New Releases by Susan Meyers

Two estranged sisters find that forgiveness never goes out of style when they inherit their mother’s vintage jackets, purses… and pearls of wisdom Estranged half-sisters Gabrielle Winslow and Lulu Quattro have only two things in common: mounds of debt and coils of unresolved enmity toward Bette Bradford, their controlling and imperious recently deceased mother. Gabrielle, the firstborn, was raised in relative luxury on Manhattan’s rarefied Upper East Side. Now, at fifty-five, her life as a Broadway costume designer married to a heralded Broadway producer has exploded in divorce. Lulu, who spent half her childhood under the tutelage of her working-class Brooklyn grandparents, is a grieving widow at forty-eight. With her two sons grown, her life feels reduced to her work at the Ditmas Park bakery owned by her late husband’s family. The two sisters arrive for the reading of their mother’s will, expecting to divide a sizable inheritance, pay off their debts, and then again turn their backs on each other. But to their shock, what they have been left is their mother’s secret walk-in closet jammed with high-end current and vintage designer clothes and accessories— most from Chanel. Contemplating the scale of their mother’s self-indulgence, the sisters can’t help but wonder if Lauren Weisberger had it wrong: because it seems, in fact, that the devil wore Chanel. But as they begin to explore their mother’s collection, meet and fall in love with her group of warm, wonderful friends, and magically find inspiring messages tucked away in her treasures — it seems as though their mother is advising Lulu and Gabrielle from the beyond — helping them rediscover themselves and restore their relationship with each other.

In this “big-hearted triumph of a novel” (Carolyn Pankhurst, New York Times bestselling author) for fans of Jennifer Weiner, seven women enrolled in an extreme weight loss documentary discover self-love and sisterhood as they enact a daring revenge against the exploitative filmmakers. Alice and Daphne, both successful and accomplished working mothers, harbor the same secret: obsession with their weight overshadows concerns about their children, husbands, work—and everything else of importance in their lives. Daphne, plump in a family of model-thin women, discovered early that only slimness earns admiration. Alice, break-up skinny when she met her husband, risks losing her marriage if she keeps gaining weight. The two women meet at Waisted. Located in a remote Vermont mansion, the program promises fast, dramatic weight loss, and Alice, Daphne, and five other women are desperate enough to leave behind their families for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The catch? They must agree to always be on camera; afterward, the world will see Waisted: The Documentary. But the women soon discover that the filmmakers have trapped them in a cruel experiment. With each pound lost, they edge deeper into obsession and instability...until they decide to take matters into their own hands. Randy Susan Meyers “spins a compelling tale” (Kirkus Reviews) and “delivers a timely examination of body image, family, friendship, and what it means to be a woman in modern society...Culturally inclusive and societally on point, this is a must-read” (Library Journal).

Women Under Scrutiny is an honest, intimate examination of the relationships we have with our bodies, hair, and faces, how we've been treated by the world based on our appearance-and how we have treated others. The women who created the serious, humorous, and courageous work in this anthology-women ages seventeen to seventy-six-represent an array of cultures and religions from across the United States. They are an extraordinary group of women who all share one thing: the ability to tell the truth.Women Under Scrutiny grew out of Randy Susan Meyers' new novel, Waisted, the story of two women who torture themselves and are brutalized by others around weight issues, who get caught in the war against women, disguised as a war against fat.¿"Meyers exquisitely explores body image, family, and marriage in this surprisingly deep novel. . . she dips into major issues of race, culture, obsession, and sisterhood. Taking on the timely topic of how a woman is perceived in today's society, she twists it into how far women will go to be what society deems right, and at what cost-a marriage, a family obligation, a personal goal?"- Booklist (about Waisted: A Novel)

Hip, hip, hooray for babies! From squish baby bellies to ticklish little toes, from crawling to clapping, and playtime to naptime, celebrate all the amazing things that babies can do!

