Drumroll! Please put your hands together to celebrate FIVE beautiful new titles from our Book Mama community. You may have seen me post their pics last week from Carmel. One of my favorite thrills about being at my retreats (aside from the omg hotel-made pizza and late-night snort-laughter sessions) is racing out when the sun’s just right to take these book selfie pics by the shore.
Join me in celebrating and supporting (by buying their books and/or following them) writers like you who went from Idea to Done to Sold to Birthed in no time flat. Okay, who am I kidding? Books often take seemingly too long to make their way into the world, but one day you look up, and she’s HEEEEERE!
All I know is that this is more happy proof that literary dreams come true, and I have the best job in all the land, and publishing HAPPENS. So, hang on, friend. Like a tick, Mother F-er! (That references a terrific story in Beautiful Writers if I say so myself.)
I couldn’t love these writers and their books more. Without further ado, announcing . . .
TWO books from the most prolific Maia Toll, Letting Magic In: A Memoir of Becoming & Night School: Lessons in Moonlight, Magic, and the Mysteries of Being Human. Sister, the fact that you opened your STUNNING memoir #LettingMagicIn with a scene from our retreat in Carmel years ago is beyond. Your memoir is so dear to me. (Thank you for allowing me to, as you say, “Yell about it from the rooftops.” I’m your biggest fan, and I am trying to figure out how you crank out so many winners. You are truly magical.)
In Letting Magic In, Maia shares the story of her magical becoming—from the untimely death of a friend that leads her to abandon Brooklyn in favor of the small town of Beacon, NY, to take a yearlong sabbatical of exploration, and finally to Ireland, where she studied under an herbalist and learned the true magic of listening to the earth itself. This book is the story of pushing past the boundaries of what once seemed possible to discover the extraordinary all around us. In it, Maia shares how she learned to let magic in to live the life she longed for—one filled with curiosity, connection, and the deepest kind of inner knowing. In this soulfully written recollection—peppered throughout with magical learnings and rituals gathered along the way—Maia uncovers the things that change you unexpectedly and guide you to become the person you never knew you wanted to be but, perhaps, always were.
*Maia wrote this guest blog post for BookMama in 2018 about how her retreat experience gave her the confidence to become a writer, and it’s so beautifully written it still gives me goosebumps!
In Flow without the F*uckery, Eleanor O’Rourke does what she always does: Blows our minds with her fresh-fresh take on everything; this time, FLOW. It’s a riveting read, and I love love love it (and you, El, so much!).
What FWOTF’s about: Sometimes life is sticky. We make our best-laid plans but struggle with distractions, bemoan our lack of willpower, and find it hard to get anything done. Then there are those days when we’re in Flow. Rather than chasing the next thing on our checklist, momentum arises from the inside. One action moves seamlessly into the next. Life feels more like a spontaneous dance than a familiar routine. We’re inspired, creative, and full of energy. Flow can seem like a magical state that arrives randomly. We can’t control it any more than we can control falling in love. Or can we?
Find out how to make flow your natural state of being by releasing internal blocks and learned patterns. Once you transform these programs and become a clear channel for Flow, life force energy will move through you for killer creativity and fierce love, where life becomes infinitely more interesting! YESSSS!!!
With Do You Follow?, the amazing Jessica Bidonde has done the impossible (to me!) and written a thrilling THRILLER, a USA Today bestseller! It’s wild to remember Jessica’s first retreat, where she came working on a cookbook with football tail-gate party treats (delicious ones, but nothing to indicate her penchant for suspense). I did NOT see this one coming when she joined our Virtual retreat (I love it when my girls come back, as Eleanor also did… please do!), but it didn’t take two minutes to hook us our little group with its spine-tingling premise. I won’t give the shocking ending away, but trust me. You will never see it coming!
The points I can tell you include: Alexa lives a sheltered life with her widowed father, feeling stifled by his helicopter parenting. She secures a marketing job and apartment in New York City, hoping to sneak her way into adulthood. But her newfound freedom is cut short when her estranged twin sister, Beth, unexpectedly shows up at the doorstep of her tiny apartment after a long stint in a psychiatric setting.
Alexa has also spent time at the Weinstein Center but is determined to lead a normal life. She soon begins to date a YouTuber client, and according to Beth, something isn’t quite right with Curt. But Alexa shrugs her clingy sister’s warnings off. It’s Beth who’s crazy, after all . . . As the sister bond grows strained over Alexa’s relationship and career success, questions mount, and secrets unfold, revealing the wickedly dark shared history of the twin siblings. Things get increasingly complicated, and one deceptive act threatens everything Alexa has been working toward. It will be on her―and Beth―to claw their way out of this treacherous situation.
In Come Home to Your Heart: A Guided Journal for Harnessing Your Inner Wisdom and Falling Back in Love with Yourself, writing coach and podcaster Nadine Kenney Johnstone hypnotizes us with her gorgeous prose. Like all her books, this guided journal feels like a dream, a MUST-read for every creative.
The official book bio: Come Home to Your Heart, is an essay collection and guided journal that invites you to tune into your inner sage so that you can be reunited with who you truly are. There is an internal voice that says profound things when you sit still enough to listen, and these 28 writing invitations teach you how to harness your heart’s wisdom.
Nadine shares the little life moments and healing practices that restored her spirit in this nurturing guide. She draws upon her vast experience as a writing coach, professor, retreat leader, and meditation instructor to pass along to you the secrets of soul-centered journaling. Each chapter is a mini retreat reminding you that no matter how disconnected from yourself you might feel, you can never drift too far away because, ultimately, home is in your soul.
*I had one of my favorite all-time interviews on Nadine’s Heart of the Story podcast. You can listen here.
Amen. Amen. Amen. I LOVE you, ladies. Thanks for letting me tag along on this writerly journey with you. It’s the BEST!
As always, please let me know if I missed your title. I’ll bring it to the sea with me on October 2nd. 💚💜
Until then, my friend, write on! Remember, if you have the ache, you have what it takes!
Linda xo
PS. All books are shared with permission, of course! Win-wins are the only way to play. If any of my retreaters wants to be anonymous in name, pic, or book title + concept, I’m all about it! 🥰
PSS. Did you miss last month’s fun-in-the-sun book release pics from the sea? All eight of these latest releases were worth every bit of luggage weight wrangling to fly them to Carmel. You can see and read about them here.
PSSS. We’ve got one spot, maybe two, for the next Virtual Retreat starting on June 5th. The ladies are amazeballs and it’s gonna be LIT! Wanna hop on Zoom and chat about you joining our powerful pack? Wheeee! . . .
