Spotlight: A Hidden Fate by Carol Efron

Genre: Women’s Fiction

A poignant novel of love under fire about a woman who must find the courage to face an uncertain future—and an impossible choice.

Baltimore, 1986. Julia and Matt are newlyweds, in love and eager to begin graduate school. Julia longs to leave behind haunting memories of her mother’s devastating decline in Maryland, but she unexpectedly learns the truth her father has hidden: Her mother died of a fatal genetic illness. Julia now faces a 50 percent chance of inheriting the same fate, and every child she longs to have will carry the same risk.

When an unplanned pregnancy rocks their careful plans, Julia and Matt face agonizing uncertainty and impossible choices. Desires and convictions pull them toward starkly different paths, each possibly leading to misery.

As the couple struggles to protect the fragile, fierce love that first bound them together, they face the cost of secrets and the ache of betrayal—but they also discover the hope of forgiveness.

Excerpt

A whiff of garlic and a smoky odor Julia couldn’t place enticed her as she and Matt entered a favorite Chinese restaurant the night before their much-debated move from Manhattan. She inhaled deeply. Would there be a Szechuan restaurant half as good in Baltimore

Probably not, she thought, and tried to push away a swarm of negative feelings about Maryland.

The hostess seated them at a narrow table. When Matt rested his calf against Julia’s, she appreciated the warmth of the love he conveyed in this familiar gesture. They’d dined here frequently when they started dating. She let herself feel nostalgic about meeting each other in a freshman astronomy class, stealing kisses in the NYU library, visiting iconic New York sites as they were falling in love. She wouldn’t have chosen to move from the Village if Matt didn’t believe—reasonably—that they needed to settle in Baltimore to further his career. But she adored him; she’d follow him where he had to go if it didn’t ruin her chance to become a historian.

“Just one more push on the packing and we’ll finish well before midnight,” he said after they placed their order. 

The meal turned out to be even more delicious than usual. They ate quickly. When they requested the check, the waitress asked if they’d like fortune cookies.

“Skip them,” Matt said. “We don’t have time.”

“Oh, but they’re fresh today,” the waitress said. “And maybe you’ll get good tidings.”

“Do you believe the fortunes?” Julia asked. They’d often chatted with this invariably upbeat waitress and Julia was curious about her views.

The woman shrugged. “No, but a fortune can be an opportunity to reflect on where we want to go. Perhaps especially useful since you’re newly married.”

“Good point,” Julia said. “Besides, I feel like something sweet.” She nudged Matt under the table as the waitress bustled off. “I know you don’t have any patience for superstition, but would you want to know your future? If you could?”

“Learning his future didn’t work out so well for Oedipus.”

She laughed. “You’re awfully literary tonight. Has something rubbed off on you from helping me pack all my novels?”

“Come on, I’m far more than a stodgy physicist.”

“I know you are, so stop teasing. I’d like an answer.” Maybe it was the weight of the move bearing down on her, but Julia’s question wasn’t casual. Given her mother’s fate, sometimes she worried about her own health. She lacked the almost reflex optimism she’d observed in most of her friends, none of whom had lost a parent in their childhood.

“Okay,” he said, “seriously, being a scientist, I like predicting things. But as to knowing my own fate . . . I’m not sure. How ’bout you?”

“It depends on the answers. I’d be thrilled to shed my concerns about getting my mother’s mental illness.”

He reached for her hand. “Oh Jule, her doctors said her psy-chosis was due to multiple sclerosis. And the articles you found in the library confirmed what your own doctor told you: that there isn’t much chance you’ll get MS.”

“I know, but—”

The waitress returned with the cookies. “I’ll miss seeing you,” she said. “I wish you all the best.”

They wished her the same. Matt cracked one cookie open and pulled out the slip. “Embrace uncertainty—it’s where the magic begins,” he read. “I’m not sold on that.”

“It might be good advice,” Julia said. “Perhaps.”

She took a cookie and extracted her fortune: “Seek not the future but the wisdom to shape it.” She handed him the slip. “Wise since I can’t know what life will bring.”

He glanced at it. “Agreed. I hope you enjoyed your cookies. But we should leave.” He smiled. “The movers might actually show up on time.”

