Sarah MacKenzie grapples with the consequences of her choices as she tiptoes on the tightrope between loyalty and self-discovery. The lines have been etched in the sand, and Sarah has once again chosen Bruce, this time in a courtroom where the weight of her words could reshape their destiny. In a dramatic twist, she weaves a web of lies to shield her husband, blurring the lines between truth and loyalty. As Sarah takes a stand on the witness stand, her heart aches with the gravity of her decision. Will this sacrifice finally prove to Bruce just how deeply she loves him, or will the specter of forgiveness cast a long shadow over their fragile connection? The intricate dance between devotion and regret begins, and Sarah finds herself caught in the crossfire of her own choices. Yet, as circumstances spiral out of control, the ripples of Sarah's sins extend far beyond the courtroom drama. The fabric of her reality frays, and she is thrust into a series of impossible choices that will reshape the course of her life forever. Will the alliances she forges in the crucible of adversity be the foundation of a stronger, unbreakable bond, or are they threads that will unravel under the strain of hidden truths?

'The disease he has is addiction,' Nina Renata Aron writes of her boyfriend. 'The disease I have is loving him.' Their affair is dramatic, urgent - an intoxicating antidote to the lonely days of early motherhood. But soon, K starts using again. Even as his addiction deepens, she stays, thinking she can save him. It's a familiar pattern, developed in an adolescence marred by family trauma - how can she break it? If she leaves, has she failed? In this unflinching memoir, Aron shows the devastating effect of addiction on loved ones. She also untangles the messy ties between her own history of enabling, society's expectations of womanhood and our ideas of love. She cracks open the feminised phenomenon of co-dependency, tracing its development from the formation of Al-Anon to recent research in the psychology of addiction, and asks uncomfortable questions about when help becomes harm, and when we choose to leave.

Stop engaging in relationship patterns that sabotage happiness and self-respect

Set in rural, poverty-stricken North Carolina, this "beautiful, gritty, and piercing" novel follows two young women--best friends--as they "journey through the highs and lows of friendship, love, and addiction," perfect for readers of Julie Buntin's Marlena (Erika Carter, author of Lucky You). Irene, a lonely nineteen-year-old in rural North Carolina, works long nights at the local pool hall, serving pitchers and dodging drunks. One evening, her hilarious, magnetic coworker Luce invites her on a joy ride through the mountains to take revenge on a particularly creepy customer. Their adventure not only spells the beginning of a dazzling friendship, it seduces both girls into the mysterious world of pills and the endless hustles needed to fund the next high. Together, Irene and Luce run nickel-tossing scams at the county fair and trick dealers into trading legit pharms for birth-control pills. Everything is wild and wonderful until Luce finds a boyfriend who wants to help her get clean. Soon the two of them decide to move away and start a new, sober life in Florida--leaving Irene behind. Told in a riveting dialogue between the girls' addicted past and their hopes for a better future, Bewilderness is not just a brilliant, funny, heartbreaking novel about opioid abuse, it's also a moving look at how intense, intimate friendships can shape every young woman's life.

Sarah MacKenzie's pursuit of love takes an unexpected turn as she navigates the intricate dance between passion and peril. Sacrificing everything to be with the enigmatic Bruce Stone, Sarah believes she's stepped into the pages of a fairy tale. Her parents, despite the significant age gap, are tentatively embracing the new chapter, and the promise of a blissful life together beckons. Yet, beneath the facade of domestic tranquility, a storm is brewing. Bruce's intense jealousy, an ominous specter that refuses to dissipate, threatens to unravel the delicate threads of their union. In his mind, imagined troubles become real, and his obsession transforms their once-promising journey into a precarious tightrope walk. As Bruce's temper veers dangerously out of control, Sarah finds herself ensnared in a whirlwind of emotions. The idyllic life she envisioned begins to crumble, and the once-solid ground beneath her feet turns treacherous. The destructive path they're on is a slippery slope, one that could lead to irreparable fractures in their relationship—or worse, a descent into criminality. Book 5 of the Tainted Love Saga delves into the fragility of love, the dangers of unchecked passion, and the tumultuous journey toward self-discovery. As Sarah grapples with the unraveling threads of her marriage, readers are invited to explore the intricate dance between desire and desperation. Will Sarah and Bruce find a way to mend their fractured connection, or are they hurtling toward a point of no return? Join Sarah as she confronts the complexities of love, jealousy, and the transformative power of choices in a riveting exploration of the fine line between devotion and destruction, where the pursuit of happiness collides with the shadows that linger in the recesses of obsession.

