to wonder why doing it all had been her job. Still, when she tried to hand over some of her to-dos, no one was interested in taking them. And when she asked for help, in return, she got advice: have a sense of humor, quit nagging, and stop trying to be perfect.

Hilariously relatable, Happy to Help is a collection of essays about how you can be the one everyone else depends on and still be struggling—how you can be “happy to help,” even when, for your own sake, you shouldn’t.

Published September 10, 2024
Paperback coming June 24, 2025

GRIEF IS LIKE THIS . . .

Falling in love with your best friend, only to lose her to a mysterious death. 

Working for decades to achieve a dream, and just when it’s within reach, watching it threaten to go up in flames. 

Longing for your deceased father to celebrate with you when your first novel sells. 

Spending the first sleepless months in the throes of new motherhood alone, as your husband struggles to save his career.  

Befriending the woman who should be your enemy, because you are that lonely…

Annie, Jesse, Noah, and Juliette are tied together by their experiences of grief; they are separated by their own versions of the truth of what happened on a single night twelve years ago, when Juliette, a college freshman grieving her mother, and Noah, a high school senior fighting for a place in a world that told him he didn’t matter, found each other. Spanning decades, this complex, captivating story pulls back the curtains of cancel culture to explore ambition, empathy, art, desire, consent, motherhood, and what it really means to lose everything.

Published July 30, 2024

A USA Today Bestseller! 

A Library Journal Best Book of 2024!

A Most Exciting Debut Short Story Collection of 2024 by Electric Literature

What happens when you are forced to let go of the things you love the most? What are you left with?  

In her stunning debut short story collection, The Goodbye Process, Mary Jones uses her distinctive voice to examine the painful and sometimes surreal ways we say goodbye.

The stories—which range from tender and heartbreaking to unsettling and darkly funny—will push you out of your comfort zone and ignite intense emotions surrounding love and loss. A woman camps out on the porch of an ex-lover who has barricaded himself inside the house; a preteen girl caught shoplifting finds herself in grave danger; a Los Angeles real estate agent falls for a woman who helps him detach from years of dramatic plastic surgery; a man hires a professional mourner to ensure his wife’s funeral is a success. Again and again, Jones’s characters find themselves facing the ends of things: relationships, health, and innocence.

Arresting, original, and beautifully rendered, this story collection packs a punch, just the way grief does―knocking us off our feet.

A deeply personal memoir about one woman's journey to finding her voice and rewriting her story by the creator and host of the award-winning podcast Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books(TM).

Zibby Owens has become a well-known personality in the publishing world. Her infectious energy, tasteful authenticity, and smart, steadfast support of authors started in childhood, a precedent set by the profound effect books and libraries had on her own family.

But after losing her closest friend on 9/11 and later becoming utterly stressed out and overwhelmed by motherhood, Zibby was forgetting what made her her. She turned to books and writing for help.

Just when things seemed particularly bleak, Zibby unexpectedly fell in love with a tennis pro turned movie producer who showed her the path to happiness: away from type-A perfectionism and toward letting things unfold organically. What unfolded was a meaningful career, a great love, and finally, her voice, now heard by millions of listeners.

An honest and moving story about relationships, love, food issues, the writing life, and finding one's true calling, Bookends will inspire and uplift.

From debut author Zibby Owens comes Princess Charming, a lovable and empowering new character!

Princess Charming can't quite seem to find her "thing." She's tried everything from cooking to hip-hop, and hasn't been able to perfect either. Even her cartwheels are subpar. But when the castle hosts a superstar for a special event, Princess Charming finally finds her time to shine. 

Princess Charming is about a brand-new princess character filled with fun, humor, and girl power. With a modern look and can-do attitude, Princess Charming is the perfect gift for all young readers who never give up!

Published April 2, 2024 

"Bride Wars meets Bravo’s Southern Charm as a young lawyer tries to get her best friend a coveted magazine cover—until her devious aunt gets in the way. Evans’ debut novel is a charming contemporary novel that fans of Sarah Adams will enjoy." —Booklist

Competition for a bridal magazine cover unleashes mayhem, forcing a mastermind maid of honor to stop being a people pleaser and start figuring out what she wants out of life. A hilarious, smart coming-of-age story.

