36 10 1 462 Sue Monk Kidd http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Y8Ed+I5HL._SX80_.jpg 8 Sue Monk Kidd's ravishing debut novel has stolen the hearts of reviewers and readers alike with its strong, assured voice. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the town's fiercest racists, Lily decides they should both escape to Tiburon, South Carolina--a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. There they are taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters who introduce Lily to a mesmerizing world of bees, honey, and the Black Madonna who presides over their household. This is a remarkable story about divine female power and the transforming power of love--a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come. 9717 71001 Sue Monk Kidd http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/216ZW416NEL._SX80_.jpg 6 Sue Monk Kidd's stunning debut, The Secret Life of Bees, has transformed her into a genuine literary star. Now, in her much-anticipated new novel, Kidd has woven a transcendent tale that will thrill her legion of fans and cement her reputation as one of the most remarkable writers at work today. Inside the abbey of a Benedictine monastery on tiny Egret Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, resides a beautiful and mysterious chair ornately carved with mermaids and dedicated to a saint who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her conversion. Jessie Sullivan's conventional life has been 'molded to the smallest space possible. So when she is called home to cope with her mother's startling and enigmatic act of violence, Jessie finds herself relieved to be apart from her husband, Hugh. Jessie loves Hugh, but on Egret Island amid the gorgeous marshlands and tidal creeks she becomes drawn to Brother Thomas, a monk who is mere months from taking his final vows. What transpires will unlock the roots of her mother's tormented past, but most of all, as Jessie grapples with the tension of desire and the struggle to deny it, she will find a freedom that feels overwhelmingly right. What inspires the yearning for a soul mate? Few writers have explored, as Kidd does, the lush, unknown region of the feminine soul where the thin line between the spiritual and the erotic exists. The Mermaid Chair is a vividly imagined novel about the passions of the spirit and the ecstasies of the body; one that illuminates a woman's self-awakening with the brilliance and power that only a writer of Kidd's ability could conjure. 2008 19060 Sue Monk Kidd http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51aMRfSGheL._SX80_.jpg 8 "I was amazed to find that I had no idea how to unfold my spiritual life in a feminine way. I was surprised, and, in fact, a little terrified, when I found myself in the middle of a feminist spiritual reawakening." ––Sue Monk Kidd For years, Sue Monk Kidd was a conventionally religious woman. Then, in the late 1980s, Kidd experienced an unexpected awakening, and began a journey toward a feminine spirituality. With the exceptional storytelling skills that have helped make her name, author of When the Heart Waits tells her very personal story of the fear, anger, healing, and freedom she experienced on the path toward the wholeness that many women have lost in the church. From a jarring encounter with sexism in a suburban drugstore, to monastery retreats and to rituals in the caves of Crete, she reveals a new level of feminine spiritual consciousness for all women– one that retains a meaningful connection with the "deep song of Christianity," embraces the sacredness of ordinary women's experience, and has the power to transform in the most positive ways every fundamental relationship in a woman's life– her marriage, her career, and her religion. This Plus edition paperback includes a recent interview with the author conducted by the book's editor Michael Maudlin. 201 93588 Sue Monk Kidd http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51J77KJ6PEL._SX80_.jpg 8 stood at the window watching the cocoon, which hung in the winter air like an upside–down question mark. That was the moment... I understood. Really understood. Crisis, change, all the myriad upheavals that blister the spirit and leave us groping– they aren't voices simply of pain but also of creativity. And if we would only listen, we might hear such times beckoning us to a season of waiting, to the place of fertile emptiness. Blending her own experiences with an intimate grasp of contemplative spirituality, Sue Monk Kidd relates the passionate and moving tale of her spiritual crisis at midlife, when life seemed to have lost meaning and how her longing for hasty escape from the pain yielded to a discipline of "active waiting." Comparing her experience to the formative processes inside a chrysalis on a wintry tree branch, Kidd reflects on the fact that the soul is often symbolized as a butterfly. The