This month, WFWA is excited to celebrate Women’s Fiction that highlights the complexities of multiple timelines.
The Wild Between Us by Amy Hagstrom
After inheriting his uncle’s lodge, Silas Matheson hopes the grandeur of the California Sierra Nevada will be a fresh start for his two young sons and a chance to finally face his demons. It was here, 15 years ago, that Silas and his friends Jessica, Danny and Meg ventured into the mountain wilderness, and Jessica vanished without a trace. When his boys go missing in the same dark woods, the fear and guilt that Silas has been running from ever since come crashing back.
Silas’s panicked call brings in the local search and rescue unit and two familiar faces: Danny and Meg. As the frantic search gets underway, the three friends are plunged into a painfully recurring nightmare, each of them thinking, This can’t be happening again.
The Less Unkind by Rosaria Giorgi
At the young age of 21, Pico’s world is a tapestry of linguistic enigmas and academic ambition. A student at the University of Copenhagen, she is thrilled to secure a summer position at the enigmatic antique dealer Antonio Bartram’s shop. When Antonio vanishes abruptly, leaving behind only a series of cryptic messages, Pico uses her linguistic prowess to decode the clues, only to set in motion a chain of events with irreversible consequences.
As Pico delves deeper, she uncovers a labyrinthine plot stretching back to the 1969 theft of a priceless Caravaggio from a Sicilian church. Tangled in the crosshairs of an obsessive art collector, a police murder investigation and a Mafia-sanctioned vendetta, her quest propels her from Scandinavia to Italy, and along the secretive corridors of the Vatican Library, where a mysterious tome holds the key to a buried truth.
See Sadie Jane Run by Kelly Elizabeth Huston
When mechanically-minded Sadie Klein, PhD, finds herself poufy dress-deep in a well-meaning scheme gone awry, she escapes from a riverboat casino with the help of Dutch, her teenage crush she hasn’t seen in 15 years. Sadie runs to her childhood home, intent on settling down on the Georgia coast, where her Jewish grandparents raised the brainy nerd girl and her queer brother — outsiders on the outskirts of town.
With a present-day told from Sadie’s point of view and glimpses of the past seen through teenage Dutch’s eyes, a love story of yanked-apart teens who never truly let go unfolds. Secrets and lies come to light with a backdrop of sticky summer nights and peach moonshine in a quirky ocean-side town of bighearted characters. Sadie can’t outrun her mistakes, and forgiveness is a steep hill to climb, but after living all over the world, home might be right back where it all began.
The Advice Columnist by Janie Emaus
Everyone talks to themselves, but how many people receive an answer? That’s what happens to 50-something Joannie Simmons in The Advice Columnist. After losing her longtime job at the local newspaper, Joannie talks to her empty office and, to her astonishment, receives an email from her younger self.
And she continues to hear from herself via electronic communications (phone messages, radio, TV crawls, Tweets, fax machines). Now, along with her hot flashes and multiplying wrinkles, Joannie must surely be going crazy.
Her best friends come to her rescue. What they need is an adventure. But when her husband reveals a long-kept secret, Joannie is forced to put her plans on hold. She cannot undo the past, but will getting advice from her younger self help Joannie take the right path for her future?
Sleep in Peace by Melanie Doctors
Sleep in Peace deals with themes of alcoholism, family secrets and self-destructive tendencies. This terse but funny novel is the American version of Fleabag.
In 2007, 43-year-old Leanne Spencer’s career is thriving, but her love life is a mess. She believed her addiction to bad boys stemmed from her father’s death, but it turns out her mom lied, and her dad is alive. After forcing her mom to confess, Leanne is unsure what to believe. Her mom’s flashbacks sound like a 1950s B-movie, yet they explain more than Leanne wants to admit. Amidst this, Leanne falls for David, a widower who is perfect but wary of her trust issues. Determined to figure herself out, she’s on a secret mission to meet her dad. As her past, present and future collide, Leanne must reconcile the inconceivable and rescue herself or lose a man who accepts her flaws and all.
The Rains of Wishton by Wanda Penalver Bevan
Faced with the challenges of midlife and a desire to leave the past behind her, Miranda Peterson is on a quest for renewal that beckons her to follow the road wherever it leads. While she strives to protect her heart from falling in love again, Miranda writes the story of Nicole and Garrett, young lovers determined to build a life together at any cost. Among their challenges is a blackmail scheme to ruin Nicole’s acting career, and a race against time to find the whereabouts of Garrett’s infant son.
A weekend getaway to be alone with herself unexpectedly opens a door for Miranda to find love again. What develops is a tug-of-war with her feelings for this kind and gentle man who is prepared to commit to her, but when Miranda is finally ready to embrace the happiness that awaits her, a bond formed decades ago with her high school sweetheart may not be buried as deeply as she thinks.
The Corey Effect by Casey Dembowski
When Andi Scott left her hometown 10 years ago, she swore she’d never go back. But news of her estranged father’s death has her driving the all-too-familiar roads. Each turn brings another memory — of the girl she became there and the boy she loved and lost. The only saving grace is that there’s no way Corey Johnson, the former love of her life, is still around. They both got out, even though it cost them everything.
Andi’s barely in town for a day when she discovers that not only is Corey still in Fairford, but he’s the cofounder of a successful local business, one he built with her father. When Corey asks Andi to stay in town, she can’t refuse his boyish grin or the way he still looks at her as if she’s the only person in the room. But there’s something he’s not telling her. Andi has to know what it is, even if it means opening her heart to the person who broke it in the first place.