Friday, November 21, 2025

Days at the Torunka Cafe' by Satoshi Yagisawa


 From the internationally bestselling author of the Morisaki Bookshop novels comes a charming and poignant story set at a quiet Tokyo café where customers find unexpected connection and experience everyday miracles.

Tucked away on a narrow side street in Tokyo is the Torunka Café, a neighborhood nook where the passersby are as likely to be local cats as tourists. Its regulars include Chinatsu Yukimura, a mysterious young woman who always leaves behind a napkin folded into the shape of a ballerina; Hiroyuki Numata, a middle-aged man who’s returned to the neighborhood searching for the happy life he once gave up; and Shizuku, the café owner’s teenage daughter, who is still coming to terms with her sister’s death as she falls in love for the first time.

While Café Torunka serves up a perfect cup of coffee, it provides these sundry souls with nourishment far more lasting. Satoshi Yagisawa brilliantly illuminates the periods in our lives where we feel lost—and how we find our way again.

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Eric Ozawa is a writer and translator. His translation of Satoshi Yagisawa’s novel Days at the Morisaki Bookshop was an international bestseller that was short-listed for the British Book Award for Debut Book of the Year. His translation of the sequel, More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, was published this summer by HarperCollins. His other writing includes fiction in Granta, Electric Literature and Columbia, and coverage of the nuclear crisis in Fukushima for The Nation where he interviewed and translated authors including Banana Yoshimoto and Koji Suzuki. He lives in New York, where he is a professor at New York University.

Thursday, November 20, 2025

What Medicine Can Do by Gabrielle Balkan


 An accessible, informative, and humorous introduction to the power of medicine for young readers.


Uh-oh—Raccoon feels blerg and ick. Read along as he and his friends do symptoms checks, get examined, get diagnoses, and each, in turn, get the medicine they need. Readers will learn that medicine can make you feel more comfortable, help you heal, help prevent you from getting sick, and more. Written by nonfiction maven Gabrielle Balkan, and vetted by both a pediatrician and a nurse practitioner, this conversationally informative text incorporates comfort and humor, in partnership with Alberto Lot’s emotive, comical character art. A truly enjoyable read that will leave readers better equipped for their next germy experience!


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Hello! I am Gabrielle Balkan--it's true!

I absolutely adore and am inspired by books and children and education and so have spent some 20 years writing and editing and brainstorming books for readers ages 0 - 12.

I grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana and now live in Germantown, New York with my husband, twin girls, and orange cat.

I am also the author of The Dog Rules by CoCo LaRue.

You can visit me at www.GabrielleBalkan.com and www.facebook.com/gabrielle.balkan

Wednesday, November 19, 2025

Dolly Paron's Billy the Kid Dances His Heart Out


 Billy the Kid has done it all. He's moved to Nashville, he's formed a band, and he's rocked from coast to coast. But there's one thing Billy hasn't done...dance on stage. Dancing makes him nervous. And dancing in front of an audience? No way.


That all changes when Billy and his band nab an exciting gig as the opening act for Dolly Parton's Doggy Dance Pawty. Now, Billy is roping his friends into dance lessons. On the first day, he watches dogs whirl and twirl. But one dancer stands out: his dance teacher, Bella, who is as graceful as she is beautiful, with her auburn curls and a voice as sweet as pie.

Soon, Billy is trying to win Bella's attention. But that's difficult when he's stumbling through dance moves and tripping over his paws. Can Billy nail the dance routine 
and catch Bella's eye, all before the big dance pawty? 

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Dolly Parton is a singer, songwriter, actress, producer, businesswoman, and philanthropist. The composer of over 3,000 songs, she has sold over 100 million records worldwide, and given away millions of books to children through her nonprofit, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.

Wednesday, November 12, 2025

Echoes of a Silent Song by Amanda Wen


 A split-time romance from an award-winning author

When a choral composer and conductor falls victim to creative block, he resorts to his fallback plan of teaching high school choir. Callum Knight's goal at Peterson High is simple: rediscover his muse, extract himself from teaching, and get back to Boston as quickly as possible.

As the long-suffering accompanist at the high school, Peterson-native Blair Emerson has watched the revolving door of choir directors and their negative impact on her choirs over the last few years. She is less than impressed when a disheveled Callum stumbles in on his first day.

But then they discover an unsigned, unfinished, and handwritten choral composition by a clear musical genius. Blair recalls rumors of Iris, a Peterson student from the 1970s who composed music but was found dead during her senior year. Blair and Callum work to determine if the piece is hers, and the truth they uncover shakes both of them to the core.

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Amanda Wen’s novels have released to both reader and critical acclaim, including a 2023 Selah Award for The Songs That Could Have Been and a Foreword Indies Gold Award and a Christy Award nomination for Roots of Wood and Stone. In addition to her writing, Amanda is an accomplished professional cellist and pianist who frequently performs with orchestras, chamber groups, and her church’s worship team, as well as serving as a choral accompanist. A lifelong denizen of the flatlands, Amanda currently lives in Kansas with her patient, loving, and hilarious husband, their three adorable Wenlets, and a snuggly Siamese cat.

