Play & Book Excerpts
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NEW! Excerpt from Because I Deserve It (Avocet Books) by Kenitra W. Dominguez. This is a personal, practical, and empowering guide for anyone living with a chronic condition, especially those who have felt overlooked, dismissed, or silenced. Drawing from her own journey, Kenitra shares what she wishes someone had told her at the start. This book offers guidance especially for women of color, who often face unique challenges in the medical system. If you have been diagnosed with a chronic condition and feel overwhelmed, exhausted, and not sure where to begin, this book is for you. Learn from a pathfinder who knows that finding the best possible care should never be a luxury. It’s your right. You deserve nothing less.
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NEW! Excerpt from High Five Your Spirit Guides (Inner Compass Media) by Katherine Marie. Readers will learn how to recognize, connect, and partner with these powerful companions to bring you the life you deserve. Through practical tools like journaling, reflection, noticing signs, and gentle rituals, you’ll discover how spirit guides make themselves known, how to communicate with them, and how to trust their guidance. With personal stories, simple practices, and a playful, encouraging tone, this book is your roadmap to building a lasting relationship with your guides and to co-creating a life filled with alignment, abundance, and joy.
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NEW! Excerpt from Everwoven (Everwoven Press) by Megan Margherio. In fragmented vignettes, raw inner dialogue, and poetic reflections, Megan invites you into the long, aching aftermath of trauma. Megan doesn't just tell you what happened; she lets you into her mind as it unravels, remembers, resists, and rebuilds. This book brings you into the in-between; the place where healing isn't linear, and becoming whole means learning how to live alongside what hurt you. You won't just learn the facts of what happened. You'll witness the emotional, embodied experience of surviving it and trying to live in its wake.
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Excerpt from Love Keeps Showing Up (Shadow Mountain Publishing) by Adassa. Adassa is an Oscar, Grammy, and Golden Globe recipient, platinum-selling artist, and the voice of Dolores Madrigal in Encanto. She shares her personal story of achieving her musical dreams, battling a paralyzing illness, and having faith in divine timing. Born to immigrant Colombian parents with big dreams in their hearts but little in their pockets, Adassa learned early that making it as an artist wasn't just about talent—it was about grit, faith, and a whole lot of improvising. From the electrifying energy of the Rose Bowl to the legendary Madison Square Garden, she was living the dream. Until life took a detour.
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Excerpt from The Resilience of Red Thread (She Writes Press) by Catherine Marshall-Smith. After twenty-one-year-old Emily Miller flees her ex-husband, Lee, with the exterminator she hired to kill hornets in her backyard, she finally feels safe. Jake Clayton offers Emily and her daughter a beautiful place to live where neither Lee nor her mother, who wants custody of Jenna, can find them. Jake seems like an upstanding guy, but the deeper she digs into Jake’s past, the less he seems like the man she trusts — and when she learns Lee has disappeared, she suspects Jake could have done... something.
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Excerpt from Fly, My Darling (She Writes Press) by Lisa K. Richter. Lisa, a classically trained pianist, wife, and mother, yearns for something she can’t define. After she begins a study of jazz improv with an outspoken, trailblazing musician from the ’70s girl band era, a woman who encourages Lisa to let go musically and emotionally, life takes an unexpected, irrevocable turn. This memoir explores the resilience of love, the weight of loss, the undeniable pull toward freedom, and the transformation that occurs when a woman finally asks: What do I really want?
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Excerpt from Shattering the Mirror (Independently Published) by Lena Fein. This memoir weaves a story of childhood trauma and healing. Raised in a violent, controlling home, Lena learned to survive by dissociating, overachieving, and armoring herself against fear and shame, racing through school with straight A’s, becoming a top producer at a high-tech company, and moving through two marriages without ever slowing down long enough to fully experience life. At 51, Lena looks into the eyes of her dying mother, and her warped mirror finally shatters. She begins to experience life in a new way - learning to feel and forgive, shedding her armor and embracing life.
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Excerpt from Collaborative Hardball (Amplify Publishing) by Susan Coleman. This practical guide for women demonstrates how to reclaim power, redefine negotiation, and dismantle the systems holding women back. A seasoned negotiation expert, Susan asserts that the ways we negotiate — whether in the boardroom, the bedroom, or on the global stage -- matter. Blending actionable tools with powerful stories from her own life and the lives of other inspiring women, she introduces a revolutionary “New Negotiation” that blends the strategic mastery of collaboration with a feminine-infused strength. This guide will sharpen your voice, ignite your confidence, and equip you to lead with purpose.