Olivia “Liv” Fitzgerald’s life is on ambition autopilot. The soon-to-be-lawyer has her life plan set and can talk anyone into anything. Well, almost anything. When her scheming aunt throws her cousin, Kali, into a competition for Southern Charm’s cover alongside Liv’s best friend, Leighton, all hell breaks loose. To save the day, Liv only has to:

a) Secure the Southern Charm cover for Leighton
b) Keep Aunt Charlotte happy—and keep Kali’s wedding running smoothly
c) Finish her final year of law school and nab a coveted NYC big law job
d) Win over the guy of her dreams

Easy, right? From engagement parties to rehearsal dinners, readers will root for Liv as she balances her schemes, dreams, and double maid-of-honor duties.

Read the first chapter!

Published June 25, 2024

A divided family. A devastated community. And the disaster that brings them all together.

Pearce Oysters, a family drama set on the Louisiana coastline during the historic 2010 oil spill, follows the Pearces, local oyster farmers whose business, family, and livelihood are on the brink of collapse.

This is eye-opening, eco-fiction at its best—a story that highlights the grit and beauty of lives lived in an overlooked corner of the American South. Diving deep into the bonds of family, culture, class, and industry, the novel elevates the voices of deeply sympathetic characters: Jordan, the reluctant head of his family’s storied oyster company; May, his distressed, widowed mother; and Benny, his beatnik musician brother, who returns from New Orleans in their time of crisis.

Published May 21, 2024

A ghostwriting gig in the Hamptons becomes far more than a job in this sexy, atmospheric, and deliciously tense story. 

Kirkus Reviews says, “Like cinnamon Red Hots, this of-the-moment domestic thriller keeps you sweetly sucking away till it delivers the punch."

Reeling from the death of her father, Zara Pines accepts a ghostwriting gig for celebrity chef Jane Bailey. Jane, star of the wildly popular cooking show 30 Bucks Tops, invites Zara to live in her East Hampton home for the summer. Zara doesn’t want to go, but Jane insists. 

As the two women create Jane’s book, their attachment grows stronger. Zara, who’s lost and in search of an identity, finds one in the shadow of Jane. She wears Jane’s clothes, adopts Jane’s mannerisms, and speaks like Jane. Eventually, the line between them blurs and Zara starts to see the side Jane keeps hidden from the cameras.

This dark and twisty novel about fame, lies, and obsession will make even the most open-hearted reader question how safe it is to trust the people they love.

Read an excerpt! 

Published March 5, 2024

- A USA TODAY Bestseller
- Starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, and Library Journal
- A March Book of the Month Selection
- An Apple Books “Best Book of March”
- A 2024 NPR "Book We Love" Pick
- A SheReads and ELLE Most Anticipated Book of 2024

Here After is an intimate story of deep love followed by dizzying loss; a stunning, taut memoir from debut author Amy Lin so finely etched and powerful that it will alter readers' hearts.

“When he dies, I fall out of time.”

Amy Lin never expected to find a love like the one she shares with her husband, Kurtis, a gifted young architect who pulls her toward joy, adventure, and greater self-acceptance. But on a sweltering August morning, only a few months shy of the newlyweds’ move to Vancouver, thirty-two-year-old Kurtis heads out to run a half-marathon with Amy’s family. It is the last time she sees her husband alive.

Ten days after this seismic loss, Amy is in the hospital, navigating her own shocking medical crisis and making life-or-death decisions about her treatment.

What follows is a rich and unflinchingly honest accounting of her life with Kurtis, the vortex created by his death, and the ongoing struggle Amy faces as she attempts to understand her own experience in the context of commonly held “truths” about what the grieving process looks like. 

Here After is a love story and a meditation on the ways in which Kurtis’ death shatters any set ideas Amy ever held about grief, strength, and memory. Its power will last with you long after the final page.

