Women's Fiction Author Spotlight

Inspired by the growing number of Women's Fiction titles, this feature spotlights novels dealing with issues significant to women. We share stories of friendship, love and family. Our Women's Fiction authors will range from familiar favorites to debut writers who we love. The titles featured here will make you smile, laugh, frown and cry --- and are sure to inspire a lively conversation.

Laura Lee Smith, author of Heart of Palm

Utina, Florida is a small, down-at-heels southern town about to meet the tide of an economic growth that it hasn't seen in decades. The Bravos, a local family held together in equal measure by love, unspoken blame, and tenuously brokered truces, have been complacent with the stagnant ways of the sleepy town. So when opportunity knocks, tempers ignite, secrets are unearthed, and each of the Bravos is forced to confront the tragedies of their shared past.

Deborah Cloyed, author of What Tears Us Apart

When Leda desperately flees her life of privilege to travel to Kenya, she unexpectedly falls for Ita at a boys' orphanage in the slums of Nairobi. Their love should be enough to withstand outside forces, but as political unrest plagues the country, Leda and Ita are left to face the reality that sometimes the most treacherous threat is not the world outside, but the demons within.

Jane Green, author of Family Pictures

Two women live on opposite coasts, but their lives are connected in ways they never could have imagined. Both women are wives and mothers to children who are about to leave the nest for school. They are both in their 40s and have husbands who travel more than either of them would like. They are both feeling an emptiness neither had expected. But when a shocking secret is exposed, their lives are blown apart.

Sophie Littlefield, author of Garden of Stones

Lucy Takeda is just 14 years old when the bombs rain down on Pearl Harbor. Within weeks, she and her mother, Miyako, are taken to the Manzanar prison camp, where they must endure its harsh living conditions. Corruption and abuse creep into every corner of Manzanar, eventually ensnaring Miyako. Ruined and unwilling to surrender her daughter to the same fate, Miyako soon breaks. Her final act of desperation will stay with Lucy forever...and spur her to sins of her own.

Pam Jenoff, author of The Ambassador's Daughter

In 1919, Margot Rosenthal is brought to Paris by her father, a German diplomat. Resenting a city where she is viewed as the enemy, Margot realizes that life back in Berlin with her wounded fiance to whom she can hardly relate anymore may not be so much better. Torn between duty and a desire to be free, Margot must make alliances and decide where her loyalties truly lie.

Melanie Benjamin, author of The Aviator's Wife

Melanie Benjamin pulls back the curtain on the marriage of one of America’s most extraordinary couples: Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Drawing on the rich history of the 20th century and featuring cameos from such notable characters as Joseph Kennedy and Amelia Earhart, THE AVIATOR'S WIFE is a vividly imagined novel of a complicated marriage --- revealing both its dizzying highs and its devastating lows.

Rebecca Coleman, author of Heaven Should Fall

Alone since her mother's death, Jill Wagner wants to eat, sleep and breathe Cade Olmstead when the golden, handsome and ambitious man bursts upon her life. Even putting college on hold feels like a minor sacrifice when she discovers she's pregnant with Cade's baby. But it won't be the last sacrifice she'll have to make.

Emily Giffin, author of Where We Belong

Marian Caldwell, a 36-year-old television producer, is living her dream in New York City. With a fulfilling career and a satisfying relationship, Marian has everyone convinced that her life is going just the way she wants it to be. But when Kirby Rose, an 18-year-old with a key to Marian’s past, shows up on her doorstep, everything Marian has worked so hard to keep secret pours out.

Mary Kay Andrews, author of Spring Fever

Annajane thinks she's over her ex-husband, Mason. But when she attends his wedding, everything changes, and she realizes she might want him back. Even if there are people determined to keep Annajane from getting what she wants, happiness might be hers for the taking, and the life she once had with Mason in this sleepy lake town might be in her future.

Melanie Gideon, author of Wife 22

Alice Buckle sees herself as a wife, mother, drama teacher, Facebook chatter, downloader of memories and Googler of solutions. Then an anonymous online study called “Marriage in the 21st Century” shows up in her inbox. She becomes Wife 22 and is assigned a caseworker (Researcher 101). Along the way, she shares her innermost thoughts and secrets in this survey, and her confessions end up making some sparks fly.

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