Patricia Moffat was not an abused child, nor was she separated at a young age from her original culture. Yet, growing up in the closed adoption system in northern California, Patricia always felt a yawning gap at the beginning of her life, and a sense of loss and sadness. She yearned to know who her birthmother was, and why she had given her away. In her twenties, after an abortion and the births of her two children, which pulled her back emotionally to her beginnings, she became filled with determination to find her original family. In the late 1970s, there was no internet to help, or genetic testing companies, or even adoption registries where today birthparents and adoptees can often connect quickly. Patricia's search was done by old-fashioned sleuthing with just a few clues, including her birthmother's last name, to go on. Her successful search and reunion brought happiness as well as difficulties. The reunion with her birthmother and family was joyous, but Patricia's adoptive mother felt threatened by the sudden appearance of another mother in their lives. She Turned Her Head Away is a memoir that speaks powerfully of the emotions commonly felt by adopted children and adult adoptees, of questions of identity, and experiences of family and belonging. It is especially relevant today, as commercial genetic testing companies can reveal family secrets and uncover emotions that may have been buried for years. She Turned Her Head Away is a heart-stopping story that is hard to put down.

She Turned Her Head Away: An Adoption Memoir

Biographies & Memoirs

Moffat, Patricia

Community & Culture

Crowsnest Books

The future depends on our courage; reaching past barriers of expectations, culture, and geographies to find each other. Nina-Iraq magazine's founder, journalist, and storytelling consultant Madeleine F White shapes our expectations of women's economic empowerment, with her sometimes real, sometime speculative journeys through the UK, Africa and Asia as we encounter an extraordinary array of exceptional women in her debut novel Mother of Floods. Unlike academic research papers and books, White doesn't just showcase these women's struggles against terrible circumstances. Instead, a hopeful dystopian narrative encourages the reader's imaginings to meet with her own, so encouraging a co-created resolution which is still grounded in her own international development experience. Mother of Floods moves the characters we are introduced to beyond mere terminologies and statistics into worlds of their own making? and ours. "I have come to believe sometimes fiction is far more powerful than factual journalism and reporting in terms of getting to the truth of a situation," shares White, a consultant who to continues works in international development and creative partnerships to connect diverse communities through storytelling. "These stories are based on the amazing truths real women have shared with me. Pragmatic, moral and fierce in turn - cultures, backgrounds and geographies may differ. What connects though, is the way they lead their communities into shaping their own destinies. It illustrates what I truly believe; that collectively, we can make change happen." This stunning debut is underpinned by strands of ancient and modern mythology, exploring what it means to be human in the 21st century as digital, physical, and spiritual worlds collide. The interlocking narratives of Martha Johnstone and her dead husband Dave, who lives on in digital form; Anjani, an Indonesian Mogul who finds herself investing in Mercy's Zimbawean micro-business and Fatima, the abused teenage bride who finds safety in a tucked away Baghdad garden, become a battle for the soul of the world. Mother of Floods makes connections between the spiritual, technological, and human worlds, leapfrogging towards a transformative energy that infects the digital world and ultimately creates a new kind of being. The novel will appeal to readers of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments, as well as development professionals who consider Half the Sky and Poor Economics mandatory reading. A final word from Sue Lawton, MBE; Global expert on women and enterprise, WEConnect International Advisory Board Member and part of the UN High Level Panel Women's Economic Empowerment: "What a remarkable book. Totally different to most anything else I have read. Perhaps the Philip Pullman Northern Lights is as close as I can get but even that is not the same. Would I recommend it? Definitely; it builds depth, richness and empathy into the concepts development professionals grapple with daily."

Mother of Floods

Literature & Fiction

White, Madeleine F

Literary

Torin Ten-Trees and his closest companions, Bryn and Grimsa, set out to join The Gatewatch and become trollhunters. When a troupe of meddling dwarves throws them off course they are captured by trolls and taken as prisoners to a secret gathering deep underground. There they learn that an ancient giant has crowned himself king of the trolls and plans to utterly destroy The Gatewatch. Their perilous journey back to the land of sun and stars will stretch their strength to the limit, strain their wits, and demand an unspeakable sacrifice. But will it be enough to defeat the Troll King? The Gatewatch is an epic troll-hunting adventure inspired by the Norse Myths and the Icelandic Sagas.

The Gatewatch

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Gillingham, Joshua

Fantasy

It is said that over 70% of special needs marriages fail. This is the story of one. Not Sleeping depicts a suburban New York couple, Josh and Claudia Sherman, separated though not yet divorced. As they struggle to navigate their way through the painful process of uncoupling, they also must continue to co-manage the difficult demands of their nine-year old autistic daughter. It was Josh who decided to leave the marriage. But, in an unanticipated turn of events, Claudia is the one who quickly finds a new relationship. As the story moves forward, Josh's Plan B, as he calls it, begins to take shape. It is centered around a possible new job and his own nascent romance. But Plan B also necessitates him to moving to California and leaving his familiar life, and specifically his children, behind. Josh is drawn toward this powerful chance at reinvention ? but with no guarantees and at what cost?

