This month in BookTrib, we are celebrating women’s fiction books featuring characters who take brave leaps of faith to start over and forge new paths in their lives.
Finding Sutton’s Choice by Brenda Haas
Ten long years since her departure, Charlotte Sutton finds herself back in her hometown of Lakeside, Ohio. Her estranged father, Chuck, doesn’t recognize her, and a half-sibling she knew nothing about has taken her place.
Chuck — editor, baseball player, and beloved local celebrity — has Alzheimer’s. His community newspaper is on the verge of closure. Though Charlotte’s life has shifted, the waterfront community with vintage charm remains unchanged, and she intends to stay only long enough to get her father’s affairs in order. But to reconcile her past and unearth family secrets, she must reconnect with Chuck through his diagnosis and reevaluate her own misconceptions about growing up in the town that still holds her heart.
Finding Sutton’s Choice explores complicated parent-child relationships, failing mental health, and the effect family choices have on who we become.
Haven Strong by Jessica Rakus
Josephine Grant lives a charmed life — a husband, three perfect children, and strong bonds with family and friends in the small town where she’s lived her entire life. She’s the helper, the hostess, the one who always shows up. The person who can do it all.
Then the bus carrying her son’s basketball team crashes, and Jo’s husband and son are among the lives lost. Now she has a new identity. Widow. Single mother. A woman who lost everything. Grief begins to tear apart the place that’s always been her home. There is infighting among friends, gossip and rumors, and wounds that may never heal.
Now Jo has to rebuild her life, but asking others for help seems impossible. She must learn to lean on others as she begins to stand on her own.
I Love You, Charlie Tanner by Lynne Golodner
After twenty years in an isolated Cape Breton commune, Charlie Tanner loses the man she thought was her soulmate. Fleeing to a quiet Vermont cottage, she’s determined to heal, tend her garden, and start over.
When a widowed rabbi awakens feelings she thought were gone forever, Charlie must confront her choices and chart a more confident future. Still, reverberations from her old life ripple back to her, and hard as she tries, she can’t escape the sinister truth of her last two decades. Her past continues to haunt her, even to the point of threatening her life.
Charlie must summon the courage to be the strong woman she once wanted to be, long before she fell for lies and charismatic personalities. If she doesn’t stand tall, she risks being silenced by the past and losing those she loves forever.
Sequins And Starlight by Margaret Porter
In London’s West End, where theatre lights blaze with promise, desire and ambition put two wary hearts to the ultimate test.
Ellie Lowery, former ballet prodigy turned international burlesque sensation, craves change and a professional challenge. By reinventing herself as a stage actress, she’ll not only escape the grind of constant touring — she can also fulfill her late husband’s final wish.
Corporate executive Dan Wheeler is instantly captivated by the alluring American who gained worldwide fame sashaying in cabarets. But a visit to his ancestral home reveals a significant obstacle to their future happiness — his father’s disapproval.
After another devastating personal loss and a staggering professional betrayal, Ellie must decide whether ballet will once again serve as her sanctuary and solace. Sequins And Starlight is an absorbing tale of artistic resilience, family loyalty, and the courage to defy expectations.
Sailing Against The Tide by Cindy Burkart Maynard
She crossed oceans disguised as a boy. History forgot her—but now her story demands to be told.
In 1766, Jeanne Baret, a brilliant herbalist from rural France, defies every expectation of her time. Disguised as a boy to escape the restrictions placed on women, she joins a global expedition led by explorer Louis de Bougainville and her mentor, the botanist Philibert Commerson.
Aboard L’Étoile, Jeanne faces grueling sea voyages, the constant threat of discovery, and the burden of a secret that could cost her everything. But with every plant she gathers and every mile she sails, she proves that courage and intellect know no gender.
Based on the astonishing true story of the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, Sailing Against The Tide is a sweeping tale of resilience, adventure, and a woman who dared to chart her own course through history.
No Big Easy Love by Lorilyn White
While traveling in Paris, Maurice and Grace receive an urgent message to return home. The stock market crash, aka Black Monday, has devastated their finances. Together, they make the bold decision to escape the exorbitant rents of New York City to live in a house Maurice inherited in New Orleans, hoping to restore their financial stability. Grace sees the move as an opportunity to start the family she’s been longing to have, though Maurice is strangely reluctant about it.
As they settle into their new life, Maurice encounters an unfamiliar branch of his family tree—the criminal branch, led by his illegitimate father, Philippe. His half-sisters, Sophie and Marie, extend their welcome as well, but beneath the surface, deception lurks. Fear grips Grace as the depth of their peril becomes evident, but an unexpected bond develops between Maurice and his father.
Lunch Tales: Suellen by Lucille Guarino
Old scars. New love?
Suellen Atkins’ trust fund has given her everything except love. As the youngest attorney in a major law firm, her life is filled with reckless spending and meaningless flings. But when she dumps her latest wild guy, he doesn’t leave quietly.
Adam Isaacson is one of the good guys — and that’s scarier than her stalker ex. With the echoes of her parents’ tumultuous marriage still ringing in her ears, Suellen can’t imagine anything this promising.
When a shocking medical diagnosis complicates things, Suellen’s proclivity for self-sabotage goes into overdrive. As life turns upside down, her lunch friends at the law firm become a lifeline in the storm. But even they, with all their good intentions and well-meaning advice, can’t save Suellen from herself, nor can the man who’s fallen in love with her. Only she can do that.
Where Your Heart Belongs by Densie Webb
When college student Zee Owens meets Cillian Byrne, lead singer of the up-and-coming Irish band, The Swifters, sparks fly. When Cillian asks Zee to go out on tour with him, she’s ready to drop everything. As a small-town-Texas girl, she sees this as her chance to travel the world with a man she adores and who adores her right back.
There’s just one problem: Zee is the only child of a struggling single mom who’s been counting on her to move back home after graduation and help out financially. And her best friend, Sloane, says dropping out to be with Cillian is a colossal mistake. Undeterred, Zee is ready to forge ahead, even without their support.
But when her mother reveals that she is seriously ill, Zee’s dreams of being with Cillian are snuffed out. When she gets unexpected news and travels to Ireland to confront all she thought she’d lost, she is finally able to envision the happy ending she never thought she’d have.
Sea Salt And Coffee Beans by Grace Santamaria
After taking a leap of faith and leaving her barrio in Colombia to chase a better future in Miami, Sofia loses her job — and with it, her chance at the American dream. A job opening at a marketing firm is her best shot at staying in the country and avoiding the life she fought hard to leave behind. The one obstacle standing in her way is the other candidate for the position: deliciously handsome, corporate ladder-climber Esteban.
Esteban lives the flashy Miami life Sofia idolizes, and he sees no conflict in dating his rival. Despite not being able to keep her mind — or her hands — off him, Sofia can’t confess the reality of how her future depends on the position they’re competing for.
As she runs out of options, her emotions begin to cloud her judgment. If only she could land an offer, all her visa and money problems would be solved. But to do that, she must beat the person she’s falling for.
Little Bird by Barbara Viniar
In 1910, fearing the escalating violence against the Jews in Russia, Feige’s father arranges for her to marry a wealthy cousin in New York City. She will no longer be her parents’ adored “little bird.” As she adapts to life in America, she goes from being an obedient daughter to a dutiful wife, even allowing her new husband to change her name to Fannie.
When her husband’s cruelty finally pushes her to risk leaving him, she parlays her embroidery skills into a job. Then she finds the man she believes is the love of her life, but he betrays her. Finally, she meets a man who both loves and respects her. Can she give up her hard-won independence? Little Bird is the story of a girl who finds the courage to forge her own path to womanhood.