The stories of 17 women who left South Africa during the years of apartheid.

Susanna Rowson--novelist, actress, playwright, poet, school founder, and early national celebrity--bears little resemblance to the title character in her most famous creation, Charlotte Temple. Yet this best-selling novel has long been perceived as the prime exemplar of female passivity and subjugation in the early Republic. Marion Rust disrupts this view by placing the novel in the context of Rowson's life and other writings. Rust shows how an early form of American sentimentalism mediated the constantly shifting balance between autonomy and submission that is key to understanding both Rowson's work and the lives of early American women. Rust proposes that Rowson found a wide female audience in the young Republic because she articulated meaningful female agency without sacrificing accountability to authority, a particularly useful skill in a nation that idealized womanhood while denying women the most basic rights. Rowson, herself an expert at personal reinvention, invited her readers, theatrical audiences, and students to value carefully crafted female self-presentation as an instrument for the attainment of greater influence. Prodigal Daughters demonstrates some of the ways in which literature and lived experience overlapped, especially for women trying to find room for themselves in an increasingly hostile public arena.

Beverly Lewis Bestseller, Beautifully Repackaged In The Prodigal, Leah Ebersol knows all too well that the truth can be thorny, even heartbreaking. But when an alarming secret is brought to light, she must make another difficult choice, one that could be further complicated by a prodigal who few expected to return.

In this memorable book, seventeen women of the Baby Boom generation tell their poignant personal stories of apostasy and repentance. Each left the Catholic Church to seek autonomy and fulfillment on the major cultural battlegrounds of this era. Each eventually turned homeward to find, like her prodigal brother in the best-loved of Christ's parables, that her Heavenly Father had been calling her throughout her absence, watching and yearning for her return. Feminists in the bureaucratic networks of Catholic dissent continually predict that women will abandon the Church en masse unless they are soon admitted to the hierarchy. The women who recount their experiences in this timely and important book prove the dissenters wrong. They are representative of a growing stream of "reverts" who have recognized and repented of their errors when they rediscovered the living heart of Christ at the center of the Church. Today, when virtually all faithful Catholics wait and pray for the return of some family member or friend who has strayed from the Church, these accounts of faith reborn offer hope and direction to lift the heart of every reader. "A terrific group of stories. A must not only for younger people who have lost faith in their childhood Catholic Faith, but also for older Catholics to understand the reasoning both behind the defection of the young and also their intense yearning to find their way back. Thank you Donna Steichen for this gem." —Ronda Chervin, Ph.D. Donna Steichen, author of the best-selling book Ungodly Rage: The Hidden Face of Catholic Feminism, is a Catholic journalist and former teacher.

God strongly put this spirit upon me to write about some daughters of His that felt they should have had it better in life, but could not because they were the daughters. We sometime think that all the glory on earth should be given to men. God says different. Here is just a few of the daughters that God used to bless His people and give Him the Glory. As you read this book, can you think of any prodigal daughters that started out with nothing, and God shined His heaven light on their face, like The Prodigal Daughters. As you read, feel the enjoyment that these daughters felt as God delivered them out of the darkness and into His light, the light of Jesus. l pray this book inspire you to never give up on your calling. Sometime it takes a little longer for you than it does for others.

Candid, real, raw and challenging you will never find a more honest look at how identity gets lost in today's modern world than you will in Prodigal Daughter: A Journey Home To Identity. TV personality and Evangelist, Cynthia Garrett, shares an incredible red carpeted, celebrity filled, journey through her life, while teaching lessons that only experience applied to the Word Of God can teach. Whether through the luring appeal of the media, the shattering of divorce, the shame of sexual abuse, the anger of rape, the fear in battling cancer, the challenges of single motherhood, the war for self esteem, the confusion of fame, or the healing found in confronting brokenness head on, Cynthia Garrett teaches while she shares. She leads the reader on a very personal and powerful journey to finally finding, owning, and living victoriously in his/her authentic identity; even as she illustrates losing and finding her own amidst the privileged life she lived, and still lives, in Hollywood. We meet a faith that is inclusive and unifying as Cynthia teaches hundreds of thousands of men and women around the world today about faith in a way that builds bridges and doesn't divide, embraces rather than rips apart, and loves triumphantly over hate. All while keeping it real and uncompromised! Through Cynthia's story you will find your own story and through her search for identity yours will be solidified forever! Like all prodigal children the journey home is one that ends in the triumphant victory of a Father's open arms. But for prodigal daughters there is a special reward in finding a love you've always searched for, the knowledge you've always needed, and the life you've always dreamed of. Simply stated...this book is a MUST read!