“At the crack of dawn? Dream on. Still, we better be ready.” When they stood, Matt drew her to him and kissed her. She delighted in the softness of his lips and the tang of the ginger on his breath.

“We’re headed for a great year,” he said, kissing her again. Here he was, ridiculing fortune-telling but doing it himself.

Julia smiled to herself at his contradictions. She had to acknowledge her own: feeling apprehensive about moving to Baltimore yet eager to get there to start the first chap-ter of their married life.

She straightened her spine. “Let’s go,” she said. They stepped out into the bright lights and quirky sights of the West Village.

Buy on Amazon | Bookshop.org

About the Author 

Carol earned her MD from Johns Hopkins, served on the faculty at Stanford and John Hopkins, and built a thriving private practice in Silicon Valley. Working on the front lines of genetic testing, she felt an urgent need to write this book, and she would love to talk to you about how these real-world experiences inspired her debut novel, along with the broader implications of genetic testing.

Website * Substack * Facebook * X * Instagram * Amazon * Goodreads

Spotlight: Baby Steps by Chelsea Frank

When Girl, Interrupted meets Girls.

Darkly funny, provocative, and emotionally raw, Baby Steps is a debut novel about what happens when the coping mechanism that once helped you survive becomes the very thing preventing you from living. It’s also a story of unexpected pregnancy, eating disorder recovery, queer love, and chosen family. 

Avery Ash has spent years controlling her body, her appetite, and her relationships. Then she gets pregnant. A sharp, self-aware queer Jewish law student, Avery knows immediately that she wants to keep the baby. But when her eating disorder puts both her health and the pregnancy at risk, she enters residential treatment convinced she can outsmart recovery—doing just enough to protect the baby without surrendering the behaviors that have made her feel safe for years.

Instead, Avery finds herself thrown into a chaotic community of women and nonbinary patients whose friendships, rivalries, romances, secrets, and dark humor begin dismantling the carefully controlled life she’s built. As her pregnancy progresses and her body becomes increasingly impossible to manage, Avery must confront what her eating disorder has cost her, and whether she’s willing to give up control for the terrifying possibility of intimacy, motherhood, and a life she actually wants.

Buy on Amazon | Bookshop.org

About the Author

Writer Chelsea Frank was born and bullied in Los Angeles, California. She is the author of Baby Steps, a darkly funny debut novel about eating disorder recovery, unexpected pregnancy, queer love, and the messy ways we try to control our lives. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Forbes, Food & Wine, Business Insider, InStyle, Air Mail, Uproxx, and Brides, among others. She has also written for film and television and hosted the travel podcast Globe Thotting with Chelsea Frank. 

Chelsea is currently pursuing an MFA in creative writing at the University of San Francisco and lives in San Francisco with her dog, Bowie.

Spotlight: Sweet Harmony by Ellie Noor

(A Blue Spruce Hills Novella)

Publication date: October 22nd 2026

Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Holiday, Romance, Women’s Fiction

Who knew placing second in national baking competition would flood your inbox with opportunities?

Not Clara Whitman.

A third-generation baker, Clara knows that businesses like hers are entrusted, not merely handed over. But with options beyond Blue Spruce Hills suddenly in the mix alongside a looming rent increase, she’s at a crossroads. She can afford to keep the bakery going, but not while pursuing something new. 

In a small town where beloved establishments are slowly disappearing, however, even the idea of leaving feels traitorous.

When an up-and-coming violinist comes to town to settle the estate of his estranged grandfather and sell the music shop, he is both a distraction and a reminder that sometimes the real challenge in life is deciding how much of it you’re willing to change. 

Sweet Harmony is a spirited celebration of a woman who believes every problem has a solution—set against a backdrop of small-town loyalties, beloved holiday traditions, and the romance that sneaks up on her.

Excerpt

“Thanks for coming, Rye. I know this is early for you.”

“This is important.” Riley bites into the gingerbread and lets out a blissful sigh. “Mmm... just the right amount of spice.” 

She cradles the mug in both hands, inhaling deeply. 

I know that look, and instinctively brace for whatever she’s going to say. 

“You won’t forget me when you make it big, will you? If I have to keep sharing you, I’m afraid there won’t be anything left just for me.”