Published April 04, 2023  

Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize

Winner, Independent Publisher Book Awards, Silver Medal - Literary Fiction

Featured on PBS NewsHour 

Named by Good Morning America, New York Post, and Los Angeles Daily News as one of the Best Books of Spring 2023

A deeply moving debut novel from the award-winning author of Yes, Yes, Cherries (“Funny, brave, and amazing”—Lorrie Moore) that explores the relationship complexities between mothers and daughters, the desire to escape, and the longing to connect. Viva has always found ways to manage her mother’s impulsive, eccentric and addictive personality. She’s had to—for her entire life, it has always been Viva and Charlotte against the world. After accidentally discovering an innate ability for dance, Viva chases her new passion with the same fervor with which her mother chases the bottle.

Over the years, Viva’s talent becomes a ticket to a life of her own, and as she moves further away from home to pursue her dream, Charlotte struggles to make peace with her own past as a failed artist and the effects of her addiction. When tragedy strikes, Viva begins a downward spiral and must decide whether she will repeat her mother’s mistakes or finally take control of her life. Told from interwoven perspectives with lyrical prose as deft as a choreographed dance.

Published August 29, 2023

A candid and revealing look at life in television, Hollywood, and work in the writer's room, from an insider who wrote for some of the most popular television shows in history: Friends, Desperate Housewives, and Breaking Bad.

Ever since Patty Lin retired from television writing at the ripe age of thirty-eight, people have asked her: “Why would you quit such a cool career?” Especially when they find out she worked on some of the most successful shows in television history. But what if achieving your professional dreams comes at too high a personal cost? That’s what Patty Lin started to ask herself after years in the cutthroat TV industry. One minute she was a tourist, begging her way into the audience of Late Night with David Letterman. Just a few years later, she was an insider who—through relentless hard work and sacrifice—had earned a seat in the writers’ rooms of the hottest TV shows of all time. While writing for Friends, Freaks and Geeks, Desperate Housewives and Breaking Bad, Patty steeled herself against the indignities of a chaotic, abusive, male-dominated work culture, not just as one of the few women in the room, but as the only Asian person.

Funny, eye-opening, and sobering, this inside-Hollywood story will resonate with anyone who has struggled with their work and on their life journey. And it will inspire others to listen to their inner voices and know when it’s time to get out.

Published November 14, 2023

What happens when a trauma therapist is traumatized by loss?

Esteemed trauma therapist Meghan Riordan Jarvis knew how to help her patients process grief. For nearly twenty years, Meghan expected that this clinical training would inoculate her against the effects of personal trauma. But when her father died after a year-long battle with cancer, followed by her mother’s unexpected passing while on their family vacation, she came undone.

Thrown into a maelstrom of grief, with long-buried childhood tragedy rising to the surface, Meghan knew what she had to do―check herself into the same trauma facility to which she often sent her clients. In treatment, trading the therapist’s chair for the patient’s couch, Meghan took her first steps toward healing. 

A brave story of confronting life’s hardest moments with emotional honesty, End of the Hour is for anyone who has experienced the unpredictable, lasting power of grief―and wondered how they’d ever get through it.

Published January 9, 2024

A USA TODAY Bestseller

Funny, honest, and inspiring for readers feeling overwhelmed by life, Everyone But Myself is like a best friend’s story of how she returned to solid ground while embracing chaos along the way.

Featured in The Washington Post, She Reads Most Anticipated, and The New York Post

For Julie, an elementary school librarian and mother of two boys, there was no time for debilitating anxiety. Yet the terrifying aftershocks of her first panic attack left her grappling with questions about the causes of her mental health crisis and where it would lead next.

What follows is a hopeful, honest account of love and loss, a husband who can’t read minds, disastrous family outings, and finding a path (with help from loved ones and a few key new friends) to the joy of a well-lived life.

Sure to resonate with mothers spread thin by the demands of modern family life, Everyone But Myself offers an intimate portrait of how one woman found her way back to herself.

