NATIONAL BESTSELLER

An evocative read and a powerful portrait of friendship, feminism, and political activism (People) set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran--from nationally bestselling author Marjan Kamali.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother's endless grievances, Ellie dreams for a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa's warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions of becoming lion women.

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls' high school in Iran, Ellie's memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie's privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.

Reminiscent of The Kite Runner and My Brilliant Friend, The Lion Women of Tehran is a mesmerizing tale (BookPage) of love and courage, and a sweeping exploration of how profoundly we are shaped by those we meet when we are young.

How do you find your way back when you've left yourself behind? A painful unsolved mystery resurfaces after decades of confusion, sending one woman and her daughters on a journey of redemption in this emotional story about intergenerational trauma, family, and the beauty of Puerto Rico for fans of Nina LaCour, Xochitl Gonzalez, Elizabeth Acevedo, Jodi Picoult, Celeste Ng, and Julia Alvarez. Thirty years ago, musicians Emilia Oliveras and Paul Winstead were married in Puerto Rico. Forty-eight hours later, Paul vanished from their honeymoon cruise, leaving Emilia devastated-and the prime suspect in his disappearance. So, she ran for her life, leaving behind her love, her dreams, and her identity. Today Emily Oliver is a divorced music teacher and mother of two daughters who know nothing about her past: Gracie, a talented attorney who excels in the courtroom but grapples with personal relationships, and Meg, a gifted concert pianist who wrestles with her ambition and purpose. When a cryptic caller claims the unthinkable-that Paul is alive, Emily returns to Puerto Rico in search of the truth. What she doesn't know is that her daughters aren't far behind. Shocked to find their mother isn't the woman they thought she was, Gracie and Meg wonder how much of their lives have been a lie. As the paths of the three women intertwine, they are compelled to confront their pasts, reevaluate their relationships, and seek forgiveness. Together they embark on a quest to unravel the mystery of Paul's disappearance and redefine their futures on their own terms, navigating a maze of family ties, secrets, and redemption.

From the nationally bestselling author of the powerful, heartbreaking (Shelf Awareness) The Stationery Shop, a heartfelt, epic new novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother's endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa's warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming lion women.

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls' high school in Iran, Ellie's memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie's privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.

Written with Marjan Kamali's signature evocative, devastating, and hauntingly beautiful (Whitney Scharer, author of The Age of Light) prose, The Lion Women of Tehran is a sweeping exploration of how profoundly we are shaped by those we meet when we are young, and the way love and courage transforms our lives.

An evocative read and a powerful portrait of friendship, feminism, and political activism (People) set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran--from nationally bestselling author Marjan Kamali.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother's endless grievances, Ellie dreams for a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa's warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions of becoming lion women.

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls' high school in Iran, Ellie's memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie's privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.

Reminiscent of The Kite Runner and My Brilliant Friend, The Lion Women of Tehran is a mesmerizing tale (BookPage) of love and courage, and a sweeping exploration of how profoundly we are shaped by those we meet when we are young.

From the author of This Is One Way to Dance, linked genre-queer short stories braided with images and ephemera explore the experiences of growing up and living as a diasporic Gujarati woman searching for home.

In the eleven linked short stories of How to Make Your Mother Cry, Sejal Shah builds a shrine gleaming with memory and myth. Keys, rocks, photographs, fairy tales, fables, and relics all add texture and meaning to an exploration of growing up and living as a diasporic Gujarati woman in a culture that excuses the behavior of men. Throughout, girls and women contend with the expectations, limitations, and challenges of becoming the heroine of one's own life.

How to Make Your Mother Cry--Shah's follow-up to her award-winning essay collection This Is One Way to Dance--continues the rich tradition of innovative feminist work by Claudia Rankine, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Maxine Hong Kingston. By braiding stories and images with fictional letters to a beloved English teacher, the collection defies traditional autofiction, epistolary, and short story conventions. These astonishing stories about friendship and love, resilience and survival establish Shah as an exciting new voice in contemporary fiction.

Conversation is more than just words being spoken, interpreted, and acted upon by others. Conversation is also the ultimate human interest activity, bringing people into direct contact with people in all of their complexity and vulnerability. The main characters in Parker's ten multi-genre stories set in the heart of Appalachia want to be heard; to have others listen to them-really listen-and understand their needs and concerns.

The characters in these stories do not always get listened to, and many of them find that the need for attention comes from aggression. A woman confronts her father about his dementia. Two fathers whose guilt and shame over the disappearances of their sons hide more sinister motives. A young boy frustrated with a ring appraisal learns a lesson about how people and things can be valued equally. Each of the characters in the collection is faced with a balance of talking and listening with a need for action, which often leads to manipulation and coercion.