Her fear comes out the way it always does—half joke, half confession—and I respond the way I always do. 

With humor. 

Not because I want to minimize her feelings. She has good reason to feel the way she does. But if I take her words too seriously, we’ll spill over into territory that neither one of us can handle at six o’clock in the morning. Not when we have something important planned five minutes from now.

So I stick my tongue out instead. 

“Judging by the way my Instagram numbers jumped overnight, that might just be a possibility.” I wait a beat, then tone it down a notch just to be on the safe side. “Joking aside, it’s wild, considering I came in second.”

“I think America is affronted on your behalf.”

I almost snort. “Maybe they’re sympathy likes. Anyway, the winner deserved it.”

“Only you would be genuinely glad for someone else winning when we both know you needed that first place prize money for a refurb and the rent increase. What a wagon that Mrs. Wallace is, serving a rent increase to the bakery and the bookstore and who knows how many other businesses.” 

Wagon. This time I snort for real. “You are so Irish, you know that?”

Riley gives me a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry you came in second. You deserved to win.”

“It’s okay. Someone on the show told me that contestants who come in second are often more popular than the winners and, you know what, they might be right because... ” I pull my cell phone out of my apron. “My inbox has been blowing up.”

“Oh..?”

“Listen to this. A cruise line wants me for a holiday residency next year. Live baking demonstrations while influencers sip champagne.  Can you imagine?”

Riley starts picking at her sweater. “On a ship like… on the open seas?”

“No, ‘fraidy cat. They operate on the Hudson, the Mississippi, and other rivers. But that’s not all.” I scroll through more emails. “There’s a seasonal TV show, an invitation to teach at a new culinary institute and, wait for it, an offer to consult on a script for a Hallmark show about a baker. I haven’t even looked at the rest, and there are a dozen more since I last che—”

“Clara.” Riley’s mug lands on the table with a soft thud. “These are big-time offers.”

I don’t even try to stop myself from pulling a face.

“I know right?”

“It’s not surprising, though. You were definitely the fan favorite, and that smile of yours at the end...”

“Crying on national TV wouldn’t have fit my brand.” I laugh softly as I bite into my own gingerbread slice. A personal victory, considering half the town showed up at the community center to watch the finale last night. “Besides, I was genuinely happy for the winner.”

Buy on Amazon

Sweet Harmony Blitz

Spotlight: Believe in Us by J.H. Croix

A deeply betrayed heroine starting over. A brooding small-town Alaska firefighter, and two guarded hearts. 

When I discovered my ex was cheating with my best friend, it felt like I lost everything in a day. Months later, I packed up the broken pieces of my life and fled to Willow Brook, taking a job at the remote Heartfire Falls Resort. I came to the Alaskan wilderness for a fresh start. 

When Lincoln Silver walks into my office, I take in his tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed presence and tell my pulse to chill out. The Silver family owns the resort, so technically I work for Lincoln. Minor detail.

He's a rugged hotshot firefighter whose family owns the resort, and he carries his own grief. He’s the kind of man who never fails to show up and never fails to protect.

We are both haunted by our pasts, bumping into each other in the dark hours of the night when sleep refuses to come. When he catches me spiraling over the betrayal I left behind, he protects me. I swore I'd never want anything from anyone again, but as our shared midnights turn into a burning attraction, this devoted hero is determined to prove that some risks are worth it.

Perfect for readers who love slow burn romance with forced proximity tension, deeply emotional hurt/comfort, and a love story set against the rugged beauty of the Alaskan wilderness. 

Buy on Amazon | Bookshop.org

Meet J.H. Croix

USA Today Bestselling Author J. H. Croix lives in a small town in Maine with her husband and two spoiled dogs. She writes swoony contemporary romance with sassy women and alpha men who aren't afraid to show some emotion. Her love for quirky small-towns and the characters that inhabit them shines through in her writing. When she’s not writing, you can find her cooking, counting the turtles in her backyard pond, and running with her dogs, which is when her best plotting happens. 

Keep up with J.H. Croix and subscribe to her newsletter: https://jhcroixauthor.com/subscribe/

To learn more about J.H. Croix & her books, visit here!

