Self Discovery Fiction

This story is a trilogy that brings the unknown past and the present together to form the future. Which is stronger? One’s biology or the way one is raised? Could it be a combination of both? Journey through this novel as it parallels the lives of three women, bound by love, heredity, and environment. A powerful and tenacious woman emerges, grounded in the DNA of a robust, high-spirited Irish woman, then nurtured and refined by a religious Italian woman. Bold and courageous, Nicole is now determined to chart her own course of life...

In this lush, lyrical, and marvelously evocative novel, Catherine Texier takes a mystery from her family's past and draws from it a portrait of a remarkable woman, her great-grandmother Victorine. A young schoolteacher in a quiet province in France, Victorine had married and had two children. But when she falls desperately in love, she makes a startling choice, leaving her family for her lover and a new life in Indochina.

Ella Farrell has reached breaking point. Shattered by her job and her boyfriend’s recent betrayal, she grabs her stuff and flees down the coast. When her car breaks down a few miles short of Cornwall, she’s astonished by what she finds. Not on any map, the tiny seaside village of Starshine Cove is too perfect for words. A cobbled lane lined with pretty, thatched cottages slopes towards a pristine white beach… has she finally lost it, or is this place for real?

Classic forgetful Emma—she’s done it again, this time accidentally ruining a Valentine’s Day surprise for her best friend Mel. Desperate to make up for it, she promises Mel a birthday trip to Edinburgh—a girls’ weekend to end all girls’ weekends. There’s just one massive hitch… Emma has already promised her grandma that she’ll go on a coach trip with her to scatter her grandad’s ashes…In Edinburgh. On Mel’s birthday weekend. Oh God.

In 1960s Glasgow, anti-nuclear activists Judith and Jimmy fall in love. But their future hopes are dashed when their protestors’ squat is raided and many, including Jimmy, are sent to prison. Pregnant and with no word from Jimmy, Judith is forced to enter an unmarried mothers’ home, give up their baby and learn to live with her grief.

Most people think the reason Prudy Millings married the best-looking preacher in the Carolinas—who inexplicably turned psychotic and mowed her down with the church van—is that she was raised all wrong. So not true. Prudy's reclamation of her life begins two years after the crime spree that nearly stopped her heart. She packs up her two precocious children and settles in her parents' South Carolina hometown where she deals with a delightful Proverbs-spewing mama who pretends her grown daughters are virgins.

Fannie Johnson has seen darn near all the world has to offer at her Thank the Lord Boarding House. It is home to a variety of interesting people who regard each other as family. One such is Sarah Jolene Tilman, who is ready to strike out on her own. In stark contrast, Richard Peterson has done more than his share of living and is looking for simpler pleasures. Under Fannie's watchful eye, each will embark on a path of self-exploration and find that life is nothing if not a wildly unpredictable journey.

For city vet Isabella Passmore, the opportunity to pet-sit in the country knocks at the perfect time. Bring on that fresh air! But after three days of holiday bliss, Izzy is bored silly. If the air gets any cleaner, she'll start slinging mud. Then she gets offered work in the second-hand shop. Saved! Maybe. It's been years since Elliot Field's parents rolled out the red carpet, but Elliot only needs one day to learn that this welcome mat comes with strings. His parents' new business is sinking, and they expect him to fix their financial problems.

Twenty-eight-year-old struggling San Francisco artist Anne McFarland is determined to get a one-woman show, even though no one, including herself, believes she can do it. But when she buys a coat at a thrift shop with a key in its pocket, strange, even magical, occurrences begin to unfold, and she is inspired to create her best work ever.

Rae-Valentine and Howard were childhood sweethearts. They’ve shared twenty-five peaceful years since they were brought together by Dolly, Howard’s larger-than-life sister. But now, on the night of their wedding anniversary, Howard reveals a shocking betrayal that leaves Rae reeling. Heartbroken, she takes Dolly on her would-be anniversary trip to Antigua and the two women drink and dance and talk like they haven’t in years.

Young and desperately in love, Merrin had the whole world ahead of her. But just as her new life was about to start, the ground beneath her feet was cruelly swept away. Devastated by the humiliation, she ran far away from the beloved fishing village she had always called home to lick her wounds and escape her gossiping friends and neighbors. It hasn’t been easy, but six years later Merrin has forged a new life for herself far from the sea, burying the impulsive girl she once was.

Born in an Andean village in Ecuador, Virginia lives with her family in a small, earthen-walled dwelling. In her Indigenous community, it is not uncommon to work in the fields all day, even as a child, or to be called a longa tonta-stupid Indian-by members of the privileged class of mestizos, or Spanish descendants. When seven-year-old Virginia is taken from her home to be a servant to a mestizo couple, she has no idea what the future holds.

Anna Goodrich is a 28-year-old artist in New York City, out on a Friday night in the city when she gets the call that her uncle has suddenly died. When she returns home to mid-coast Maine for his funeral, she faces all that she left behind when she left seven years earlier. The pain of her own mother's death, the fractured relationships with her father, and her first love. The life she had built for herself in New York - the art world, her boyfriend, her roommate who is also her best friend - allowed her to forget the grief and hurt she had left behind in Maine.

1944, Chicago. From desperate small-town teen to star of the burlesque circuit, Violet Ernte has survived tough choices and more than one reinvention. Now, framed for an underworld murder, she has one way out: agree to keep Marcie, a reckless USO showgirl and mobster's daughter, on the straight and narrow. Vi's new act: play innocent ingenue and join the all-American song-and-dance troupe bound for overseas to a war-torn Italy.

In this lush, lyrical, and marvelously evocative novel, Catherine Texier takes a mystery from her family's past and draws from it a portrait of a remarkable woman, her great-grandmother Victorine. A young schoolteacher in a quiet province in France, Victorine had married and had two children. But when she falls desperately in love, she makes a startling choice, leaving her family for her lover and a new life in Indochina.

Dartmouth professor Dan Jackson did not want to murder his students. Yet, when he finds two pistols perched on top of the mid-term exams in his briefcase, he cannot resist the impulse to pull out the guns and start shooting. Now Dan struggles to find the answer to the question that haunts him: why did he kill 15 of his students? Dan's search for the answer must be pursued through his defense to the criminal charges and possible death penalty.

Recently divorced, Palma, a forty-three-year-old Latina, takes stock of her life when she reconnects with her gangster younger cousin recently released from prison. Her sexual obsession with him flares as she checks out her other options, but their family secrets bring them together in unexpected ways. In this wildly entertaining and sexy novel, Ana Castillo creates a memorable character with a flare for fashion, a longing for family, and a penchant for adventure.

Pip Appleby seems to have it all, with her prestigious job as a human rights lawyer and her enviable London home. But then a tragic accident stops her life in its tracks, and in an instant everything changes. Retreating to her family’s rural farm and the humble origins she has been trying to hide, Pip is haunted by what she has done. When she discovers the diary of actress Evelyn Mountcastle in a box of old books, Pip revels in the opportunity to lose herself in someone else’s life rather than focus on the disaster that is her own. But soon she sees parallels....

An unorthodox and controversial slap to the face of the status quo, Into the Light Boldly: …an odyssey of self-discovery, an audacious new novel by Amazon best-selling author, Val Edward Simone, is a shockingly frank, honest, and daring undertaking regarding death and dying - a most frightening subject.

Newly heartbroken, a woman embarks on a glamorized summer of couch surfing to rediscover herself and learns that though life may not go according to plan, there is magic in the unexpected.