The characters in these stories want to be heard; to have others listen to them-really listen-and understand their needs and concerns. However, when they do not get listened to, there is often an attempted persuasion by aggression. One character often finds himself/herself faced with another character who believes that conversation has no place in their lives.

The belief of the antagonists in these stories is that- who needs to talk when there is action that needs to be done? The antagonists believe that there is no need for conversation when the protagonist can be manipulated, coerced, or discredited by actions. Each story is a thrilling adventure with unexpected turns. Parker's honest and provocative prose will captivate readers with its urgency.

For authoritarians and their supporters, book banning is the floor. They've yet to define the ceiling. What other forms of creative expression will be next on their hit list: music, theater, paintings, sculpture? When we lose our intellectual freedom, we lose our democracy.

This collection of short stories, poetry, flash fiction, and essays highlights everything that is beautiful in the written word. Through this body of work, Wild Ink Publishing is taking a stand against book banning. We invite you to stand with us.

Wild Ink will donate 50% of all revenue from the sale of this collection to the American Library Association to help fight this injustice.

A través de nueve encuentros entre Iván y Caro, la autora muestra al lector dos personajes, personas y personalidades -que es todo lo mismo y distinto a la vez- y la relación que se va tejiendo y destejiendo entre ellos. En la escritura predominan, por encima de la narración y las descripciones: diálogos ágiles, chispeantes y sinceros, pero sobre todo reflexivos y llenos de introspección. Cada encuentro explora un tema central en cuyo eje se despliegan y giran las diferencias de pensamiento, los afectos que se desatan y las emociones vividas por ambos interlocutores; el modo en que cada uno afronta las piedras de toque universales que son la vida, el amor y la muerte.
Arturo Ipiéns
Escritor y escultor mexicano

Carolina Vázquez
Ejerce como profesional en Comunicación y Relaciones Públicas. Es mexicana, lectora apasionada y amante de la escritura. Algunos de sus textos han sido antologados por instituciones literarias de México y España. En 2007, escribió el cortometraje Yo creí que, que fue selección oficial en festivales de cine en Chile, México y Francia. Su novela corta Colombia ganó el tercer lugar en un concurso convocado por el Fondo de Cultura Económica de Colombia en 2021.
Con su más reciente novela corta, Un lugar hermoso para quedarse, nos confirma su oficio narrativo al transformar el dolor experimentado como consecuencia de un hecho trágico en una memorable oda a la amistad.

After a major accident leaves her in a dire financial situation, Maxine Forest returns to live in her childhood home. The empty husk holds only the memories of her father's abuse and her mother's reticence to leave him: her parents are nowhere to be found. The cocoon of her past remains unchanged, yet wrapped in the ghostly remnants of her mother's whispered insistence that things could change. Escaping the sins of her parents should be easy enough for Max, but those sins are intrinsic to her genetic make-up, so escape is impossible-succumbing, and metamorphosis, are inevitable.

...equal parts beautiful and grotesque, with prose so alive it practically leaps off the page. Hauntings both familial and societal are deftly interwoven in this stylish and atmospheric Southern Gothic that feels truly contemporary-and the mystery behind safe box 236 will keep readers on the edge of their seats until the story's terrifying and shocking conclusion. -Catherine Yu, author of Direwood

Eden's voice from the very start of Hollow Tongue captivates you and does not let go until the end. This story moved in directions I didn't anticipate. I want more of this in horror! -V. Castro, author of Bram Stoker-nominated The Queen of the Cicadas

In this transformative novella, Royce deftly explores what it means to revisit childhood trauma from an adult perspective. With an arresting voice, stunning prose, and atmosphere thick enough to taste, Hollow Tongue is Southern Gothic at its finest!

- Kelsea Yu, Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of Bound Feet

...revolutionizes the haunted house genre by embedding beating hearts into its walls. Royce balances memory, trauma, guilt, morality and immediate danger with a touch as delicate as a butterfly's wing. -Suzan Palumbo, author of Skin Thief: Stories and Countess

Sundial House is proud to present a stellar collection of poetry and prose by contemporary Latin American voices. The selected pieces have been thoughtfully translated from Spanish into English by renowned literary translators, ensuring that the essence and beauty of the original excerpts shine through. Constellation: Latin American Voices in Translation features contributions by: Santiago Acosta, translated by Tiffany Troy; Manuel Arduino Pavón, translated by Sara Lissa Paulson; Ansilta Grizas, translated by Jenny Burton; Ramón Hondal, translated by Elena Lahr-Vivaz; Mónica Lavín, translated by D.P. Snyder; and Mercedes Roffé, translated by Lucina Schell.

Drums in Our Veins is a collection of poems that explore spirituality and identity through the lenses of African Ancestors and the realities of African descendant people living in these modern times. Written to the beat of life's drum, these poems are described as resistance poetry by the author. A great read for anyone who is inspired to make social change and is passionate about justice and equality as well as those looking to be advocates and allies. Drums In Our Veins will take you on an emotional journey of the black global experience, while nurturing your spirit and purpose.