Connect with J.H. Croix: https://jhcroixauthor.com/connect/

Spotlight: You Will Smile Again by Rodney D. Nielsen

You will smile again. Even if tonight you can't see how.

It's 3 a.m. and the worst moment is playing again. You pray, you replay, you bargain - and in church on Sunday you smile like nothing happened. Hear this: you are not crazy, and you are not faithless. You are wounded. And you are seen.

After 32 years of walking with people through their darkest nights - and surviving his own (losing his sight at twenty, a heart attack at thirty-eight, financial collapse, and the marital betrayal that broke his world) - Pastor Rodney D. Nielsen wrote the book he wishes someone had handed him: not a memoir, not another pep talk, but a practical, biblical pathway out of pain.

Whatever broke your heart - the grief no one sees, a marriage ending in divorce or separation, rejection or betrayal by someone you trusted, shame, shattered dreams, even church hurt that left scars instead of healing - this book meets you in your pain and walks you home to joy:

Name your hurt honestly - and stop faking fine

Escape the traps that keep hurting people stuck

Discover where God actually is when it hurts most

Practice daily habits that rebuild joy, step by step

Heal specific heartbreaks - betrayal, grief, broken relationships - with guided prayers and exercises

Walk the built-in 30-day devotional until the smile that returns is real

God is close to the brokenhearted. Your story doesn't end with pain - and you don't have to walk out of it alone.

For anyone hurting tonight - and a gift that says what you can't find words for.

Excerpt

An excerpt from Chapter 2 of You Will Smile Again (Even If You Can't See How Yet) 

Let me share a very personal story from my own family — my father's.

From the very beginning, his life seemed unwanted. He was born premature, weighing only two pounds. He was so tiny that the doctors weren't sure he would survive. While he lay in that hospital, fighting for his life, his own father tried to "solve" the problem by offering to give him away. He told his brother John, who had no children, that if John would just pay the hospital bill, he could have the baby. My grandmother refused. She put a stop to it.

But you can imagine how that kind of heart shows up later in words: "I tried to give you to my brother, but your mother wouldn't let it happen."

He grew up in a house ruled by an alcoholic, violent father and a mother so emotionally crushed by that abuse she could barely function. Home was not a refuge. It was a battleground.

When his father came home drunk, the atmosphere shifted in a moment. Rage filled the house. Words flew like knives. My grandfather would look at his own son and say things no child should ever hear:

"I regret the day you were born." 

"You should go live on the streets and beg like a dog.”

Those sentences didn't just sting in the moment—they branded him. Somewhere inside, a quiet question kept forming: Am I really that worthless . . . or is there more to my life than this?

By about eight years old, my father started doing something no child should ever have to do: He tried to stand between his father and his mother. He would literally step into the path of violence to shield her from blows. Between the ages of eight and fourteen, he suffered at least five concussions and even a broken back. He was still just a boy, but his body already carried the marks of war.

As he moved into the latter part of his childhood and early teens, the violence in the home only escalated. In one explosive family altercation, he was stabbed by his elder sister. The injury was serious, and it took a very long time for him to recover physically. Emotionally, it was another brutal reminder that in that house, he was never truly safe—from anyone.

At one point, his own mother had him thrown into juvenile hall. She called him an out-of-control delinquent, not because he was some hardened criminal, but very likely because she couldn't cope with the pressure and chaos in the home.

When he was finally released, a police officer pulled him aside and said something that marked him for life:

"Son, the best thing you could ever do is, the minute you turn eighteen, get as far away from your family as you can."

Think about that. A stranger in uniform could see what his own parents would not: Staying there would destroy him.

By fourteen, he was basically a street kid. He never knew what it felt like to come home to warmth, kindness, or the steady love of a nurturing parent. He knew what it meant to be afraid. He knew what it meant to feel unwanted. But he didn't know what it meant to be cherished.

Looking at his life then, you would have assumed the ending: angry, broken, maybe addicted, repeating the same cycle. That's what the past was writing over his future.

But God was not finished with his story. At eighteen years old, my father walked into a church. No fanfare, no spotlight. Just a broken young man stepping into a sanctuary, almost out of options. That day, he felt something he had never felt before: love. Real love. The love of God and the love of God's people.