Monday, November 10, 2025

Journey with a Giant By Lori G. Melton


 Take the next step in your spiritual formation and embark on a year-long journey alongside a “giant” of faith, inspired by the author’s year of studying the life of Mister Fred Rogers, America’s favorite neighbor.


So many of us want to go deeper in our faith. We long for a clearer sense of God’s calling in our lives, but knowing where to start can be more than half the battle. What if we could learn from a trusted guide who’s already walked the path? If you’re in leadership, what would you give to shadow someone like Queen Elizabeth II? Or if you’re an artist, what would you give to spend a year with Madeleine L’Engle or Michelangelo? What if you’re longing for courage and you could take notes from George Washington or Harriet Tubman? How might God shape you through the example of faithful believers and strengthen you to become who He created you to be?

Journey with a Giant introduces the transformative practice of walking with a spiritual giant. Based on the “cloud of witnesses” described in Hebrews 12 and illustrated through the author’s experience walking with Mister Fred Rogers—America’s favorite neighbor—spiritual director Lori Melton guides readers on a one-year adventure that offers a unique approach to spiritual formation.

This structured yet flexible guide includes:
• weekly reflections
• testimonials from fellow pilgrims
• monthly instructions and tasks
• prompts for recording your focus, goals, resources, and insights
• guided prayer to end each month
• reflection questions
• journaling space

Whether you choose to learn from Mister Rogers or select your own spiritual mentor, this journey will help you cultivate a closer relationship with God, uncover new insights about yourself, and take meaningful steps toward pursuing God’s unique calling for you.

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No author bio or headshot

Sunday, November 9, 2025

Society Women by Adriane Leigh


 Some invitations are meant to be declined. . . .

Ellie works as an accountant at her father’s successful investment company in New York City. She enjoys all the comforts her privileged lifestyle affords—a two-bedroom apartment overlooking Central Park, a generous trust fund, and a devastatingly attractive if often absent husband who works long hours for her father as well. Yet the introverted young woman who wants for nothing feels aimless and untethered. Ellie lost her mother at a young age and still has nightmares about her death. She sometimes sleepwalks at night and finds herself stumbling through the days.

But Ellie’s life takes a turn when she receives an anonymous invitation in the mail, asking her to join an elite women’s club known only as “The Society.” Intrigued, she begins to attend their lavish gatherings where she meets her new close companion, Aubrey, and enjoys the benefits of belonging to the group—friendship, sisterhood, and support from other successful and glamorous women. Then Ellie makes a horrifying discovery about the society and its “philanthropic work.” The women of The Society harbor dark, dangerous secrets—secrets that may implicate Ellie’s own family.

Wickedly twisty, Society Women is a gripping story of prestige, power, and dirty secrets that will hook you with every surprising turn and leave you questioning every truth until the final, shocking end.


Pick up your copy here...

Society Women: A Novel: Leigh, Adriane: 9780063473928: Amazon.com: Books



Adriane Leigh is a USA Today bestselling author of multiple novels and novellas. With appearances in publications such as Vogue Magazine and The Montreal Gazette, the award-winning author, in addition to writing, founded RARE: Romance Author & Reader Events, a community of internationally-renowned book conventions that draw thousands of readers and #1 bestselling authors to events around the world each year. 

She hosts a podcast, The Rebel Artist, and her books are translated into French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese.

She lives on Lake Michigan with her family.

For more information and for a schedule of events, please visit adrianeleigh . com.

Thursday, November 6, 2025

By The Fire We Carry by Rebecca Nagle


 Before 2020, American Indian reservations made up roughly 55 million acres of land in the United States. Nearly 200 million acres are reserved for National Forests—in the emergence of this great nation, our government set aside more land for trees than for Indigenous peoples.

In the 1830s Muscogee people were rounded up by the US military at gunpoint and forced into exile halfway across the continent. At the time, they were promised this new land would be theirs for as long as the grass grew and the waters ran. But that promise was not kept. When Oklahoma was created on top of Muscogee land, the new state claimed their reservation no longer existed. Over a century later, a Muscogee citizen was sentenced to death for murdering another Muscogee citizen on tribal land. His defense attorneys argued the murder occurred on the reservation of his tribe, and therefore Oklahoma didn’t have the jurisdiction to execute him. Oklahoma asserted that the reservation no longer existed. In the summer of 2020, the Supreme Court settled the dispute. Its ruling that would ultimately underpin multiple reservations covering almost half the land in Oklahoma, including Nagle’s own Cherokee Nation. 

Here Rebecca Nagle recounts the generations-long fight for tribal land and sovereignty in eastern Oklahoma. By chronicling both the contemporary legal battle and historic acts of Indigenous resistance, By the Fire We Carry stands as a landmark work of American history. The story it tells exposes both the wrongs that our nation has committed and the Native-led battle for justice that has shaped our country. 


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