22 FRAGEN AN DEIN HERZ, DIE DEIN LEBEN MIT LIEBE FÜLLEN de Christine Dohler

Discovering the intuitive wisdom of your heart and finding support and serenity.

22 FRAGEN AN DEIN HERZ, DIE DEIN LEBEN MIT LIEBE FÜLLEN
(22 Questions Addressed to Your Heart That Will Fill Your Life with Love)
by Christine Dohler
Goldmann, February 2024

There are so many questions about love and life, fundamental ones being: Exactly what is love? Will I simply be found by love or should I go looking for it? How can I share love? After Christine Dohler began to consult her heart as her most adept compass, life began opening up from a completely different and more truthful perspective. In this inspiring book, the author explores 22 questions about love – and the answers arrive authentically and intuitively from the heart. They are universal and encouraging, impart confidence, and open up a liberating perspective on true love. Accompanied by many practical exercises and impulses, this book is an invitation to self-reflection.

With practical tips, tools, and impulses for communicating with your own heart
For fans of Karin Kuschik and Brianna Wiest.

Christine Dohler studied journalism and communication science at the University of Hamburg and trained at the Henri Nannen School of Journalism. She is the managing director of copywriting at Emotion Slow and writes for FAS, Die Zeit, SZ-Magazin, Emotion, Brigitte, and Flow. She is also a trained systemic coach and meditation trainer.

MORNING PAGES de Kate Feiffer

When her professional and family life collide, a playwright starts journaling every morning to push through her writer’s block in this laugh-out-loud and fresh take on family, friendship, and the chaos of midlife.

MORNING PAGES
by Kate Feiffer
Regalo Press, May 2024
(via Kaplan/DeFiore)

Elise Hellman was once heralded by audiences and critics as a “playwright to watch.” Then they forgot all about her. When a prestigious theater company unexpectedly offers her a generous commission to write a new play, she has an opportunity to turn her career around. With sixty-five days left until her deadline, Elise starts scribbling a few pages of stream-of-consciousness first thing every morning as a way to get over her writer’s block—a technique called Morning Pages, popularized in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.

What emerges is a witty confessional in which Elise chronicles her life with her teenage stoner son and her overbearing and eccentric mother, who is losing her memory but not her profanity. She writes about her lingering feelings for her ex-husband, her best friend who is acting oddly, and the confusing encounters she has with a handsome stranger in an elevator. As she writes, the marked-up scenes from her play, Deja New, are revealed, as a story within the story.

MORNING PAGES is about what life throws at you when you’re trying to write. It is both a humorous exploration of the creative process and a relatable coming-of-age tale for the generation sandwiched between caring for their parents and caring for their kids.

Kate Feiffer, a former television news producer, is an illustrator, and author of eleven highly acclaimed books for children, including Henry the Dog with No Tail and My Mom Is Trying to Ruin My Life. MORNING PAGES is her first novel for adults. Kate currently divides her time between Martha’s Vineyard, where she raised her daughter Maddy, and New York City, where she grew up.

MAX d’Avi Duckor-Jones

It was a loneliness I often felt. To be physically present and part of something, but elsewhere in my mind, silently seeking other lives I should be living instead.

MAX
by Avi Duckor-Jones
Affirm Press (Australia), June 2024
(via Kaplan/DeFiore)

Max is about to finish high school. On paper he has everything – the girlfriend, the grades, the class- clown best friend, the loving family – but under the surface he is floundering. Grappling with questions about his birth parents and his sexuality, he feels that there is a seed of badness deep within him that will inevitably be exposed. After an incident at the end-of-year party sets Max’s world to crumbling, he must finally figure out who he is and where he came from – and who he is allowed to love. Max is a beautiful coming-of-age novel from an exciting new voice in New Zealand fiction.

Although trained as a lawyer, Avi Duckor-Jones gained his MA in creative writing from Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters in 2013. His travel writing has been published with BBC Travel, The NZ Listener and Lonely Planet among others. Avi has worked as a writing instructor and trip leader for National Geographic, directed a school in Ghana, and is the winner of the reality television competition, Survivor New Zealand. His first novel « Swim » won the 2018 Viva la Novella award. He currently lives on Waiheke Island with his wife and son, where he enjoys open water distance swimming and works as an English Teacher at Waiheke High School.

A HITWOMAN’S GUIDE TO REDUCING HOUSEHOLD DEBT de Mark Mupotsa-Russell

A thriller that hits the target.

A HITWOMAN’S GUIDE TO REDUCING HOUSEHOLD DEBT
by Mark Mupotsa-Russell
Affirm Press, September 2024
(via Kaplan/DeFiore)

Olivia Hodges used to do horrible things – back when she worked for a Spanish crime syndicate – but she fled that life and moved home to Australia, building a family in the hippie, hipster community of the Dandenong Ranges.

When a small-time criminal gang brings tragedy to her family, superstitious Olivia believes it’s the universe demanding payment for her crimes. She wants revenge, but has to get it without adding to her karmic debt. So she creates situations where these bad men get themselves killed through their anger, ego and greed – all while trying to mislead the cops long enough to finish what she started.

Olivia’s voice is astounding: she’s cynical, witty and deeply human in a way that never feels forced. It’s quite a feat to write a novel that’s all-in-one package—a deliciously tangled thriller and a searing depiction of a marriage in crisis—and to make it so funny.

Mark Mupotsa-Russell lives in Australia. Before this book, he was a screenwriter, film reviewer cocktail columnist and PR consultant. He lives among the trees with his art therapist/superstar wife and hilarious son. When not writing, he obsesses about movies and martial arts.

HIGH FUNCTIONING de Judith Joseph

The first book to unmask the hidden face of depression. If you look fine on the outside but don’t feel fine on the inside, learn five tools to break the cycle of High Functioning Depression and experience more joy in your life.

HIGH FUNCTIONING:
Overcome Your Hidden Depression and Reclaim Your Joy
by Dr. Judith Joseph
Little, Brown Spark, April 2025
(via Kaplan/DeFiore Rights)

Many of us experience periods in our lives when something feels “off”: when we struggle to find joy in happy moments, and take little pleasure in things we used to enjoy. We might be motivated and productive at work, pulling our weight at home, and conducting a normal social life—but behind that façade we are barely surviving, and certainly not thriving.

We’re all familiar with what depression can look like, but there’s another, lesser known face to this illness. High functioning depression (HFD) doesn’t conform to the image of depression that typically comes to mind. As a result, people with HFD often have no idea why they are suffering, or what to do about it.

In High Functioning, Dr. Judith Joseph reveals that what we’re feeling is not simply “negativity” or stress. Drawing on original research, client cases, and her personal experience with HFD, Dr. Judith radically shifts the way those of us with HFD see ourselves, and empowers us with five simple tools to reclaim our lives from this widespread yet poorly understood condition.

By following her 5 V’s – validation, venting, values, vision, and vitals – we can wake up happier, find more satisfaction in our relationships, and feel better in the present while also looking forward to the future.

Judith Joseph MD, MBA, is a board-certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist and researcher who specializes in mental health and trauma. She is the founder of and chief investigator at Manhattan Behavioral Medicine, New York City’s premier clinical research site, a clinical assistant professor in child and adolescent psychiatry at NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan, and chairwoman of the Women in Medicine Board at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. As one of social media’s favorite psychiatrists, Dr. Judith gets over 15 million views a month. Her Instagram, full of funny, role-playing videos and revealing insights, got more than 10 million impressions and her TikToks were viewed more than 5 million times just last month alone. She holds an undergraduate degree from Duke as well as a medical doctorate and master’s in business administration from Columbia.