Most contemporary public managers will work in some type of collaborative or networked arrangement at some time in their professional careers. More and more work in public administration and policy is now being done in collaborative formats, and while there are many studies, articles, and cases describing successful endeavors, a good deal of confusion persists about what, exactly, makes them work. What are the best practices? This book focuses on the processes, protocols, and incentives needed for successful collaborative endeavors. Moving beyond new public governance theories and the limits of new public management, Chandler uniquely focuses on the facilitative skills and tools that members and facilitators need for success in collaborative work. Written by an author with both academic and practical experience in organizing, developing, leading, and facilitating public-private collaboratives, this book has both an academic thrust and an action focus, drawing on case studies from the fields of health and human services to highlight important theoretical and/or practice points. Making Collaboratives Work is required reading for undergraduate and graduate public-administration students of collaborative management, nonprofit administration, organizational theory and practice, communications, public policy, and leadership. The book is also ideally suited to public administrators and nonprofit managers asked to work in public-private partnerships and collaboratives to solve complex problems.

"Of course, it began with a man. Aren't troubles with men a woman's daily bread? Worse yet, I was sleeping with the trouble and he wasn't my husband-a secret as undeserved as cruel. Adam's marriage crimes were cold but not savage, and certainly not worthy of infidelity." Isabelle needs one good reason to shave her legs with joy. Her husband broods over cholesterol, white flour, and his dental patients; her nervous eight-year-old son worries about everything, and her teen-aged daughter thinks Isabelle is an embarrassment. Isabelle begins her affair for many reasons-her husband treats her as an employee, her daughter turns more sour each day, and she feels she's holding onto pretty by her teeth. But the lust isn't worth the guilt, and when her daughter strikes up an unexpected friendship with the daughter of her lover, Isabelle's two worlds approach a devastating collision.

A provocative new novel by bestselling author Randy Susan Meyers about the seemingly blind love of a wife for her husband as he conquers Wall Street, and her extraordinary, perhaps foolish, loyalty during his precipitous fall. Phoebe recognizes fire in Jake Pierce's belly from the moment they meet as teenagers. As he creates a financial dynasty, she trusts him without hesitation--unaware his hunger for success hides a dark talent for deception. When Phoebe learns her husband's triumph and vast reach rests on an elaborate Ponzi scheme her world unravels. As Jake's crime is uncovered, the world obsesses about Phoebe. Did she know her life was fabricated by fraud? Was she his accomplice? While Jake is trapped in the web of his deceit, Phoebe is caught in an unbearable choice. Her children refuse to see her if she remains at their father's side, but abandoning him feels cruel and impossible. From penthouse to prison, with tragic consequences rippling well beyond Wall Street, Randy Susan Meyers's latest novel exposes a woman struggling to survive and then redefine her life as her world crumbles.

JAM HANDS! is a collection of 14 fun, imaginative, silly and wonderful stories written on a 1st and 2nd grade reading level. "My kids laughed out loud while reading this one tonight. There's nothing better in the world than hearing them giggle like that!"What is a DyslexiAssist Reader?This is a DyslexiAssist Reader - a book designed with a special font and layout specifically to help increase readability for children struggling with Dyslexia.When reading with this font and layout, independent research shows that 84% of dyslexics read faster, 77% read with fewer mistakes, and 76% recommend the font to others who also suffer.

When a teddy bear is lost by the child who loves him, the bear begins an amazing journey to get back home again. From swimming in the ocean with the fish, to flying in the sky with the gulls, to being found by a sailor, and then being carried off by the wind, the bear meets new friends and travels to many places he never dreamed of. Reminiscent of such classics as The Velveteen Rabbit and the award-winning Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, this tender picture book with beautiful seaside imagery will capture readers’ hearts with the bear’s summer adventure as he gets back home where he belongs. Also available by Susan Meyers Praise for Puppies! Puppies! Puppies! [STAR] “The rhyme shows the simplicity Meyers employs in a text so well structured that almost any adult (or new reader) can prance through with natural, bouncy enthusiasm.” —Booklist, starred review Also available by Amy Bates Praise for The Dog Who Belonged to No One [STAR] “The pencil and watercolor illustrations, featuring a palette of golden earth tones, echo the gentle sentiment of the narrative.” —School Library Journal, starred review [STAR] “Careful parallel storytelling and beautifully paced page turns allow both text and illustrations to develop the characters, establishing both worth and loneliness.” —Kirkus, starred review F&P level: K F&P genre: RF

Every day, everywhere, babies are born. They're kissed and dressed and rocked and fed--and completely adored by the families who love them. With an irresistible rhyming text and delightfully endearing illustrations, here is an exuberant celebration of playing, sleeping, crawling, and of course, very noisy babies doing all the wonderful things babies do best.

