A Hole In My Heart

Geneen Roth’s legions of fans have always responded to her humor and honesty, her warmth and savvy. Those qualities, so present in The Craggy Hole in My Heart and The Cat Who Fixed It, take us deep into the story of a remarkable twenty-pound cat, Mister Blanche, and Geneen’s beloved father, Bernard, and the ways in which each taught her to love without reservation and to accept the fact that she might someday lose those whom she believed she could not live without. In these remarkable, inspiring, and joyous pages, we discover along with Geneen how to break free of the same fears that may drive us to eat or drink or shop too much. Fear of being vulnerable, fear of death, fear of losing what we want most: These are the demons that can inhibit our ability to embrace life freely and fully. Come meet Mister Blanche and the charming Bernard and immerse yourself in a poignant and funny story that is Geneen’s best. As her loyal readership already knows: It’s not about food, it’s not about the cat . . . it’s always been about love and how to live with it—and never live without it!

'Wonderful, astonishing drawings... A masterclass in the sorrow and joy of being human, and a powerful reminder that nothing is more earth-shattering than love.'— Meg Rosoff The mother of a daughter with Down's Syndrome shares her family's journey—in beautiful black and white drawings—from hospital to home, and from early years to school, in this moving, wise and unsparing graphic memoir. On Mother's Day 2001 Henny Beaumont gave birth to her third child. For the first four hours, her baby seemed no different from her two other little girls. When the registrar told Henny and her husband that their daughter might have Down's Syndrome, she thought that her life was over. How would she be able to look after this baby, who might die, and manage her other two children at the same time? How could this weak little baby, who needed so much more from Henny than her other two children, provoke such feelings of hatred and resentment? And how would she learn to love her? If she can't trust her own reactions to Beth, how could she expect other people to overcome their prejudices and ignorance about her condition? Hole in the Heartis a moving, funny, ironic and refreshingly honest look at living with a child who has special needs. Henny's remarkable journey speaks not only to parents who have had a similar experience and the medical and care professionals who try to help them, but to every one of us who feels anxiety about our children – wondering whether they are achieving enough, whether we do enough for them, and whether we love them enough. As the PE teacher asks: 'Who's really got the special needs here?'

In the days before Roe v. Wade, an ambitious young journalist, abandoned by her beau, leaves Michigan for a dream job on the city desk of a Rochester, NY newspaper. Burned once, she's eager for love, but as the only Girl in the newsroom, she's more concerned about finding allies and making friends. When a new leading man appears, she recognizes a kindred spirit. Soon her bylined stories claim front-page space. However, when she becomes pregnant, she must switch her attention from deadlines to decisions. With adoption on the horizon, she pushes her man to make a commitment. Sadly, he wants her, but not their daughter. Will Dusky ever find the little girl she longed to raise, and if she does, what will be the fallout from their years apart? In Hole in My Heart, the author uses her skills as a journalist to report on the social history and long-term consequences of family separation. If you like true stories with strong women narrators, you’ll love Lorraine Dusky’s timely and heart-rending memoir about motherhood, identity and love. Written by a leader in the movement to reform adoption practices and the first to come out of the era's closet of shame. With footnotes, bibliography and index.

The effects of childhood abandonment and fatherlessness on adults

A stunning novel about the transformative power of love, perfect for fans of 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher. Sixteen-year-old physics nerd Aysel is obsessed with plotting her own death. With a mother who can barely look at her without wincing, classmates who whisper behind her back, and a father whose violent crime rocked her small town, Aysel is ready to turn her potential energy into nothingness. There’s only one problem: she’s not sure she has the courage to do it alone. But once she discovers a website with a section called Suicide Partners, Aysel’s convinced she’s found her solution—Roman, a teenage boy who’s haunted by a family tragedy, is looking for a partner. Even though Aysel and Roman have nothing in common, they slowly start to fill in each other’s broken lives. But as their suicide pact becomes more concrete, Aysel begins to question whether she really wants to go through with it. Ultimately, she must choose between wanting to die or trying to convince Roman to live so they can discover the potential of their energy together.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist ventures into postwar Eastern Europe and discovers a people rising from the ashes of Nazi genocide. Weaving together the stories of old and young, disenchanted and enthusiastic, this luminous cultural group portrait takes readers deep into the still-dark soul of Eastern Europe.

At age 21 after nursing school in Bangkok, I met an impossibly handsome American GI who taught English to a group of nurses. We quickly fell in love, but it was unrequited. When he asked me to marry him, I could not answer, torn between my strict upbringing and my new and confusing desires. Soon thereafter my true love was gone, sent back to the United States completing his tour of duty in Thailand. Within a few months I received a letter from Freddie's friend John, who wrote that Freddie, the man I loved was getting married. The news devastated me and left me feeling empty and incomplete. A part of me had been torn away and I was left with a hole in my heart. Over the course of the next 40 years I wanted to mend that part of me and heal my heart. The only way was to find Freddie and tell him how I truly felt. If I died without finding Freddie I felt I would leave this earth with my eyes open and die with a hole in my heart.

When 12-year-old Nora learns that her favourite cousin, Lizzie, is about to have risky open-heart surgery, she wonders if her family will ever feel whole again, and if she can find the courage to mend her own broken heart.