Jo-Ann Mapson

a novel

Solomon's oak

After losing her teaching position at the local university, Mariah Moon will do anything to keep her gifted twelve-year-old daughter, Lindsay, in a prestigious private school -- which means moving in with her mother and grandmother in an apartment above The Owl & Moon Café. When her mother, Allegra, is diagnosed with leukemia, Mariah rises to the challenge of running the café: mastering her mother's famous fudge and chatting up customers -- including a man who might just reawaken her heart. Meanwhile, Lindsay's controversial entry in a major national science contest creates a minor maelstrom in the cosseted Monterey Bay community. And Allegra, with one last great love affair in her, will revisit a man she loved so many years ago, and disclose the biggest secret of the Moon family: the identity of Mariah's father. Will the Moon women recognize this as the moment to do away with their family history of dubiously fathered children, and learn to forgive others and themselves in order to move forward? In her poignant new novel, bestselling author Jo-Ann Mapson explores the complexities of love and family with the keen eye and stylistic grace that have made her books perennial favorites.

A Novel

The Owl & Moon Cafe

After Skye serves a stint in rehab and loses custody of her child, she vows to stay clean and be a good mother, but must find her daughter, Gracie, first, in this new novel from the author of Solomon's Oak. 30,000 first printing.

Owen's Daughter

Bonnie Jo Campbell

Cat Warren

Beth Kephart

Diane Lefer

Carol Guess

Sybil Baker

Ethel Rohan

Kim Chinquee

Kathleen Rooney

Tama Janowitz

Kathi Appelt

Sherrie Flick

Victoria Redel

Robin Black

Deb Olin Unferth

Kathy Fish

Molly Gaudry

Debra Di Blasi

Xu Xi

Ellen Meister

Jennifer Steil

Amina Gautier

Elaine Chiew

Tara Laskowski

Kristine Ong Muslim

Natasha Saje

Roberta Allen

Susanna Sonnenberg

Pamela Painter

Jillian Sullivan

Nancy Stohlman

Liza Gardner Walsh

Tara Campbell

Patricia McConnell

Lisa Kastner

Ellen Boscov

Kristin Burcham

Sara Chansarkar

Mare Chapman

Watsuki Harrington

Tara Masih

Robin OIivera

Alina Pleskova

Zalisa Rabin

Trisha Rodriguez

C. J. Spataro

Wendy Stetson

Chelsea Stickle

Julia Strayer

Girija Tripp

Fifty-two writers responded in exactly 100 words to the fine art photography of Meg Boscov to create an anthology of healing visions.

An Anthology of Micro Writing and Fine Art Photography

Healing Visions

Preparing for the birth of an unexpected baby, 41-year-old Santa Fe newlywed Glory Vigil spends time with her adopted college-age daughter, Juniper, who has fallen in love and who is haunted by memories of a sister who disappeared years earlier. By the award-winning author of Solomon's Oak. 20,000 first printing.

Finding Casey

After losing her teaching position, Mariah Moon moves back in with her mother and grandmother so she can continue to send her daughter to a prestigious private school, but Mariah soon learns how hard it is to be under her mother's wing once more.

Owl and Moon Cafe

It's been years since Skye Elliot has seen her biological father. He left when she was twelve, breaking her heart, and her life has not exactly been going uphill since. A drug user and alcoholic, Skye is given a choice after a car accident: jail or rehab. It takes eight months to get clean, but the day Skye is released, she has one plan: to be a good mother to her four-year-old daughter, Gracie. But first she has to find her. As she sets out on her unsettling, life-changing quest, she is joined by the last person in the world she ever expected to help her. 'If you haven't discovered Jo-Ann Mapson yet, you're in for the finest of treats - her books will move you from out-loud laughter to bittersweet tears.' - Jodi Picoult

Glory Vigil, newly married, unexpectedly pregnant at 41, is nesting in the home she and her husband Joseph have just moved to in Santa Fe, a house that unknown to them is rumored to have a resident ghost. Their adopted daughter Juniper is home from college for Thanksgiving and in love for the very first time, quickly learning how a relationship changes everything. But Juniper has a tiny arrow lodged in her heart, a leftover shard from the day eight years earlier when her sister Casey disappeared-in a time before she'd ever met Glory and Joseph. When a fieldwork course takes Juniper to a pueblo only a few hours away, she finds herself right back in the past she thought she'd finally buried. A love story, a family story, a story of searching and the bond between sisters, Finding Casey is a testament to human resilience.

USA Today called Jo-Ann Mapson's national bestseller, Bad Girl Creek, "a valentine to oceans of good women who survive bad beginnings and worse men." Now the author, hailed as "one of the most gifted writers of the contemporary urban West" (Los Angeles Times), brings back the hard-luck women of her acclaimed previous novel -- and introduces another indelible character into their midst. "Me, I need a map to tell which town I'm in. I feel like ten miles of bad road, wondering how I got to where I am...." After finally wising up to her drunken rodeo-crooner lover ("Imagine Kevin Costner with an overbite"), Mary Madigan saddles up her twin Border collies and takes her act on the road, leaving miles of heartache and highway behind. Maddy's journey takes her across the South -- singing in and winning one karaoke contest after another -- and inexorably closer to a dreaded showdown with her past. In Oklahoma City, she meets Rick, a journalist haunted by his own ghosts. After he loses his job, he travels to his childhood home to set up camp. When he first runs into Maddy, she gives him the cold shoulder. But he's charming, and persistent, and before Maddy knows it she's got a travel companion and a new lover (with an all-too-familiar set of tricks). Their travels will ultimately bring them to Bad Girl Creek, where the ladies know him as "Rotten Rick" -- because he broke Nance's heart -- and where the waters have already been troubled. Phoebe's pregnancy is life-threatening, Nance's breakup diet has turned dangerously successful, Beryl is still struggling to adjust to life after prison, and HIV-positive Ness is distancing herself from the "healthy" world -- if you can call it that. But these are the Bad Girl Creek ladies: they are resilient. They have character. And, above all, they love each other. The ways they all pull together, cheer each other on through good times and bad, and cope with every curveball life throws at them make up the heart and soul of this powerful new novel, a bighearted book certain to win this exceptional author a new legion of devoted readers.

A Bad Girl Creek Novel

Along Came Mary

In the conclusion of the Bad Girl Creek trilogy, Beryl, now living in Alaska with Earl, finds her life turned upside down by Earl's disappearance, forcing her to withdraw from everyone to work things out, while her friends Nance, Phoebe, and Ness confront their own heartaches, trials, surprises, and life challenges. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

Goodbye, Earl

Jo-Ann Mapson

About

Books

Join the club