What To Do Before Your Book Launch is a guide for authors, covering everything from working with your publisher, to reading in public, to help for publicity and marketing, to using (and misusing) social media, to how to dress for your author photo . . . and far more, including cautionary tales, worksheets, timelines and etiquette tips.

“A complex and captivating tale” (The Boston Globe) which takes an engrossing look at the darker side of a marriage—and at how an ordinary family responds to an extraordinary crisis, forcing a couple to decide when a marriage is too broken to fix. Maddy, a social worker, is trying to balance her career and three children, but her husband’s verbal furies have made the family wary and frightened. Where once his fiery passion had been reserved for defending his clients, now he’s lashing out at all of them. She vacillates between tiptoeing around him and asserting herself for the sake of their kids—keeping a fragile peace—until the rainy day when they’re together in the car and Ben’s volatile temper gets the best of him, leaving Maddy in the hospital fighting for her life. Randy Susan Meyers takes us inside the hearts and minds of her characters, alternating among the perspectives of Maddy, Ben, and their fourteen-year-old daughter, Emma. A People magazine Book Pick, Accidents of Marriage is a “beautifully written, poignant, and thought-provoking novel” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) that will resonate deeply with women from all walks of life, ultimately revealing the challenges of family, faith, and forgiveness.

“Happiness at someone else’s expense came at a price. Tia had imagined judgment from the first kiss that she and Nathan shared. All year, she’d waited to be punished for being in love, and in truth, she believed that whatever consequences came her way would be deserved.” Five years ago, Tia fell into obsessive love with a man she could never have. Married, and the father of two boys, Nathan was unavailable in every way. When she became pregnant, he disappeared, and she gave up her baby for adoption. Five years ago, Caroline, a dedicated pathologist, reluctantly adopted a baby to please her husband. She prayed her misgivings would disappear; instead, she’s questioning whether she’s cut out for the role of wife and mother. Five years ago, Juliette considered her life ideal: she had a solid marriage, two beautiful young sons, and a thriving business. Then she discovered Nathan’s affair. He promised he’d never stray again, and she trusted him. But when Juliette intercepts a letter to her husband from Tia that contains pictures of a child with a deep resemblance to her husband, her world crumbles once more. How could Nathan deny his daughter? And if he’s kept this a secret from her, what else is he hiding? Desperate for the truth, Juliette goes in search of the little girl. And before long, the three women and Nathan are on a collision course with consequences that none of them could have predicted. Riveting and arresting, The Comfort of Lies explores the collateral damage of infidelity and the dark, private struggles many of us experience but rarely reveal.

Poetry. Winner of the 2012 Cider Press Review Editors' Prize. "Few poets writing today manage to teach us the beauty of the simple things with such precise language and tender care for detail... as Susan Laughter Meyers does in her new book MY DEAR, DEAR STAGGER GRASS. Meyers writes with the voraciousness of someone seeking to consume and somehow preserve every fiber of our senses; it is about collecting place, but it is also about collecting feeling, memory, and a way of being in the world." Lola Haskins"

Poems of discovery and loss pull the magical from the mundane Keep and Give Away was selected by Terrance Hayes as the inaugural winner of the South Carolina Poetry Book Prize sponsored by the South Carolina Poetry Initiative. In her first full-length collection, Susan Meyers guides us through her examination of life's ordinary moments and the seemingly ordinary images that abide in them to reveal the extraordinary. From minutia to marriage, crumbs to crows, nothing is too commonplace to escape her attention as she traverses terrains of childhood, loss, relationships, and death. Mostly lyrical and often elegiac, the poems of Keep and Give Away move along the rifts between the past and present, the lived and desired. The dominant emotions of the verses are deepened by observations rooted in our natural world, where birds are "yeses quickening the air" and the sky can "lap you up, and up." In the book's final section, marriage poems turn to fishing and gardening for their truths, contemplations that recognize the realities of a world governed by luck, imperfection, contraries, and—most of all—love.

