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Norah Piehl

Biography

Norah Piehl


Norah Piehl worked for 10 years at the Boston Book Festival, overseeing their day-to-day operations. She is now the Director for Literary Programs at the Bay Area Book Festival. A former children's bookseller, Norah has also worked in the publishing industry for both university and trade publishers. She is an active writer whose essays, interviews and reviews have been published in Publishers WeeklyThe Horn BookBrain, Child, Skirt! magazine, National Public Radio and many other publications, as well as in several print anthologies. Her short fiction has appeared in Literary MamaThe Linnet's WingsThe LegendaryPrinter's Devil Review and the anthology BATTLE RUNES: Writings on War. Norah lives in Berkeley, California.

Norah Piehl

Reviews by Norah Piehl

by Denise Williams - Comedy, Fiction, Humor, Romance, Women's Fiction

Willow experienced all her big firsts with her high school sweetheart. Now, reeling from their very public breakup, she wants to get a re-do on those important moments. While dog-sitting for her brother during his deployment, she has a chance to start over, and spending time with his best friend gives her the confidence to start checking items off her “Re-Do list.” Deacon promised his best friend two things when Cruz left for a deployment: he would look out for Willow and keep his hands off Cruz’s baby sister. “Operation Re-Do” is innocent enough at first: Deacon likes Willow, and he’s willing to help her out any way he can. But when the list of firsts turns from a first dance to first kisses and more, Deacon can’t deny the connection he feels to Willow.

by Fatima Bhutto - Memoir, Nonfiction

Fatima Bhutto was a teenager when her beloved father was assassinated. Ever since, she longed for a complete and happy family. Years later, still grappling with profound grief, she meets a charismatic man who offers her a new beginning --- promising love, healing, and the children she’s always dreamed of. But the dream soon unravels, revealing a toxic, manipulative relationship that holds her captive for over a decade. By the spring of 2020, Fatima finds herself secluded in the English countryside, accompanied by her most loyal companion: Coco, a fiercely protective Jack Russell terrier. In the presence of nature and Coco’s unwavering devotion, Fatima begins to question everything --- and slowly finds the courage to confront her suffering and reclaim her voice.

by Jeanette Winterson - Literary Criticism, Memoir, Nonfiction

A woman is filibustering for her life. Every night she tells a story. Every morning, she lives one more day. ONE ALADDIN TWO LAMPS cracks open the legendary story of Shahrazad in ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS to explore new and ancient questions. Who should we trust? Is love the most important thing in the world? Does it matter if you are honest? What makes us happy? In her guise as Aladdin --- the orphan who changes his world --- Jeanette Winterson asks us to reread what we think we know. To look again. Especially to look again at how fiction works in our lives, giving us the courage to change our own narratives and alter endings we wish to subvert. As a young working-class woman, with no obvious future beyond factory work or marriage, Winterson realizes through the power of books that she can read herself as fiction as well as a fact.

by Ashley Winstead - Fiction, Women's Fiction

When record executive Theo meets the Future Saints, they’re bombing at a dive bar in their hometown. Since the tragic death of their manager, the band has been in a downward spiral. Theo has been dispatched to coax a new --- and successful --- album out of them, or else let them go. He is immediately struck by Hannah, the group’s impetuous lead singer, who replaces their California pop with gut-wrenching rock. When this new music goes viral, striking an unexpected chord with fans, Theo puts his career on the line to give the Saints one last shot at success with a new tour, new record and new start. But Hannah’s grief has larger consequences for the group, and her increasingly destructive antics become a distraction as she and her sister, Ginny --- her lifelong partner in crime --- undermine Theo at every turn.

by Nina McConigley - Fiction

Summer, 1986. The Creel sisters, Georgie Ayyar and Agatha Krishna, welcome their aunt, uncle and young cousin --- newly arrived from India --- into their house in rural Wyoming where they’ll all live together. Because this is what families do. That is, until the sisters decide that it’s time for their uncle to die. According to Georgie, the British are to blame. And to understand why, you need to hear her story. She details the violence hiding in their house and history, her once-unshakeable bond with Agatha Krishna, and her understanding of herself as an Indian-American in the heart of the West. Her account is, at every turn, cheeky, unflinching and infectiously inflected with the trappings of teendom, including the magazine quizzes that help her make sense of her life.