So we are impossible people. And we have to remain impossible. That is the price of the future...

Tom is an idealistic young physicist who believes that science is pure. But as he is drawn into the nightmarish world of a despised, outcast minority, he discovers that some truths are too subversive to be allowed to exist...

Anna Lyndsey's first novel, Impossible People, is a story of love, friendship, science and survival - inspired by real, extraordinary lives. Her memoir of life with extreme light sensitivity, Girl in the Dark (Bloomsbury 2015) was translated into several languages and was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week.

Far Away from Here is a novel about three young Black American Muslims on the cusp of adulthood confronting faith, tradition, and the impact of their personal decisions in five years post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans.

In New Orleans, it's been five years since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the heart and soul of both the city and its residents. Three young Black Muslim friends have reconnected after drifting apart as teenagers: Fatima left with the floodwaters of Katrina following the murder of her childhood love and fiancé, Wakeel, and has now returned to reluctantly care for Wakeel's mother. Tahani rebelled against a strict Muslim upbringing and feels stifled in her life as a single mother, trying to make ends meet while craving a creative outlet. And Saif, the cousin of Wakeel, must reconcile with Fatima over how his illicit past played a role in his cousin's death.

All three struggle to envision a future for themselves that they can actively shape. A testament to the stories we tell ourselves and each other, Far Away From Here is a coming-of-age novel threaded with themes of community, tradition, faith, and the courage to own one's narrative.

Reuniting with Strangers is a kaleidoscopic debut novel-in-stories that maps the separations and reconnections of diasporic Filipino families whose stories intersect with the journey of an enigmatic five-year-old named Monolith.

Vera has been dreaming for years about the day she will be reunited with her son Monolith, who has been raised by her sister in the Philippines ever since Vera moved overseas to work as a caregiver. But when he finally arrives, Monolith is violent, destructive, and unable--or unwilling?--to speak.

Monolith and Vera weave themselves through the chapters that follow, as new characters take up the narrative, telling their own stories and providing insight into Monolith's psyche. Incorporating a plethora of forms--emails, text messages, resumes, a songbook, an instruction manual--and traversing diverse settings scattered across Canada and the Philippines, their voices combine to form a joyful, devastating, humorous, and surprising account of the way North American reliance on Filipina caregivers has impacted families on both sides of the ocean.

Compellingly readable, Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio's stunning debut reveals the displacement, estrangement, resilience and healing in the homes and hearts of the Filipino community around the globe.

The book is a semi-autobiography about growing up in a small Alabama town, where the majority of jobs were farm related. My father died when I about six. My mother raised me and my two older brothers on her salary from a housekeeping job along with small income of my two brothers from farmwork during the summer, when school was out. I joined my brothers when I was about ten. We moved to Anniston, Alabama, about three years later, and Mom got a job at Fort McClellan Army Post. She earned a much better salary there, but my brothers and I had local summer jobs.

Written by self-proclaimed Genius Rocky Mullin. An individualized take on an anthology that takes the author's experiences and morals and puts them into a deep-cutting form of continuous poetry. With personal events inspiring the author's writing, Accident Prone is bound to touch a nerve, a heartstring, or a button that you didn't even know existed.

Best new book to read.--New York Post

... a wonderfully witty chronicle of awkward first dates, with Avalie slowly coming to understand what makes a relationship work, guided along the way by a supportive network of friends.... Abedi's emotionally charged portrait of what it takes to heal from heartache resonates. It's an uplifting ode to self-love. ---Publisher's Weekly

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.

Avalie Monfared has a theory about saying I Do--that the magic ends there. After thirteen years of magic-free marriage to her high school sweetheart, she's discovered where it went: gambling and prostitutes.

Now, Ava is on a quest to rediscover herself--and men. Her soul-searching finds her living on a succession of friends' and family's couches, which happen to be in some of the most luxurious zip codes in and around Los Angeles. What follows is an unpredictable summer full of shamans, attack birds, awkward dates, sizzling flirtations, and unsolicited advice--especially from her traditional Persian family members, who are eager to see her remarried. With every laugh-out-loud adventure in each locale, Ava finds more solace and wisdom. And while it's not how she planned to spend the last year of her thirties, Ava learns that there is power in letting go.

Minnesota Book Awards 2022 -- Finalist in Novel & Short Story

Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards (NEMBA) 2022 -- Winner in Fiction

Fluid in time and place, Carnival Lights flows between one past and another, offering a heartbreaking portrait of multigenerational trauma in the lives of one Ojibwe family. This tapestry of stories is beautifully woven and gut-wrenching in its effect. Read it, and it may change you forever. -- William Kent Krueger, New York Times Bestselling author

Blending fiction and fact, Carnival Lights ranges from reverie to nightmare and back again in a lyrical yet unflinching story of an Ojibwe family's struggle to hold onto their land, their culture, and each other. Carnival Lights is a timely book for a country in need of deep healing.