Published June 06, 2023

A summer away. One troubled marriage. Two daughters. And the love interest that threatens to ruin it all.

Maud is a talented garden historian and devoted mother to daughters Ella and Louise. Motivated to reinvigorate her career and escape her troubled marriage, she accepts a summer job restoring the garden of a lush, 19th-century Hudson Valley estate.

While waiting for her daughters to join her at the end of their school year, Maud meets coworker, archeologist Gabriel Crews, whose passion for landscape history matches her own. When their immediate and intense friendship ignites, it sets in motion a seismic shock that will profoundly change Maud's life, as well as the lives of everyone she cares about. Hedge is a deeply moving portrait of a woman’s longing to be a good mother while still answering the call of her soul and mind.

Published October 3, 2023

Now in paperback!

An ode to the power of the human spirit and the written word to combat the most harrowing of childhood memories.  

Brittany Means’s childhood was a blur of highways and traumas that collapsed any effort to track time. Riding shotgun as her mother struggled to escape abusive relationships, Brittany didn’t care where they were going—to a roadside midwestern motel, a shelter, or The Barn in Indiana, the cluttered mansion her Pentecostal grandparents called home—as long as they were together. But every so often, her mom would surprise her—and leave.

As Brittany grew older and questioned her own complicated relationships and the poverty, abuse, and instability that enveloped her, she began to recognize that hell wasn’t only the place she read about in the Bible; it was the cycle of violence that entrapped her family. Through footholds such as horror movies, neuropsychology, and strong bonds, Brittany makes sense of this cycle and finds a way to leave it.

While untangling the web of her most painful memories, Brittany crafts a tale of self-preservation, resilience, and hope with a unique narrative style—a sparkling example of the human ability to withstand the most horrific experiences and still thrive.

Published February 07, 2023

An exuberant, hilarious memoir about a woman who pauses her successful career for a year and explores the “What If” jobs of her dreams.

On the cusp of turning forty, Alisha Fernandez Miranda has climbed to the peak of personal and professional success, but at a price; she’s overworked and exhausted.

Bravely, Miranda decides to give herself a break, temporarily pausing her stressful career as the CEO of her own consulting firm. With the tentative blessing of her husband and eight-year-old twins, she leaves her home in London to spend one year exploring the dream jobs of her youth, seeking answers to the question, “What If?”

What follows is a spirited and hilarious journey for Alisha - and the reader. Alisha’s “What If” year reveals that she can achieve success on her own terms by embodying the spirit of the intern: never stop learning, be flexible, and understand that failure is a prerequisite for growth.

For anyone who’s ever felt stuck in a rut, My What If Year proves that it’s never too late to say yes to second chances and explore the roads untraveled throughout your life.

Published May 02, 2023

Massage therapist Joan Johnston may work at an iconic Vermont spa, but her life feels anything but serene. She’s deep in debt, burnt out, and still grieving the death of her boyfriend.

Enter spa guest Carmen Bronze, a hotheaded bestselling romance author, who offers Joan a chance to get back in her boss’s good graces. All Joan needs to do is slip Carmen spa secrets for her next book, but what if she wants to write it herself?

A heartfelt, hope-filled debut, Super Bloom will have readers rooting for Joan on every page—and laughing out loud at her one-of-a-kind wit.

Published January 30, 2024

"Hemans’ thoughtful family tale is a balm for readers." —Kirkus Reviews 

A lyrical, lush, evocative story about a fractured Jamaican family and a daughter determined to reclaim her home.

With news of her father’s passing, Pearline abruptly leaves her daughter and grandchildren behind in Brooklyn to return to her childhood home in Jamaica. But Pearline isn’t prepared for her father’s puzzling deathbed wish that she find her siblings—whom she hasn’t seen in 60 years—and discover the secret that tore her family apart. 

Moving through time and place, from Cuba to Montego Bay and from Brooklyn to Havana, The House of Plain Truth traces Pearline’s reconciliation of what she thought she knew about her family and the truth of their origin.