simple cocoon, a living parable of waiting, becomes an icon of hope for the transformation that the author sought. Kidd charts her re–ascent from the depths and offers a new understanding of the passage away from the self, which is based upon others' expectations, to the true self of God's unfolding intention. Her wise, inspiring book helps those in doubt and crisis recognize the opportunity to "dismantle old masks and patterns and unfold a deeper, more authentic self." When the Heart Waits, which first appeared in hardcover in 1990, has been embraced by t 68 98710 Sue Monk Kidd http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51CS6Z5YMBL._SX80_.jpg 8 One of today's most promising new Christian writers explores the thrilling possibilities of God's everlasting love. 9 2426428 Sue Monk Kidd http://a1.ak.lscdn.net/system/uploads/4e95f24a-ef6b-0759-9895-5438dc64c101/autoscale-80.png 8 68 85566 Sue Monk Kidd http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51fR5C4X1uL._SX80_.jpg 8 In Firstlight, bestselling author Sue Monk Kidd offers readers an intimate glimpse into the early years of her journey as both writer and spiritual seeker. Drawn from the author's early writings for Guideposts and, to a lesser extent, other publications, this selection of personal reflections and essays is organized around thirteen spiritual motifs and interwoven to create a compelling narrative about the author's spiritual awakening. Included are writings about the author's multiple roles as mother, daughter, wife, nurse, and writer. There are recollections about her extensive travels and reflections on her childhood and marriage. And there are musings on a stream of ordinary moments--watching a bird feeder, a homeless man, a golf tournament-- all of whih added richness and meaning to the author's journey. 23 2554148 Sue Monk Kidd http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51CK07BZ2WL._SX80_.jpg 7 A dazzling novel of passion and spirituality—the instant blockbuster bestseller from the author of The Secret Life of Bees Sue Monk Kidd’s phenomenal debut, The Secret Life of Bees, became a runaway bestseller that is still on the New York Times bestseller list more than two years after its paperback publication. Now, in her luminous new novel, Kidd has woven a transcendent tale that will thrill her legion of fans. Telling the story of Jessie Sullivan—a love story between a woman and a monk, a woman and her husband, and ultimately a woman and her own soul—Kidd charts a journey of awakening and self-discovery illuminated with a brilliance that only a writer of her ability could conjure. 28 2680813 Sue Monk Kidd http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41rvQc6389L._SX80_.jpg 7 An introspective and beautiful dual memoir by the #1 New York Times bestselling novelist and her daughterSue Monk Kidd has touched millions of readers with her novels The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair and with her acclaimed nonfiction. In this intimate dual memoir, she and her daughter, Ann, offer distinct perspectives as a fifty-something and a twenty-something, each on a quest to redefine herself and to rediscover each other. Between 1998 and 2000, Sue and Ann travel throughout Greece and France. Sue, coming to grips with aging, caught in a creative vacuum, longing to reconnect with her grown daughter, struggles to enlarge a vision of swarming bees into a novel. Ann, just graduated from college, heartbroken and benumbed by the classic question about what to do with her life, grapples with a painful depression. As this modern-day Demeter and Persephone chronicle the richly symbolic and personal meaning of an array of inspiring figures and sites, they also each give voice to that most protean of connections: the bond of mother and daughter. A wise and involving book about feminine thresholds, spiritual growth, and renewal, Traveling with Pomegranates is both a revealing self-portrait by a beloved author and her daughter, a writer in the making, and a momentous story that will resonate with women everywhere. 23 867641 Sue Monk Kidd http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51w7Z0qExEL._SX80_.jpg 7 From the bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bees comes a thoughtful, revelatory book of writings on self and spirit Before she won an international readership with her novels, Sue Monk Kidd was best known for her smart, passionate spiritual writings. Now many of those early stories and essays (most of which first appeared in Guideposts) are collected in one volume, organized around thirteen spiritual motifs. In Firstlight, Kidd charts her emergence as a writer and seeker; reflects on her roles as wife, mother, daughter, nurse, and artist; and assesses what she has learned in settings as far-flung as Africa and her own home. The result is an intimate, uplifting book, filled with moments of recognition and discovery. 3