Showing results for "Alcoholism" in Women's Fiction

Drinking cost Helen her marriage and custody of her seven-year-old son, Ollie. Once an aspiring art photographer, she now makes ends meet by taking portraits of schoolchildren and working for a caterer. Recovering from her addiction, she spends lonely evenings checking out profiles on an online dating site. Weekend visits with her son are awkward. He's drifting away from her fast.

Autumn, a mother-to-be, has an unsteady grip on the meaning of family. Her father abandoned her. She hasn’t seen her estranged mother in more than twelve years. And her marriage is crumbling. As Autumn struggles with painful memories of her childhood and fosters hopes for her own baby’s future, she must come to terms with the past to be the mother she and her child need her to be.

When Elsey's husband, Lukas, hands her a brochure for a weeklong mountain retreat, she knows he is really giving her an ultimatum: Go, or we're done. Once a successful painter, now with two young daughters and unable to find a balance between her identities as painter, mother, and, especially, wife, Elsey fills her days worrying, drinking, and descending into desperate unhappiness. So, brochure in hand, she agrees to go and confront the ghosts of her past. There, she meets a group of men and women who will forever alter the way she understands herself.

As the youngest of three sisters, Mika is thrown into turmoil by the death of her oldest sister, Meredith. She can’t admit that Meredith’s death has shaken her horribly, so she self-medicates with alcohol and finds herself in an abusive relationship. When her ex-boyfriend makes bail, Mika fears what he’ll do to her and her family. As her life unravels, she turns to the only coping mechanism she has, but this only accelerates her descent. When Brendan Ward, a recovering alcoholic, offers to sponsor her, Mika responds with fury.