Ingrid Rojas Contreras' maternal grandfather, Nono, was a renowned curandero, a community healer gifted with what the family called “the secrets”: the power to talk to the dead, tell the future, treat the sick and move the clouds. And as the first woman to inherit “the secrets,” Rojas Contreras’ mother was just as powerful. Mami delighted in her ability to appear in two places at once, and she could cast out even the most persistent spirits with nothing more than a glass of water. While living in the U.S. in her 20s, Rojas Contreras suffered a head injury that left her with amnesia. As she regained partial memory, her family was excited to tell her that this had happened before. Decades ago, Mami had taken a fall that left her with amnesia, too. And when she recovered, she had gained access to “the secrets.”

Jean Rhys is one of the most compelling writers of the 20th century. Memories of her Caribbean girlhood haunt the four short and piercingly brilliant novels that Rhys wrote during her extraordinary years as an exile in 1920s Paris and later in England, a body of fiction --- above all, the extraordinary Wide Sargasso Sea --- that has a passionate following today. And yet her own colorful life, including her early years on the Caribbean island of Dominica, remains too little explored, until now. In I USED TO LIVE HERE ONCE, Miranda Seymour sheds new light on the artist whose proud and fiercely solitary life profoundly informed her writing.

In 1982, young tax attorney John Green receives word that a client's plane has just crashed. The client's wife asks John to fly to Mississippi, find her husband's plane and see if he is still alive. Arriving at the crash site, he discovers that his client has died while smuggling drugs from Columbia. Soon John finds himself caught between a vengeful IRS agent with a personal grudge and a drug cartel that wants him dead. With his life in danger, he flees from Oklahoma to Texas where he is indicted and arrested. Without bail, he is shuffled from jail to jail and denied medical treatment while agents try to coerce a confession. John declines a misdemeanor plea, believing that justice will prevail if he goes to trial.

In her luminous new memoir in essays, Mary Pipher --- as she did in her New York Times bestseller WOMEN ROWING NORTH --- taps into a cultural moment, to offer wisdom, hope and insight into loss and change. Drawing from her own experiences and expertise as a psychologist specializing in women, trauma and the effect of our culture on our mental health, she looks inward in A LIFE IN LIGHT to what shaped her as a woman, one who has experienced darkness throughout her life but was always drawn to the light. Her plainspoken depictions of her hard childhood and life's difficulties are dappled with moments of joy and revelation, tragedies and ordinary miseries, glimmers and shadow.

In 1978, in the tailwind of the golden age of air travel, flight attendants were the epitome of glamour and sophistication. Fresh out of college and hungry to experience the world, Ann Hood joined their ranks. After a grueling job search, Hood survived TWA’s rigorous Breech Training Academy and learned to evacuate seven kinds of aircraft, deliver a baby, mix proper cocktails, administer oxygen, and stay calm no matter what the situation. In the air, Hood found both the adventure she’d dreamt of and the unexpected realities of life on the job. As the airline industry changed around her, she began to write --- even drafting snatches of her first novel from the jump-seat. She reveals how the job empowered her, despite its roots in sexist standards.

During the throes of the Great Depression, Polly marries for money. After her husband, Sam, dies in a freak farm accident, new bride Polly assumes she is financially set to pursue her dream of opening a hat-making business. Instead, she becomes the prime suspect in Sam's murder. Secrets abound, and even Polly's family can't figure out the truth. Narrated by Polly; her self-righteous older sister, Sarah; and Sarah's well-meaning but flawed husband, Wesley, a Methodist minister, the story follows several twists through the landscape of the rural Midwest. Each narrator has a strong compelling voice. Polly's early letters to her mother both reveal and hide her naivete, her fears and her dreams. Sarah is both caring and critical. Wesley is dedicated to his calling and his parishioners, but his weaknesses are prominent.

A backstage audition led Mark Hembree into a five-year stint (1979–1984) as the bassist for Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys. Hembree’s journey included playing at the White House and on the acclaimed album Master of Bluegrass. But it also put him on a collision course with the rigors of touring, the mysteries of Southern culture, and the complex personality of bandleader legend Bill Monroe. Whether it’s figuring out the best time for breakfast (early) or for beating the boss at poker (never), Hembree gives readers an up-close look at the occasionally exalting, often unglamorous life of a touring musician in the sometimes baffling, always colorful company of a bluegrass icon.

For 20 years Miriam Leslie ran the country’s largest publishing company, Frank Leslie Publishing, which chronicled postbellum America in dozens of weeklies and monthlies. A pioneer in an all-male industry, she made a fortune and became a national celebrity and tastemaker in the process. But she also flouted feminine convention, took lovers, married four times, and harbored unsavory secrets that she concealed through a skein of lies and multiple personas. DIAMONDS AND DEADLINES reveals the unknown, sensational life of the brilliant and brazen “empress of journalism,” who dropped a bombshell at her death: She left her entire multimillion-dollar estate to women’s suffrage --- a never-equaled amount that guaranteed passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.

Kate Swenson's oldest son, Cooper, was diagnosed with nonverbal autism when he was three years old. Kate had always dreamed of having the perfect family and wasn't prepared for raising a child with a disability. Over the years, she felt the frustration and exhaustion from having to fight for your child in a world stacked against them. But through hard work, resilience and personal growth, she learned that Cooper wasn't the one who needed to change. She was. It was this transformation that led Kate to acceptance --- and, ultimately, joy. Because of Cooper, Kate became the person and the mother she was truly meant to be. Now she offers support and connection to others on this path. In FOREVER BOY, she shares her inspiring journey with honesty and compassion, illuminating the strength and perseverance of mothers.

As a young teenager, Ruth Rymer decided she wanted to be a lawyer because "lawyers get to walk around the courtroom and ask the questions." On her 40th birthday as a newly minted attorney, Rymer made a decision to root out misogyny in her professional life. Her law career included establishing family law as a certified specialty in California, leading the way to making family law a more respectable practice for attorneys. In 1996, Rymer was awarded a PhD for her study of divorce and the fight of women for their "lives, safety, sanity, and status." From the "child in residence" she once was to the women's rights champion she is today, Rymer has come a long way. RAISING THE BAR uplifts with the courage and persistence it took to be a pioneer advocate for women in the second half of the 20th century.