"That road all paved in gold, I found in my mother's eyes." A girl from Jacksonville, Florida that rose to fame in 1980s Los Angels, lived through countless scandals and ultimately her fall from grace and her abandonment of the spotlight in the early 90s. Once one of the brightest stars above Sunset Boulevard, Poppy Rey has been through it all and always by her side was her mother Cindy. It is safe to say that her sudden rise to the top seemed too good to be true to many, except to Cindy, who has set her own life aside to pave a way of gold for her daughter. Why would she throw it all away in an instance? She confides this long veiled truth to the frail elderly lady, that is in her care ever since she has disappeared from the stages of Hollywood. As Poppy's story comes to an end, the lives of the two women shall be connected in tragic and irreversible ways.

Jean-Marie Faggiano and her family were living in the Philippines when Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941. The following month, she and her family, along with over 3,600 other non-national civilians, were forced to surrender to the Imperial Japanese Army and live as civilian prisoners of war in the Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila. In Through My Mother's Eyes, you will experience how a young girl and her family were able to survive their thirty-seven month ordeal until their nick-of-time rescue by American forces on February 3, 1945. Through My Mother's Eyes is a story of a world rampant with sickness, starvation, and brutality, but it is also an incredible story of love, courage, and enduring faith.

Anna Ornstein is a Holocaust survivor. After emigrating to the U.S., she seldom spoke of the experiences she suffered while a young girl. Twenty-five years ago, at the family Seder gathering, her family asked for a story from her past. In an evocative, understated passage, she shared a bit of the tragedy she saw through the eyes of a child. Every year she has added to this tradition by sharing another chapter of the tragedies she witnessed and the small moments of grace in her survival. Through her family's support, Orenstein gained enough strength to share her experiences in My Mother's Eyes, in hopes of keeping the nightmare from ever happening again.

Imagine living with the knowledge that your father had murdered your mother and lied to you your whole life, telling you she left because she didn't love you anymore. How could a father do this to his children? How could a husband do this to a woman he at one time loved? When she was four years old, Shanelle Dawson's mother, Lynette, disappeared. On 8 January 1982, the woman who had been a loving, constant presence vanished without a trace. Four year old's might not be able to articulate questions or understand a lot, but the ache of absence is very real. Year after year that ache persisted. Shanelle's father, Chris Dawson, claimed that his wife just needed to get away. This is what he told Lyn's parents and siblings. This is what he told his daughters. But Lyn never returned home. Her side of the bed was immediately filled by Shanelle's teenage babysitter, a former student of her father's. After thirty-six years of her father's lies, a podcast called The Teacher's Pet investigated her mother's case. Sordid details about the father she loved became public. Whispers that he had murdered Lynette grew louder. The police refocused on the cold case. Then, Chris Dawson faced court. Forty years after she went missing, he was sentenced to twenty-four years in prison for the murder of Lynette. Now, in this brave, emotionally powerful memoir, Shanelle reclaims her mother's story and finds a channel for her own voice. It is an unforgettable insight into the ripples of trauma and loss that family violence brings and shows how Shanelle found the strength to confront her father and can now create a new life after unimaginable deception. This is Shanelle's story.

This look at the traditional and subversive world of women's folklore examines the realm of women's talk, exploring the ways Italian immigrant women from Montreal use classic folk genres to stretch the boundaries of their culture. Through songs, lullabies, bawdy riddles, and trickster tales, these women subvert, redefine, and alter what it means to be Italian and female in North America. More than just a study of Italian Canadians, this essay delves into broader themes of gender, immigration, and ethnicity, showcasing voices that contradict homogenizing interpretations of traditional historical scholarship.

*NEW NOVEL RESTLESS DOLLY MAUNDER SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024* FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-SHORTLISTED AND WOMEN’S PRIZE-WINNING AUSTRALIAN NOVELIST Kate Grenville often takes inspiration for her fiction from her family history and this extraordinary memoir about the life of her own mother, Nance Russell, reveals why. Born to an unhappy marriage and into a deeply sexist society, Nance worked hard for everything she had, and while the world changed around her, she went on to university, opening businesses and raising a family. One Life is just as much a universal story as it is Nance’s. Beautifully captured by her daughter, it draws on the tales passed down by word of mouth, creating an evocative portrait of life in twentieth-century rural Australia and a deeply intimate and caring homage to a mother’s struggle.

From the author of How Should a Person Be? (“one of the most talked-about books of the year”—Time Magazine) and the New York Times Bestseller Women in Clothes comes a daring novel about whether to have children. In Motherhood, Sheila Heti asks what is gained and what is lost when a woman becomes a mother, treating the most consequential decision of early adulthood with the candor, originality, and humor that have won Heti international acclaim and made How Should A Person Be? required reading for a generation. In her late thirties, when her friends are asking when they will become mothers, the narrator of Heti’s intimate and urgent novel considers whether she will do so at all. In a narrative spanning several years, casting among the influence of her peers, partner, and her duties to her forbearers, she struggles to make a wise and moral choice. After seeking guidance from philosophy, her body, mysticism, and chance, she discovers her answer much closer to home. Motherhood is a courageous, keenly felt, and starkly original novel that will surely spark lively conversations about womanhood, parenthood, and about how—and for whom—to live.