Amina Akhtar is a former fashion writer and editor. Her satirical first novel, #FashionVictim, drew rave reviews and acclaim and was covered in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Martha Stewart Living, Entertainment Weekly, Fashionista, Book Riot, CrimeReads, and more. Akhtar’s new book Kismet takes on the world of wellness and all the crystals that go with it. This #OwnVoices novel is set in Sedona, Arizona, where nature is just as much a character as anyone else. Akhtar has worked at Vogue, Elle, the New York Times, and New York Magazine, where she was the founding editor of the women’s blog The Cut. She’s written for numerous publications, including Yahoo Style, Fashionista, xoJane, Refinery29, Billboard, and more. She currently lives not too far from the Sedona vortexes. Kismet is her second novel. Learn more at aminaaktar.work 

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As a life-long cowgirl, licensed psychotherapist and teacher, Beth Anstandig has 25 years of experience developing, implementing and training people in Natural Leadership—a model she pioneered. She’s trained thousands of leaders and teams from some of the most renowned corporations, universities, and nonprofits, helping them awaken their innate power and awareness to live, lead and work with more authentic relationships and connection.

Beth owns Take a Chance Ranch in Morgan Hill, California providing leadership, culture and well-being programs through The Circle Up Experience. Together with an ever-growing menagerie of animals, Beth works with human herds onsite and online.

Her fresh perspective and work integrating basic animal practices into everyday human life have been featured in global media including BBC World Service, PBS, and Forbes. Beth has built a life with animals at its center so she can continue listening to the voice of her own animal, reclaiming the mammalian signal system that is alive and well within each of us. Her book is an invitation to you to do the same.

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Barbara Bourland is the author of Fake Like Me, a finalist for the 2020 Edgar Best Novel Award. Fake Like Me was published by Grand Central in North America, and riverrun abroad, and in Japan by Hayakawa. It was written with support from The Wassaic Project in Wassaic, NY.

Her debut novel, I’ll Eat When I’m Dead, was a Refinery29 Best Book of 2017 and Irish Independent Book of the Year. It was published in North America by Grand Central Publishing; in Ireland, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa by riverrun; and in Hebrew by Matar Press in Israel. 

Her third novel, The Force of Such Beauty, follows a retired Olympic athlete who marries a prince. It will be published by Dutton in 2022. 

Bourland's novels use imaginative escapism to process an emotional condition (in chronological order: I'll Eat When I'm Dead, the compulsion to control our appearance; Fake Like Me, the worry that we aren’t good enough; The Force of Such Beauty, the desire to be special) endemic to contemporary women’s lives. Cast in the mold of universal literary forms—the detective story, the thriller, the fairytale—they weave in and out of their genres, until the plot turns inside out and the narrative, upon reflection, appears to be something else entirely.

She's at work on her fourth novel, Fields and Waves, forthcoming from Dutton in 2024.

She lives in Baltimore.

Learn more at barbarabourland.com.

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Marilyn Simon Rothstein is the author of three novels: Crazy to Leave You (May, 2022), Husbands and Other. Sharp Objects (2018) and Lift and Separate 2016), winner of the Star Award presented by the Women's Fiction. Writers Association for Outstanding Debut. All are published by Lake Union.

Visit: https://www.marilynsimonrothstein.com/

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Eileen Grace Brill is a painter, writer, and Sign Language Interpreter who grew up outside of Philadelphia and graduated from Carnegie Mellon with a B.S. in Economics. She has written professionally for the restaurant, hotel, and commercial real estate industries. A Letter in the Wall is her first novel, though she has been a writer all her life, beginning at age four when she wrote a poem (filled with spelling errors!) for her babysitter. Eileen’s short story “Christmas Angel” appeared in the international literary magazine Beyond Words in 2021. She and her husband Eli raised their sons in her hometown of Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, where they still live, along with their two adopted mutts, Athena and Gaia.

Learn more: eileenbrill.com

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Lynda Cohen Loigman grew up in Longmeadow, MA. She received a B.A. in English and American Literature from Harvard College and a J.D. from Columbia Law School. Her debut novel, Two-Family House, was a USA Today bestseller and a nominee for the Goodreads 2016 Choice Awards in Historical Fiction.

Her second novel, The Wartime Sisters, was selected as a Woman’s World Book Club pick and a Best Book of 2019 by Real Simple Magazine. The Matchmakers Gift is her third novel.

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Multiple New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jill Shalvis lives in a small town in the Sierras full of quirky characters. Any resemblance to the quirky characters in her books is … mostly coincidental. Look for Jill’s bestselling, award-winning heartwarming and full of humor novels wherever books are sold and visit her website for a complete book list and blog detailing her city-girl-living-in-the-mountains adventures. Her most recent book, The Family You Make, was just published last month and her next book, The Friendship Pact, comes out in June.

To learn more, visit jillshalvis.com

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Nicole Baart is a New York Times bestselling author, collaborator, ghostwriter, and speaker. Her critically acclaimed novels have been featured in Southern Living, Country Woman, Book Page, Glam, and Yahoo! Lifestyle among several others.

Learn more at nicolebaart.com

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MONKEY BUSINESS is writer-producer Carleton Eastlake’s debut novel about a conflicted TV writer on location in Florida who becomes obsessed with a mysterious woman at a nightclub when she upends everything he thought he understood about life, limerence, bonded love, power, creativity, paintball combat, and what psychologists and philosophers refer to as the Hard Problem of human consciousness. Monkeys – and parrots – do play a role. As does Chairman Mao. And, in a cameo appearance, NASA. 

For more, visit carletoneastlake.com.

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Jennifer Weiner is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of nineteen books, including That Summer, Big Summer, Mrs. Everything, In Her Shoes, Good in Bed, and a memoir in essays, Hungry Heart. She has appeared on many national television programs, including the Today show and Good Morning America, and her work has been published in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, among other newspapers and magazines. Jennifer lives with her family in Philadelphia. 

Visit her online at JenniferWeiner.com.

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