Archives de l’auteur : WebmasterBenisti

DAUGHTERS OF THE BAMBOO GROVE de Barbara Demick

The heartrending story of twin sisters torn apart by China’s one-child policy and the rise of international adoption—from the author of the National Book Award finalist Nothing to Envy.

DAUGHTERS OF THE BAMBOO GROVE:
From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins
by Barbara Demick
Penguin Random House, May 2025
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)

On a warm day in September 2000, a twenty-eight-year-old woman named Zanhua gave birth to twin girls in a small hut nestled in bamboo behind her brother’s rural home in China’s Hunan province. The twins, Fangfang and Shuangjie, were welcome additions to her young family but also not her first children. Hidden in the hut, they were born under the shadow of China’s notorious one-child policy. Fearing the ire of family planning officials, Zanhua and her husband decided to leave one twin in the care of relatives, hoping each toddler on their own might stay under the radar. But, in late 2002, Fangfang was violently snatched away from her aunt’s care. The family worried they would never see her again, but they didn’t imagine she could be sent to the United States. She might as well have been sent to another world.

Following her stories written as the Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, Barbara Demick, author of National Book Award finalist Nothing to Envy, embarks on a journey that encompasses the origins, shocking cruelty, and long term impact of China’s one-child rule; the rise of international adoption and the religious currents that buoyed it; and the exceedingly rare phenomenon of twin separation. Today, Esther—formerly Fangfang—is a photographer in Texas, and Demick brings to vivid life the Christian family that felt called to adopt her, having no idea that she was kidnapped. Through Demick’s indefatigable reporting and the activist work to find these lost children, will these two long-lost sisters finally find each other, and if they do, will they feel whole again?

A remarkable window into the volatile, constantly changing China of the last half century and the long-reaching legacy of the country’s most infamous law, DAUGHTERS OF THE BAMBOO GROVE is also the moving story of two sisters torn apart by the forces of history and brought together again by their families’ determination and one reporter’s dogged work.

Barbara Demick is author of Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea; Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood, and Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town, published by Random House in July 2020. She was bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times in Beijing and Seoul, and previously reported from the Middle East and Balkans for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

INTO THE STORM de Cecelia Ahern

A storm lies ahead of her. Freedom lies beyond it …

INTO THE STORM
by Cecelia Ahern
HarperCollins UK, October 2024
(via Park & Fine Literary and Media)

Enya is driving home on a dark and rainy night in the Dublin mountains when she stumbles across an accident. As a fierce storm rages, a teenage boy her own son’s age lies between life and death. A doctor, Enya provides life-saving CPR. But soon the police are asking her about the accident, the taxi driver first to the scene is stalking her at work and at home, and her soon to be ex-husband is wondering why she was on those Dublin mountain roads in the first place.

Fixated on the teenage boy who now lies in a coma, Enya leaves her husband and takes a temporary physician’s gig in a small rural village. Her life spiraling, she hopes to anchor and empower herself again in a new community. But as the wheel of the year turns and she tries to reconcile her past and forge a new future, the secrets that drove her from Dublin begin to rise, and Enya is faced with an inevitable choice that could lead to the destruction of life as she knows it.

A terrific story! It had me completely gripped from the very first page.” —Karin Slaughter, NYT Bestselling author of Pretty Girls

Cecelia Ahern was born and grew up in Dublin. Her novels have been translated into thirty-five languages and have sold more than twenty-five million copies in over fifty countries. Two of her books (Ps, I Love You and Love, Rosie) have been adapted as films and she has created several TV series. She and her books have won numerous awards, including the Irish Book Award for Popular Fiction for The Year I Met You. She lives in Dublin with her family.

STAY CALM, IT’S JUST YOUR BRAIN de Richard S. Gallagher

Start your 7-week journey to managing anxiety.

STAY CALM, IT’S JUST YOUR BRAIN:
A 7-Week Journal for Rewiring Your Anxiety
by Richard S. Gallagher
Callisto/Sourcebooks, December 2024

When anxiety strikes, there are proven tools to help you keep calm and manage your feelings―but they only work if you’re in the habit of using them. This journal shows you how to build that habit, with therapeutic exercises and guidance that make working through anxiety easier.

  • A 7-week plan ― Each week you’ll focus on a different aspect of anxiety, how it affects you, and simple ways to work through it―like noticing your anxiety triggers, practicing mindfulness, and facing your fears.

  • Expert advice ― Find advice and reassurance from therapist Richard Gallagher, who specializes in treating anxiety disorders.

