Eighty-year-old Dora, the narrator of a story that began a half century earlier, is bonding with an unlikely set of friends, including Jackie Hart, a restless middle-aged wife and mother from Boston, who gets into all sorts of trouble when her family moves to a small, sleepy town in Collier County, Florida, circa 1962.
With humor and insight the novel chronicles the awkward North-South cultural divide as Jackie, this hapless but charming "Yankee," looks for some excitement in her life by accepting an opportunity to host a local radio show where she creates a mysterious, late-night persona, "Miss Dreamsville," and by launching a reading group--the Collier County Women's Literary Society--thus sending the conservative and racially segregated town into uproar. The only townspeople who venture to join are regarded as outsiders at best--a young gay man, a divorced woman, a poet, and a young black woman who dreams of going to college.
This brilliant fiction debut by Amy Hill Hearth, a "New York Times "bestselling author, brings to life unforgettable characters who found the one thing that eluded them as individuals: a place in the world. Inspired by a real person, "Miss Dreamsville and the Collier County Women's Literary Society "will touch the heart of anyone and everyone who has ever felt like an outsider longing to fit in.

"Never losing faith, we waited through the many years of struggle to achieve our rights. But women weren't just waiting; women were working. Never losing faith, we worked to redeem the promise of America, that all men and women are created equal. For our daughters and our granddaughters today we have broken the marble ceiling. For our daughters and our granddaughters now the sky is the limit." --Nancy Pelosi, after being sworn in as Speaker of the House
When Nancy Pelosi became the first woman Speaker of the House, she made history. She gavelled the House to order that day on behalf of all of America's children and said, "We have made history, now let us make progress." Now she continues to inspire women everywhere in this thought-provoking collection of wise words--her own and those of the important people who played pivotal roles in her journey.
In these pages, she encourages mothers and grandmothers, daughters and granddaughters to never lose faith, to speak out and make their voices heard, to focus on what matters most and follow their dreams wherever they may lead. Perhaps the Speaker says it best herself in the Preface: "I find it humbling and deeply moving when women and girls approach me, looking for insight and advice. If women can learn from me, in the same way I learned from the women who came before me, it will make the honor of being Speaker of the House even more meaningful."
This is a truly special book to share with all the women you know. It is a keepsake to turn to again and again, whenever you need to be reminded that anything is possible when you know your power.

Warm, feisty, and intelligent, the Delany sisters speak their mind in a book that is at once a vital historical record and a moving portrait of two remarkable women who continued to love, laugh, and embrace life after over a hundred years of living side by side.

Their sharp memories show us the post-Reconstruction South and Booker T. Washington; Harlem's Golden Age and Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Paul Robeson. Bessie breaks barriers to become a dentist; Sadie quietly integrates the New York City system as a high school teacher. Their extraordinary story makes an important contribution to our nation's heritage--and an indelible impression on our lives.

From the bestselling author of "Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years" comes the inspiring true story of Marion "Strong Medicine" Gould, a Native American matriarch, and the Indian way of life that must never be forgotten.
Amy Hill Hearth's first book, "Having Our Say," told the true story of two century-old African-American sisters and went on to become an enduring bestseller and the subject of a three-time Tony Award-nominated play. In ""Strong Medicine" Speaks," Hearth turns her talent for storytelling to a Native American matriarch presenting a powerful account of Indian life.
Born and raised in a nearly secret part of New Jersey that remains Native ancestral land, Marion "Strong Medicine" Gould is an eighty-five-year-old Elder in her Lenni-Lenape tribe and community. Taking turns with the author as the two women alternate voices throughout this moving book, Strong Medicine tells of her ancestry, tracing it back to the first Native peoples to encounter the Europeans in 1524, through the strife and bloodshed of America's early years, up to the twentieth century and her own lifetime, decades colored by oppression and terror yet still lifted up by the strength of an enduring collective spirit.
This genuine and delightful telling gives voice to a powerful female Elder whose dry wit and charming humor will provide wisdom and inspiration to readers from every background.