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Excerpt from Soul-Happy (She Writes Press) by Anette Nilsson. Anette's memoir describes a time when she had big dreams and is in the midst of pursuing them — starting by leaving Denmark to attend university in Toronto, Canada — when she falls for a toxic American man. She later finds herself married to him and living a privileged but deeply unhappy life in New York. After suffering for too long, she finally begins to find her way onto a better path only to be abruptly faced with a life-threatening physical condition. This memoir illuminates the underlying reasons for one promising young woman’s downhill slide and follows her harrowing battle to put herself back together again.
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Excerpt from The History We Carry (She Writes Press) by Margaret Whitford. Margaret chose not to be at her mother’s side during her final days due to an estrangement. In this memoir, Margaret confronts this decision by unearthing in her mother’s traumatic history marked by the devastation of World War II in Europe, a violent childhood home, and sexual assault accumulated into complex PTSD that shaped her mother and the way she parented Margaret. Margaret carried her mother’s trauma forward in her sense of self, in her relationships to others, and in the ways she navigated her world. This memoir confronts the legacy of intergenerational trauma with wisdom and compassion.
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Excerpt from A Different Kind of Vow (She Writes Press) by Laurie Collister. When her home nearly burns to the ground, Laurie finds what she is looking for: her true calling. Reading passages from a cache of 300 old diaries that were spared by the flames, Laurie locates clues planted in her past and gradually comes to a realization: She must let go of the conventional, “white-picket fence” marital vow she has sought for decades, and instead must fashion an entirely different kind of vow for herself. With this knowledge in hand, Laurie sets about fulfilling her sacred contract. In turn, she experiences for the first time an intense rightness—a sense that this is how her life is meant to be.
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Excerpt from A Version of the Truth (Sunbury Press, Inc.) by Marsh Rose. For over forty years, Marsh and her partner built a life defined by love, devotion, and independence. They never married or shared a home — by choice. But they were lovers and confidants, deeply committed to one another. And then, one day, he vanished. When Marsh finally tracked him down, she discovered the unimaginable: he had suffered a catastrophic stroke. His memory was gone. He could no longer speak. And he was living with a woman who knew him by a different name. What was the truth?
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Excerpt from drummer girl (Koehler Books) by Sally Dukes. This memoir takes the fear out of death and sheds light on the nuances experienced in daily life. drummer girl awakens the soul and spirit of those who fear the dark. Heartwarming and honest, this book can give those facing death at any stage of life comfort in knowing what lies beyond the veil. "Dukes neither instructs nor persuades. She records what happened, how she responded, and what remained afterward. That approach gives the memoir the relaxed feel of a life shaped by belief and human connection, and it is wonderful. Very highly recommended." ~ Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite.
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Excerpt from The Bad Girl's Guide to Discovering Purpose (Nvision Solutions) by Nijiama Smalls. Nijiama, author and healing practitioner, invites women to release shame, rewrite old narratives, and reconnect with the truth of who they are. This powerful yet practical guide helps you uncover your unique gifts, clarify your values, and understand how your life experiences—both triumphs and missteps—are shaping your purpose. This is not a book about being perfect or having it all figured out. It’s about becoming honest, intentional, and whole.
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Excerpt from The Club (Bloomsbury Publishing) by Jennifer Dasal. Curator, art historian, and podcast host Jennifer Dasal presents the never-before-told story of the Club, the philanthropists who created it, and the artists it housed. These women forged connections in the arts and letters with luminaries like Auguste Rodin and Gertrude Stein or became activists through their relationships with the likes of Emmeline Pankhurst. But just as importantly, these women's lives revealed the power of the Club itself, and the way that having a safe home for single women of ambition allowed them to grow as teachers, artists, suffragists, and people.
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Excerpt from From Underdog to Winning Bitch (Aurora Corialis Publishing) by Virginia Weida. This book is part memoir and part motivational guide. With wit, warmth, and a dose of dogged determination, Virginia Weida reveals seven key lessons that helped her rise in a male-dominated industry, empowering other women to follow their own paths with heart. Through the unexpected wisdom of Heidi, a fourteen-pound long-haired miniature dachshund with championship spirit, the author shares how dog agility training became a surprising blueprint for personal and professional success.
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