  • Positive change ― As you record your thoughts, read encouraging affirmations, and practice each technique, you’ll learn to stop anxiety before it starts.

Richard S. Gallagher, LMFT is a psychotherapist based in upstate New York who specializes in treating anxiety disorders. A former customer service executive and public speaker, he is the author of numerous communications skills books including What to Say to a Porcupine, The Customer Service Survival Kit, and Stress-Free Small Talk.

DOLL PARTS de Penny Zang

The Virgin Suicides meets I Have Some Questions For You with a dash of the horrors of Nightbitch in this debut suspense following one woman as she begins to uncover the truth of the death of her estranged best friend and the Sylvia Plath adoring girls they attended college with decades ago.

DOLL PARTS
by Penny Zang
Sourcebooks Landmark, August 2025

For Nikki and Sadie, life at Loch Raven College was supposed to be filled with poetry and days spent trying on thrifted clothes. But there’s a dark story that plagues the school halls – that of the Sylvia Club, a campus legend surrounding the death of multiple Sylvia Plath adoring girls, all written off as suicides. Aspiring writer Nikki finds herself drawn to the stories, so much so that dead girls begin to haunt her dark imagination. To satiate her obsession, Nikki begins to dig into the deaths, and she soon suspects there’s more to the story than just a tragic group of sad girls – a suspicion that will lead to a tragedy of its own, one that will tear her and Sadie apart.

It’s been twenty years since Sadie saw her estranged friend. Now, Nikki is dead. And when Sadie ends up pregnant with Nikki’s grieving husband, she finds herself stepping into her seemingly perfect life. But Nikki’s eerily preserved home seems to hold clues for Sadie from beyond-the-grave, and soon, she’s spiraling into a deep obsession that will make her question her own reality. Because it seems Nikki never stopped looking for answers about what happened to the girls of the Sylvia Club, and she may have been its latest victim.

A provocative and irresistible debut, DOLL PARTS is at once an exploration of the dark chasms that break apart friendships, an ode to the aching beauty of girlhood, and a sharp portrayal of grief that can physically haunt you.

Penny Zang is from Maryland and graduated with an MFA in Fiction from West Virginia University. Her work has appeared in the Potomac Review, Louisville Review, and Superstition Review, among others. She is the 2024 Elizabeth Boatwright Coker fiction fellow via the South Carolina Academy of Authors. She lives in South Carolina, where she teaches English at a two-year college.



STAR AND THE STOLEN WISH de Stephanie Sosa

A standalone middle-grade adventure with a touch of magic and series potential that is perfect for fans of The Manifestor Prophecy and The Last Cuentista.

STAR AND THE STOLEN WISH
by Stephanie Sosa
on submission
(via Mushens Entertainment)

Twelve-year-old Star has only ever had one dream: to sail the high seas with el Capi, her ex-pirate father, his crew of pirate hunters, and her best friend Maite. But with her disposition for seasickness, and a surprise visit from her estranged Lady Mother, Star’s dream is sinking fast. Her Lady Mother plans to take her far away from both her beloved father and any chance of an adventurous life as soon as she turns thirteen, instead mooring her to a landlocked capital city she has never seen.

With just one week before her dreams are swept away, Star catches a break when she overhears the notorious Coralillos gang, el Capi’s nemeses, plotting to steal a Wish from the governor. If she can stop them and save the day, then her parents would have to see that she is meant to spend her life protecting the seas.

After surviving her mother’s shopping trips, she meets a nosey young boy, Ciro, who warns her that wishes can be dangerous if not used with great care, convincing Star even more that she’s doing the right thing. With Ciro and Maite’s help, Star is able sneak into the governor’s mansion just in time to stop the thieves from stealing the wish. Unfortunately, she absorbs its magical powers when the vial containing it breaks in her hand.

Now in hiding from the guards, the gang, and her family, and with only Maite and Ciro left to confide in, she has to protect the wish from those who want nothing less than to eradicate her family and put themselves in power—all while resisting the urge to use the life-changing magic for herself.

Stephanie Sosa was born and raised in Mexico, and received a bachelor’s degree in English and French from Amherst College, and a master’s degree in Publishing and Writing from Emerson. She now continues to live in New England, where she fights the colder temperatures with tea and blankets. In her writing, she combines her Mexican heritage with magic, and a healthy pinch of complicated family dynamics. When she’s not writing, she can be found at the movies or deeply immersed in a DnD campaign.