This is the wonderful, engaging story of a sister's struggle to protect her brother, a man who calls her his guardian angel but refuses to be guarded.

"Community Practice in Occupational Therapy: A Guide to Serving the Community integrates the history of health care and principles of management, marketing, and economics to provide guidelines for community practice. It examines existing occupational therapy practices that serve specific age groups and encourages professionals to identify innovative ways to aid underserved areas in their community."--BOOK JACKET.

"Alternant les récits de deux soeurs sur une trentaine d'années, ce roman bouleversant aborde avec force et nuance les questions de la survie, de la culpabilité et de la lente reconstruction de ces petites filles meurtries par la vie." (cf. quatrième de couverture). [SDM].

This novel from a national bestseller "dives fearlessly into a tense and emotional story of two sisters anchored to one irreversible act of domestic violence" ( The Miami Herald). Lulu and Merry's childhood was never ideal, but on the day before Lulu's tenth birthday their father propels them into a nightmare. Lulu had been warned not let her estranged father in their apartment, but when he shows up drunk, he bullies his way past Lulu, who then listens in horror as her parents struggle. She runs for help, but discovers upon her return that he's murdered her mother, stabbed her five-year-old sister, Merry, and tried, unsuccessfully, to kill himself. Lulu and Merry are effectively orphaned by their mother's death and father's imprisonment. The girls' relatives abandon them to a terrifying group home. They come to learn they'll never really belong anywhere or to anyone—that all they have to hold onto is each other. For thirty years, the sisters try to make sense of what happened. Their imprisoned father is a specter in both their lives, shadowing every choice they make. One spends her life pretending he's dead, while the other feels compelled—by fear, by duty—to keep him close. Both dread the day his attempts to win parole may meet with success. Compulsively readable, The Murderer's Daughters is a testament to the family ties that bind us together and tear us apart. "All too believable and heartbreaking." — LA Times, 'Knock-Out Debuts' "An impressively executed novel, disturbing and convincing." — Boston Globe "Much like Janet Fitch's White Oleander or Jacquelyn Mitchard's The Deep End of the Ocean, [Meyers's] takes readers on an emotional roller-coaster ride." — Library Journal

Rhyming text follows the life of all sorts of puppies from when they are born "with eyes shut tight," through moving in with a new family and "getting bowls and beds and names," to learning how to do things grown-up dogs do.

Calra learn how a book shelf is made.

Praise for Dealers, Healers, Brutes & Saviors "These revealing stories capture what it takes today to lead your company through a crisis." -Heath Meriwether; Publisher, Detroit Free Press "I urge all senior managers to read this book.. Most crises are sudden, with intensity building in a couple of days like a tropical storm. Gerry's wisdom will prepare you before it becomes a category-4 hurricane." -Dr. Ilker Baubars, Senior Deputy Dean, Graduate School of Industrial Administration, Carnegie Mellon University "Dealers, Healers, Brutes, and Saviors is must reading for any executive, who too often does not recognize a crisis until it's too late. Gerald Meyers's keen insight into crisis management has been invaluable to many corporate CEOs, including me." -John R. Hall, Retired Chairman of the Board and CEO, Ashland, Inc. "There's a huge range of responses that are feasible when you're faced with a crisis. Knowing how real people chose, acted, and succeeded in managing their crises is critical to solid decision-making. That's what this book is all about and why it is worth the investment." -Edward A. Snyder, Dean, The Darden School University of Virginia "Confronted by crisis, the successful leaders profiled in this fast-moving, readable book universally embrace risk, take charge, move quickly, often, save their companies." -James A. Henderson, Chairman and CEO Cummins Engine Company

Meg is so excited--her best friend, Jenny, is coming to Redwood Grove for a visit!

If Amy asks Mark to help with their entry for the Haunted House Contest, will her friends ever stop teasing her?

If Brittany is chosen as a model for the new fashion catalog and Meg is left out, will it mean the end of the Always Friends Club?