Inspired by the author's own family story, this delicate, incisive novel explores the divided loyalties within a family, the true meaning of home, and what one woman must sacrifice to finally get what she wants.

Published November 28, 2023

A December Indie Next Pick
The Target December Book Club Pick
A Book of the Month Selection
A Washington Post Noteworthy Book

You may never stop loving the one you lost. But you can still find love again. 

Kate is a bit of a mess. Two years after losing her young husband Cameron, she’s grieving, solo parenting, working like mad at her university fundraising job, always dropping the balls—and yet clinging to her sense of humor.

Lurching from one comedic crisis to the next, she also navigates an overbearing mom and a Tinder-obsessed best friend who's determined to matchmake Kate with her hot new neighbor.

When an in-flight problem leaves Kate and her boss, Hugh, stranded for a weekend on the east coast of Australia, she finally has a chance, away from her son, to really process her grief and see what’s right in front of her. Can she let go of the love of her life and risk her heart a second time?

When it becomes clear that Hugh is hiding a secret, Kate turns to the trail of scribbled notes she once used to hold her life together. The first note captured her heart. Will the last note set it free?

The Last Love Note will make readers laugh, cry, and renew their faith in the resilience of the human heart—and in love itself.

If you don't confront your past . . . It might confront you first. 

Dr. Gregory Weber appears to have an enviable life. He's a renowned clinical psychologist residing in an elegant home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his wife, Liv, and their two kids. But Gregory feels increasingly disconnected. His marriage is strained, his children are distant, and he can’t stop fixating on an unforgivable mistake he made when he was seventeen. Something no one else knows about.

So when an unscheduled client named Mira starts to appear in his office each week with knowledge about his past, Gregory quickly grows obsessed with her. Is she a new patient? A secret referral from a colleague? Someone connected to his teenage transgression? 

As his attraction for Mira grows more intense with each session, so does her probing scrutiny of him. Soon Gregory’s professional boundaries begin to dissolve, and he becomes the patient, desperate to uncover his connection to this mysterious woman and find out what she wants from him.

In searching for the answers, Gregory risks losing everything that matters: his career, his family, and his mind.

Published August 01, 2023

An intoxicating escape into the cutthroat world of wine and the complicated terrain of women’s friendship.

What happens when two ambitious young women, opposite in every way, join forces in a competitive male-dominated industry?

Wren and Thessaly collide when they land coveted jobs at a glamorous New York City boutique wine importer. Hardworking, by-the-book Wren comes from a modest background and has everything to prove while Thessaly hails from a family of prestigious California growers—but she is plagued by self-doubt. Thrown together at work, where they're expected to have exquisite palates, endless tolerance for alcohol and socializing, and the ability to sell, sell, sell, they regard each other with suspicion.

It’s only on an important European business trip—with everything on the line for both of them—that they unexpectedly forge an alliance that will change the course of their careers and personal lives.

With mouth-watering descriptions of food and wine, Wine People takes readers from France, Germany, and Italy to the Midwest and Sonoma. An utterly entertaining page-turner that explores how close friends can both misjudge and uplift each other.

Published March 07, 2023

In this wildly addictive novel, three overlooked women take on the charming, manipulative tech CEO who wrote them out of his startup’s history.

A Look Inside

Anna Sarnoff is still reeling from her quickie divorce from tech wunderkind Jake Sarnoff. Forced out of the company that she helped Jake build, Anna is trying to pick up the pieces of her life, navigating the waters of solo parenting their two teenage boys and adapting to her new role of ex-wife. To make things more complicated, Jake seems to want her back…and his persuasiveness tempts her to say yes.

Across town, the brilliant and striking Samanta Flores-Walsh, Jake’s college girlfriend, is busy raising her teenage daughter and running her thriving yoga studio. Although their relationship ended years ago, unanswered questions from their time together gnaw at her, and when she learns that Jake is planning to take his billion-dollar company public, she starts to wonder if perhaps it isn’t too late for justice.