In that atmosphere, he surrendered his heart to Christ. He didn't just "try church" for a season. He gave his whole life to Jesus.

By the time I was seventeen, I realized something that still moves me when I think about it: The man I admired most in the world, the man I respected more than any other, my very best friend—was my father. In my entire lifetime, I have never heard my father speak violently to my mother, to me, or to my siblings. Not once. A man who grew up with violence in his ears and in his bones made a decision—by the grace of God—that it would stop with him. He refused to be what his father had been.

That doesn't mean it was easy. Wounds like that leave marks. They create triggers. Certain tones, certain looks, certain situations can suddenly pull old memories and old emotions to the surface. My father carried those memories. He fought those battles internally more times than I will ever know.

He also carried the physical side effects of that violence for the rest of his life. Those injuries didn't simply vanish. They left him with pain, limitations, and reminders in his own body of what he had survived. But here's the miracle: While his body never fully forgot those wounds, God healed the wounds in his spirit. The bitterness didn't take root. The hatred didn't win. The cruelty that was poured into him did not come back out of him.

He became the most loving, patient, and kind father I could have imagined. Growing up, he was the dad every kid on the block wished they had. I watched my friends gravitate toward him because they felt safe around him.

His life has been completely poured out for others—a life dedicated to serving people, caring for the hurting, loving the unlovable. The chain broke.

My father's life is living proof that your past doesn't have to become your children's future. If God could take that boy and turn him into the most loving father I've ever known, then you have to stop and ask: What might He want to do with your story?

Buy on Amazon | Bookshop.org

About the Author

Rodney D. Nielsen writes for people trying to find their way back to joy after loss. He is the senior pastor of East Valley Pentecostal Church, one of the largest churches in California's Silicon Valley, and has spent more than thirty-two years sitting with grieving and brokenhearted people.

He has also been one of them. Rodney has walked through the loss of his health, the collapse of everything he had built, the end of his marriage, and grief he never expected to survive. He found his way back to joy.

You Will Smile Again (Even If You Can't See How Yet): How God Restores Joy After Deep Pain and Heartbreak is his first book. It details the path he took, written down so someone else can walk it. It offers a practical, biblical path back to joy after grief, betrayal, divorce, church hurt, and the kind of pain that does not resolve on schedule.

Rodney and his wife Jenale live in Northern California and have four children. When he is not writing or preaching, he is usually out on a long ride, working in the family walnut orchard, or tending a bonsai.

Spotlight: Drama Drama Drama by Gerilyn Bass Greenberg

For fans of Marianne Cronin and Clare Pooley, a warm, witty, page-turning tale of belonging, identity, and girl drama at every age centered on three generations of suburban Chicago women.

Mona is living the dream . . . until, at thirty-eight, her busy stay-at-home-mom life is upended. Her grandmother moves into assisted living, her teenager, Grace, doesn’t need her anymore, her charity work kicks her to the curb, and none of her friends are showing up for her.

Suddenly, Mona has no purpose—unless you count stress-eating. But she seems to be the only one struggling. Shy Grace—ignoring her mother’s dreams for her to join the “it kids” in drama club—is off finding her voice (and a new band) at Bubby’s retirement home and making friends. Even Bubby’s too busy fending off resident mean girls and finding romance to pay Mona much mind. Then, on top of it all, Mona’s twenty-year high school reunion goes viral for all the wrong reasons, leaving her convinced she’s wasted her life. But when tragedy strikes, she is forced to face the truth: The only person who can make you feel small is you—and sometimes you have to lose everything you thought defined you to find what truly matters.

Heartfelt, funny, and refreshingly honest, Drama Drama Drama is a celebration of second acts, self-worth, and learning to skip the drama and live your own life.

Buy on Amazon | Bookshop.org

About the Author

Gerilyn Bass Greenberg graduated Magna Cum Laude with Highest Distinction from the University of Illinois, but nothing could have prepared her for the rewards and challenges of being a stay-at-home mom. She and her husband raised three daughters, now grown. When she’s not traveling or playing racket sports, Gerilyn is chasing after Sammy, her spirited Wheaten Terrier, and dreaming up new stories. She lives in suburban Chicago with her husband.

Connect: Website