In August 1969, two teenage Ojibwe cousins, Sher and Kris, leave their northern Minnesota reservation for the lights of Minneapolis. The girls arrive in the city with only $12, their grandfather's WWII pack, two stainless steel cups, some face makeup, gum, and a lighter. But it's the ancestral connections they are also carrying - to the land and trees, to their family and culture, to love and loss - that shape their journey most. As they search for work, they cross paths with a gay Jewish boy, homeless white and Indian women, and men on the prowl for runaways. Making their way to the Minnesota State Fair, the Indian girls try to escape a fate set in motion centuries earlier...

Set in a summer of hippie Vietnam War protests and the moon landing, Carnival Lights also spans settler arrival in the 1800s, the creation of the reservation system, and decades of cultural suppression, connecting everything from lumber barons' mansions to Nazi V-2 rockets to smuggler's tunnels in creating a narrative history of Minnesota.

Chris Stark's newest novel explores the evolution of violence experienced by Native women. Simultaneously graphic and gentle, Carnival Lights takes the reader on a daunting journey through generations of trauma, crafting characters that are both vulnerable and resilient. -- Sarah Deer, (Mvskoke), Distinguished Professor, University of Kansas, MacArthur Genius Award Recipient

Carnival Lights is a heartbreaking wonder of gorgeous prose and urgent story. It propels the reader at a breathless pace as history crashes down on the readers as much as it does on the book's vivid characters. The author's brilliant heart restores their dignity and via the realm of imagination, brings them home. -- Mona Susan Power, author of The Grass Dancer, a PEN/Hemingway Winner

Carnival Lights is a heavy book, discussing Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, sexual assault, sex trafficking and incest, boarding schools, Nazis in the US, as well as the history of native people in this country since it was colonized by Europeans (or English, as the elders call them). I think it should be taught in high schools. -- Esty Dinur, journalist and host of A Public Affair, Fridays on WORT-FM, Wisconsin

Learn more at www.ChristineStark.com

From Modern History Press

How wonderful, that you could cross the ocean and still find yourself looking at mothers and children walking the streets, peering into store windows, and catching buses to get home in time for dinner.

Maryam, a young woman from Baku, Azerbaijan, is thrown into the chaos of immigrant life when her mother decides to emigrate to the United States. Maryam initially remains inside at her window studying passersby and reflecting on their clothes, their coffee cups, and a hundred other points of divergence between two cultures. But reality eventually forces her from of the safety of her apartment and out into a foreign world that is at once fascinating, confusing, and not always kind.

While first a story of immigration, I Sat Alone by the Gate is also a powerful, introspective tale of a young woman coming into her own. Mary Efendi's tender portrayal of home will appeal to anyone who has ever had to leave the place they love behind.

​Mary Efendi was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, and moved to America in 2003. After almost two decades in the US, life took Mary back to Baku. When she is not reading fiction and drinking cortado in a coffeeshop, she can be found painting on large canvases in her studio in Baku's Old City.

Misterios: leyendas de San Luis Potosí es un libro entretenido y enriquecedor de la cultura popular potosina vista a través de las leyendas, de 37 leyendas seleccionadas y recreadas por Homero Adame, quien nos incita a revivir algunos de aquellos misterios que perviven en la memoria colectiva de los potosinos. Tanto las leyendas más populares, como algunas poco conocidas son enigmas de un pasado inexplicable, enigmas que siguen vigentes al día de hoy y que el autor presenta en cinco capítulos:

1. Leyendas de fantasmas
2. Leyendas religiosas
3. Leyendas de espíritus benefactores
4. Leyendas de personajes populares
5. Leyendas de tesoros

Algunas leyendas son muy conocidas en la capital potosina, como la de Juan del jarro, la loca Zulley o el gallo Maldonado; hay otras menos conocidas, como la bailarina en el teatro de la Paz o los barcos de cristal y dos hasta ahora inéditas que son el nuevo aporte al libro que fue publicado originalmente en 2014 y ahora se presenta en una edición corregida, aumentada y mejorada, con nuevo diseño y tipografía.
Con esta obra, Homero Adame ubica a la ciudad de San Luis Potosí en un contexto del folklore y la mitología universal, puesto que, en esencia, algunas de estas leyendas contienen teofanías, milagros divinos, elementos mágico-religiosos y sobrenaturales, simbolismos, hierofanías, creencias, supersticiones, quimeras, héroes culturales, etc. que son parte de la universalidad, es decir, de la mitología y/o el folklore universal.