Not Sleeping

Winnikoff, Alan

Genre Fiction

In Huet Pointe, ambition is as dangerous as the brackish water that surrounds the sliver of land. But, the women of this antebellum hamlet yearn for more than society insists they be-devout, feminine, and content with living according to cultural norms. So, what's a girl to do? She could employ poison, perhaps a bit of adultery, and drowning in alligator-infested waters is always a choice-whatever it takes to achieve her goal. A novel-in-stories, Bayou Cresting: The Wanting Women of Huet Pointe, tells the stories of ten women brought together by proximity, forever entangled by the actions they take.

Bayou Cresting: The Wanting Women of Huet Pointe

Smith, Jodie Cain

United States

The award-winning poem, "How We Live On" is part of The Forest of My Mind poetry collection, a journey of deep loss, love, healing, discovery, inner strength, and personal transformation. Comprising poems that feature themes of family, generational history, memory, loss, hope and nature, the poems touch upon various stages of loss while offering a sense of hope and renewal. The book is a source of comfort for anyone searching for solace, understanding, and meaning in a time of grief.&#65279;

The Forest Of My Mind: Poems of Grief and Loss, Hope and Renewal

Sander, Heidi

Poetry

Toast Soldiers is a evocative short story collection from award-winning poet and author, Bruce Meyer. Stunningly dark and full of beautiful incongruities and absurdities, the stories center on characters grappling with a confounding universe. A boxer returns to his hometown after a decade away and, instead of finding solace from his failures in the ring, arrives in a ghost town that has taken as many, if not more, punches than he has ever had to endure himself. A prospector in the far north crashes his Curtis Jenny biplane in a snowstorm and during the night he witnesses his life unfold in the cinematic glow of the Northern Lights. A child with an imaginary friend murders his abusive father but learns that kindness is just a shadow away. A veteran of World War One attempts to prove, once and for all, that a horrific event he was part of was real despite historians who argue to the contrary. And there are many more. Toast Soldiers tells the stories of individuals who fight against the invincible fates they confront and attempt to assert themselves even though they know they are facing defeat.

Toast Soldiers

Meyer, Bruce

Short Stories & Anthologies

Torin Ten-Tree's debt of service as a trollhunter in Gatewatch has been paid. Now he must decide whether to return home to take up his father's seat in Ten-Tree Hall or to become a Greycloak of Gatewatch along with Grimsa and Wyla. Torin grapples with an unexpected revelation, the long-hidden identity of his mother, just as a delegation brings urgent news of King Araldof Greyraven's grave and sudden illness. Heirless, the Greyraven's death would plunge the land into chaos as the Jarls of Noros entered a struggle of succession. The last desperate hope to keep the realm from wreck and ruin is the legend of a powerful source of healing, the Everspring. Yet, greater questions and graver answers await Torin and his company on the road north through the land of the immortal giants. As long-forgotten secrets are unveiled, they learn not only the cause of the Greyraven's illness but the insidious origins of the evil that first spawned the trolls in the wild woods beyond Gatewatch.

The Everspring (Torin Ten-trees Saga, 2)

Magenta is a harrowing journey into war-torn Sarajevo, and into the blackest reaches of the human condition. The novel follows a journalist, Silva, as she and her team make their way deep into a city under siege, in order to recover the body of Thierry, an award-winning filmmaker who has been killed there. But the postmodern odyssey that follows is beyond anything Silva could have expected, as she must make her way through a world in which good and evil lose their meaning, where survival is the only remaining value, and where there is always greater terror lurking around the next corner of the dark and broken labyrinth that a once great city has become. Even if Silva herself survives the city, the abyss she has stared into will have stared back into her - and changed everything.

Magenta

Foden, John Payton

Jared Marcel Pollen's debut novel, Venus&Document, gives lyric voice to philosophic insight and addresses itself directly to the cultural maelstrom in which we find ourselves. 
The novel is set in New York City after a natural disaster strikes and strange demonstrations begin to spring up all over the globe, with thousands of people occupying Central Park. Paul Kenning, journalist and writer, receives a special assignment by his editor to write about these mysterious "Events." Paul comes to find himself with a monumental task - he believes he can write a great essay that will diagnose the ails of modern culture and explain the times in which he lives, certain that mass enlightenment, or perhaps his own death lies at the end of his effort. 
Paul Kenning is a comic figure for these strange times. As he navigates the affairs of his love life during a time of distress, he must explain it all - the rising tides, rising crime, refugee crises, political corruption, income inequality, racial injustice, and the overwhelming daily influx of information. Can he keep up with the relentless pace of events, as everything - including history itself - seems to be accelerating?

Venus&Document

Pollen, Jared Marcel

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