"I'm always careful not to disturb mom. A rude awakening can definitely set her off, especially if she wakes up hungry. I can't forget what she is. What she could do to me." Having a mom like Izzy meant Mia had to grow up fast. No extracurricular activities, no inviting friends over, and definitely no dating. The most important rule: tell no one of Izzy's hunger - the one only blood can satisfy. But Mia is tired of being her mother's keeper. She's...

"Set in the suburbs of Los Angeles and New York City, I Love You So Much It's Killing Us Both is an immersive journey into the life and mind of Khaki Oliver, who's perennially trying to disappear into something: a codependent friendship, an ill-advised boyfriend, the punk scene, or simply, the ether. These days it's a meaningless job and a comfortingly empty apartment. Then, after a decade of estrangement, she receives a letter from her former best...

Decades ago, J.A. Jance published some poems in a thin chapbook, not yet ready to tell the world directly about the terrible struggles in her life. At last, she's telling the whole story, in a narrative that explains what was happening in her life as she created each poem. She explores her past with burning words set in the dust of the Arizona desert, revealing in the process how her trying experiences helped her shape Detective J.P. Beaumont, a character...

"Thirty years after she first asked, "Why do women fall in love with convicted murderers?," Sheila Isenberg answers the question anew in the age of smartphones, mass shootings, celebrity worship of murderers, and modern prison dating. Through research and interviews with women who seek relationships with convicted killers via snail and email, and through conversations with psychiatrists, social workers, and prison officials, Women Who Love Men Who...

"Elissa and Rita have forever struggled to find their place in each other's worlds. Rita, an overreaching, makeup-addicted, narcissistic Manhattan singer couldn't be more different from Elissa, her gay, taciturn New England writer daughter. Stuck in an outrageous maelstrom of codependency, mother and daughter cannot seem to extricate themselves from the center of each other's lives. Motherland is their universal story: a kaleidoscopic journey built...

In her first book, Melody Beattie introduced the term codependency and established herself as a pioneer in self-help literature. Twenty-five years later, concepts such as self-care and setting boundaries are part of mainstream culture. This follow-up clears up misconceptions, identifies how codependent behavior has changed, and provides a new generation with a road map to wellness. Codependency, she shows, is not an illness but rather a series of...

"Since the dawn of civilization, men and women have been magnetically and irresistibly drawn into romantic relationships, not by what they see, feel and think, but more by invisible forces. Human Magnet Syndrome compelled relationships predictably begin with a dreamlike "love explosion," which predictably unfolds into a painful "seesaw" of love, pain, hope, and disappointment. Then, like clockwork, the codependent's soulmate dream lover predictably...