New Releases by Holly Sloan

THE PAGAN WORLD Ancient Spiritual Systems That Shaped Humanity By Holly Sloan Before organized religion, before doctrine and dogma, humanity understood the world through pagan spiritual systems rooted in land, ancestors, cycles, and unseen forces. These ancient belief structures shaped how societies governed themselves, marked time, understood fate, honored the dead, and explained humanity's place within nature. The Pagan World explores the global pagan traditions that formed the foundation of human spirituality across Europe and beyond. From the British Isles to the Mediterranean, from the forests of Northern Europe to the sacred landscapes of the Baltic and Slavic worlds, this book traces how diverse cultures developed distinct spiritual identities while sharing remarkably similar structures of belief. The book examines European pagan traditions in depth, including Greek, Roman, Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, Finnic, and Arctic worldviews, revealing how geography, climate, and survival shaped religious practice. It explores civic religion, household worship, ancestor veneration, sacred groves, seasonal festivals, and the role of gods as active forces rather than moral authorities. Beyond Europe, the book places these traditions within a wider global context, comparing them with Indigenous and ancestral spiritual systems across the world. It reveals the shared foundations of pagan belief: reverence for land, cyclical time, spirits of place, ritual action, and communal responsibility. Rather than presenting paganism as a single religion, The Pagan World shows it as humanity's original spiritual language, a way of understanding reality that existed long before sacred texts or centralized authority. It explains how these systems functioned in everyday life, how they governed law and custom, and how they endured despite centuries of suppression. The book also examines how pagan traditions survived beneath later religions, preserved in folklore, seasonal festivals, household customs, sacred sites, and cultural memory. Churches built on ancient shrines, saints inheriting the roles of old gods, and festivals carrying older meanings reveal a world not erased, but transformed. The Pagan World is a comprehensive exploration of humanity's earliest spiritual inheritance, offering readers a clear understanding of how ancient pagan systems shaped civilization itself and continue to influence modern culture, belief, and identity. This book is ideal for readers interested in paganism, mythology, folklore, anthropology, ancient history, and the spiritual foundations of human society.

Holly Sloan is a never-married, educated, independent woman. Holly struggled sporadically with self-worth and value as a never-married. As a person who acknowledges gratitude on a daily basis, she has felt thankful in many ways for never having been married, especially based on feedback from various married peoples' stories. When Holly realized her negative self-value judgments were a result of outside comments and opinions, she wanted to appreciate the assets of bachelorette status openly. Holly also finds the humor in the stereotypes of being a never-married woman. When she found kittens in her yard at age 40, she felt that God left them specifically for her to get a laugh and told Him, "Well played." Holly thought that the rhymes that have played in her mind for two years might be worth sharing when she reflected on how many friends she has who have never married. For the record, if ever proposed to by the right person, Holly would say "yes."

In this heartwarming and funny middle-grade novel by the New York Times bestselling author of Counting by 7s, Julia grows into herself while playing a Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz Julia is very short for her age, but by the end of the summer run of The Wizard of Oz, she’ll realize how big she is inside, where it counts. She hasn’t ever thought of herself as a performer, but when the wonderful director of Oz casts her as a Munchkin, she begins to see herself in a new way. As Julia becomes friendly with the poised and wise Olive—one of the adults with dwarfism who’ve joined the production’s motley crew of Munchkins—and with her deeply artistic neighbor, Mrs. Chang, Julia’s own sense of self as an artist grows. Soon, she doesn’t want to fade into the background—and it’s a good thing, because her director has more big plans for Julia! Bubbling over with humor and tenderness, this is an irresistible story of self-discovery and of the role models who forever change us.