Finally, there’s Jake’s much younger new wife, Jessica, who’s struggling to stay afloat as a new mom while her high-profile husband grows increasingly distant.
Set in the wealthy enclaves of Seattle’s tech elite, the lives of these three women grow entangled as long-held secrets are forced to the surface, threatening to destroy their families. Written with razor-sharp intelligence and heart, Women Are the Fiercest Creatures is a searing look at the complexities of family and the obstacles women navigate in every aspect of their existence.

JOIN AWARD-WINNING PODCASTER ZIBBY OWENS OF MOMS DON'T HAVE TIME TO READ BOOKS ON A JOURNEY FILLED WITH FOOD, EXERCISE, SEX, BOOKS, AND MORE.

It's impossible to ignore how life has changed since COVID-19 spread across the world. People from all over quarantined and did their best to keep on going during the pandemic. Zibby Owens, host of the award-winning podcast MomsDon't Have Time to Read Books and a mother of four herself, wanted to do something to help people carry on and to give them something to focus on other than the horrors of their news feeds. So she launched an online magazine called We Found Time.

Authors who had been on her podcast wrote original, brilliant essays for busy readers. Zibby organized these profound pieces into themes inspired by five things moms don't have time to do: eat, read, work out, breathe, and have sex. Now compiled as an anthology named Moms Don't Have Time To, these beautiful, original essays by dozens of bestselling and acclaimed authors speak to the ever-increasing demands on our time, especially during the quarantine, in a unique, literary way.

Actress Evangeline Lilly writes about the importance and impact of film. Bestselling author Rene Denfeld focuses on her relationship with food after growing up homeless. Screenwriter and author Lea Carpenter and Suzanne Falter, author, speaker, and podcast host, focus on loss. New York Times bestselling authors Chris Bohjalian and Gretchen Rubin write about the importance of reading. Others write about working out, love and sex, eating and cooking, and more. Join Zibby on her journey through the winding road of quarantine and perhaps you, too, will find time.

53 SHORT ESSAYS FOR BUSY PEOPLE . . . BY 49 AMAZING AUTHORS.

Too tired to think? No time to read books? Zibby Owens gets it. Award-winning podcaster of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books and mother of four (ages six to fourteen) compiled fifty-three essays by forty-nine authors to help the rest of us feel understood, inspired, and less alone.

The authors, all previous guests on her podcast (go listen!), include fifteen New York Times bestselling authors, five national bestsellers, and twenty-nine award-winning/notable/critically acclaimed writers. The super short essays were inspired by a few other things moms don't have time to do: sleep, get sick, write, lose weight, and see friends. Read one a week and you'll finish the whole book in a year: accomplishment!

Topics range from taking care of an aging grandmother, mourning the loss of a family member, battling insomnia, wrestling with body image, coping with chronic illness, navigating writer's block, the power of women's friendship, and more juicy stuff.

You'll laugh, cry, think, and feel like you just had coffee with a close friend. If that best friend were a world-renowned author.

Contributors include: Aimee Agresti, Esther Amini, Chandler Baker, Adrienne Bankert, Andrea Buchanan, Terri Cheney, Jeanine Cummins, Stephanie Danler, KJ Dell'Antonia, Lydia Fenet, Michael Frank, Elyssa Friedland, Melissa Gould, Nicola Harrison, Kristy Woodson Harvey, Joanna Hershon, Angela Himsel, Richie Jackson, Shelli Johannes, Lily King, Jean Kwok, Heather Land, Brooke Adams Law, Caroline Leavitt, Jenny Lee, Shannon Lee, Elizabeth Lesser, Gigi Levangie, Emily Liebert, Lynda Loigman, Abby Maslin, Sarah McColl, Jeanne McCulloch, Malcolm Mitchell, Arden Myrin, Carla Naumburg, Rex Ogle, Zibby Owens, Camille Pagán, Elizabeth Passarella, Allison Pataki, Lindsay Powers, Susie Orman Schnall, Susan Shapiro, Melissa T. Shultz, Claire Bidwell Smith, Rev. Lydia Sohn, Laura Tremaine, and Cecily von Ziegesar.