by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone - Comedy, Fiction, Humor, Romance

When rookie lecturer Maddie Kowalczk lands at Astra University, she’s looking to start fresh after a messy breakup. But her first night in town takes a twist when she bumps into Bram Loe, who she (not so accidentally) stole a parking spot from earlier that day. The unspoken chemistry as he locks eyes with her while she gets a birthday spanking at a local bar is hotter than a Bunsen burner at full flame. Bram is looking for a break from his hectic life as an ecology professor and dad to rambunctious twins and a busy teenager. So when his college friend’s divorce celebration brings him face to face with the same delectable brat who stole his parking spot, he’s ready for a night to remember. But the next morning, Bram’s world turns upside down. His new nanny? None other than Maddie, who also happens to be the new poli-sci adjunct at the university where he teaches.

by Marisa Kashino - Domestic Thriller, Fiction, Humor, Suspense, Thriller

Eighteen months and 11 lost bidding wars into house-hunting in the overheated Washington, DC suburbs, 37-year-old publicist Margo Miyake gets a tip about the perfect house, in the perfect neighborhood, slated to come up for sale in one month. Desperate to escape the cramped apartment she shares with her husband, Ian, Margo becomes obsessed with buying the house before it’s publicly listed and the masses descend. A little stalking? Harmless. A bit of trespassing? Necessary. As Margo infiltrates the homeowners’ lives, her tactics grow increasingly unhinged. But just when she thinks she’s won them over, she hits a snag in her plan. Undeterred, Margo will prove again and again that there’s no boundary she won’t cross to seize the dream life she’s been chasing.

by Julia Spencer-Fleming - Fiction, Mystery

It’s Christmas time in Millers Kill, and Reverend Clare Fergusson and her husband, Russ van Alstyne --- newly resigned from his position as chief of police --- plan to enjoy it with their baby boy. But when a beloved holiday parade is crashed by white supremacists, Clare and Russ find themselves sucked into a parallel world of militias, machinations and murder. They and three others --- single mom and officer Hadley Knox; novice lawyer Joy Zhào; and NYS Forest Ranger Paul Terrance --- will discover that their suspicions hang on a single twisting thread, leading to the forbidding High Peaks of the Adirondacks. As the December days shorten and the nights grow long, a disparate group of would-be heroes need to unwind a murderous plot before time runs out.

by Rebecca Armitage - Fiction, Women's Fiction

It’s New Year’s Day in Australia, and the life Lexi Villiers has carefully built is working out nicely. She’s in the second year of her medical residency, she lives on a beautiful farm with her two best friends, Finn and Jack, and she’s about to finally become more than friendly with Jack --- when a helicopter abruptly lands. Out steps her grandmother’s right-hand man, with the tragic news that her father and older brother have been killed in a skiing accident. Lexi’s grandmother happens to be the Queen of England, and Lexi must now accept the reality that she is suddenly next in line for the throne --- a role she has publicly disavowed. Returning to London as the heir apparent Princess Alexandrina, Lexi is greeted by a skeptical public not ready to forgive her defection, a grieving sister-in-law harboring an explosive secret, and a scheming uncle determined to claim the throne himself.

by Sophie Cousens - Comedy, Fiction, Humor, Romance, Women's Fiction

Stuck in a Production Assistant job and living at home with her parents after a painful breakup, 31-year-old Chloe Fairway isn’t where she wants to be in life. The last thing she needs is to face the people who once voted her "most likely to succeed" at her upcoming 10-year college reunion. And she definitely doesn’t want to see her former best friend, Sean Adler, who is now a hotshot film director living the life Chloe dreamed of. Desperate to make a splash --- and to save face in front of the man who might be the one that got away --- she turns to a mysterious dating service. Enter Rob, her handsome, well-read and charming match, the perfect plus-one to take to her reunion. The more she gets to know him, the more perfect he appears to be. As Chloe reconnects with old friends, she begins to question everything she thought she wanted.