It's no surprise that our culture is addicted to "love." The sappy love songs, the enticing ads for romantic getaways and the desire to be cherished by a special someone will never lose their appeal. But for some women, this poses a significant problem. Because of their insatiable desire for love, they will do anything to find it and ultimately land in destructive addictive relationships over and over again causing incredible harm. This newly revised and expanded edition of Ready to Heal provides an opportunity for women to break free from painful addictive relationships. Kelly McDaniel provides the reader with the tools they will need to move along the path to living a life where intimacy is possible. Readers have an opportunity to begin to "connect the dots" in their own relationship patterns by following the stories of four brave women. A newly added chapter on "Mother Hunger" explores the role of the mother in infancy and how she ultimately impacts a daughter's ability to have healthy intimate relationships later in life. Break free from the chains of addictive relationships that sabotage happiness and self-respect.

A National Best Seller! Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler is a soaring debut interweaving the story of a heartbreaking, forbidden love in 1930s Kentucky with an unlikely modern-day friendship Eighty-nine-year-old Isabelle McAllister has a favor to ask her hairdresser Dorrie Curtis. It's a big one. Isabelle wants Dorrie, a black single mom in her thirties, to drop everything to drive her from her home in Arlington, Texas, to a funeral in Cincinnati. With no clear explanation why. Tomorrow. Dorrie, fleeing problems of her own and curious whether she can unlock the secrets of Isabelle's guarded past, scarcely hesitates before agreeing, not knowing it will be a journey that changes both their lives. Over the years, Dorrie and Isabelle have developed more than just a business relationship. They are friends. But Dorrie, fretting over the new man in her life and her teenage son's irresponsible choices, still wonders why Isabelle chose her. Isabelle confesses that, as a willful teen in 1930s Kentucky, she fell deeply in love with Robert Prewitt, a would-be doctor and the black son of her family's housekeeper—in a town where blacks weren't allowed after dark. The tale of their forbidden relationship and its tragic consequences makes it clear Dorrie and Isabelle are headed for a gathering of the utmost importance and that the history of Isabelle's first and greatest love just might help Dorrie find her own way.

Lauren Myracle brings her signature frank, funny, and insightful writing to this novel of a teenage boy’s coming-of-age. Paul Walden is not an alpha lobster, the hypermasculine crustacean king who intimidates the other male lobsters, beds all the lady lobsters, and “wins” at life. At least not according to the ego-bursting feedback he’s given in his freshman seminar. But Paul finds a funny, faithful friend in Roby Smalls, and maybe — oh god, please — he’s beginning to catch the interest of smart, beautiful Natalia Gutierrez. Cruising through high school as a sauced-out, rap-loving beta lobster suits Paul fine, and if life ever gets him down? Smoke a little weed, crunch a few pills . . . it’s all good. But in the treacherous currents of teenage culture, it’s easy to get pulled under. With perfect frankness, Lauren Myracle lays bare the life of one boy as he navigates friendship, love, loss, and addiction. It’s life at its most ordinary and most unforgettable.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “An unflinching examination of how our drinking culture hurts women and a gorgeous memoir of how one woman healed herself.”—Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Untamed “You don’t know how much you need this book, or maybe you do. Either way, it will save your life.”—Melissa Hartwig Urban, Whole30 co-founder and CEO The founder of the first female-focused recovery program offers a groundbreaking look at alcohol and a radical new path to sobriety. We live in a world obsessed with drinking. We drink at baby showers and work events, brunch and book club, graduations and funerals. Yet no one ever questions alcohol’s ubiquity—in fact, the only thing ever questioned is why someone doesn’t drink. It is a qualifier for belonging and if you don’t imbibe, you are considered an anomaly. As a society, we are obsessed with health and wellness, yet we uphold alcohol as some kind of magic elixir, though it is anything but. When Holly Whitaker decided to seek help after one too many benders, she embarked on a journey that led not only to her own sobriety, but revealed the insidious role alcohol plays in our society and in the lives of women in particular. What’s more, she could not ignore the ways that alcohol companies were targeting women, just as the tobacco industry had successfully done generations before. Fueled by her own emerging feminism, she also realized that the predominant systems of recovery are archaic, patriarchal, and ineffective for the unique needs of women and other historically oppressed people—who don’t need to lose their egos and surrender to a male concept of God, as the tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous state, but who need to cultivate a deeper understanding of their own identities and take control of their lives. When Holly found an alternate way out of her own addiction, she felt a calling to create a sober community with resources for anyone questioning their relationship with drinking, so that they might find their way as well. Her resultant feminine-centric recovery program focuses on getting at the root causes that lead people to overindulge and provides the tools necessary to break the cycle of addiction, showing us what is possible when we remove alcohol and destroy our belief system around it. Written in a relatable voice that is honest and witty, Quit Like a Woman is at once a groundbreaking look at drinking culture and a road map to cutting out alcohol in order to live our best lives without the crutch of intoxication. You will never look at drinking the same way again.

Discusses "loving too much" as a pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors which certain women develop as a reponse to various problems in their family backgrounds.