A life-affirming memoir about survival, renewal, and finding a community.

Before The Lost Kitchen became a world dining destination, Erin French was a girl roaming barefoot on a 25-acre farm, a teenager falling in love with food while working the line at her dad's diner and a young woman finding her calling as a chef at her restaurant tucked into a 19th century mill. This singular memoir—a classic American story—invites readers to Erin's corner of Maine to share the real person behind the "girl from Freedom" fairytale, and the struggles that have taken all of her strength to overcome, and that make Erin's life triumphant.

Erin opens up to the challenges, stumbles, and victories that have led her to the exact place she was ever meant to be, telling stories of multiple rock-bottoms, of darkness and anxiety, of survival as a jobless single mother, of pills that promised release but delivered addiction, of a man who seemed to offer salvation but in the end ripped away her very sense of self. And of the beautiful son who was her guiding light as she slowly rebuilt her personal and culinary life around the solace she found in food--as a source of comfort, a sense of place, as a way of bringing goodness into the world.

“Erin’s story is full of passion and courage, and when you read this book, you will walk away feeling inspired and encouraged in your own life.”

— Joanna Gaines

A promise could betray you.

It’s 2008, and the inauguration of President Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated Black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He’s eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to—and was forced to leave behind—when she was a teenager. She had promised her family she’d never look back, but Ruth knows that to move forward, she must make peace with the past.

Returning home, Ruth discovers the Indiana factory town of her youth is plagued by unemployment, racism, and despair. While her family is happy to see her, they remind her of the painful sacrifices to give Ruth a shot at a better future—like the comfortable middle-class life she now enjoys. Determined, Ruth digs into the past. As she uncovers secrets her family wants to hide, she unexpectedly befriends Midnight, a young white boy who is also adrift and looking for connection. When a traumatic incident strains the town’s searing racial tensions, Ruth and Midnight find themselves on a collision course that could upend both their lives.

“A deep dive into how we define family and what it means to grow up Black… beautifully crafted.”

— Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author

A missing girl. A broken woman. A truth about to come to light…

Anna Hart is a seasoned missing persons detective with too much knowledge of the darkest side of human nature. When tragedy strikes her personal life, Anna, desperate and numb, flees to the village of Mendocino to grieve. She lived there as a child with her beloved foster parents and believes it might be the only place left for her. Yet the day she arrives, she learns a local teenage girl has gone missing.

The crime feels frighteningly reminiscent of a time in Anna’s childhood, when the unsolved murder of a young girl changed the community Mendocino forever. As past and present collide, Anna realizes that she has been led to this moment. Her most difficult life lessons have given her insight into how victims meet predators. As Anna becomes obsessed with saving the missing girl, she must accept that true courage means getting out of her own way and learning to let others in.

"A beautifully written, sharply observed literary thriller with an extraordinary, unforgettable heroine. An unflinching look at the long shadow cast by trauma and the resilience it takes to survive, this is a novel of both great sadness and great beauty."

— Kristin Hannah, New York Times bestselling author

Rule #1: The poison must never be used to harm another woman.
Rule #2: The names of the murderer and her victim must be recorded in the apothecary’s register.

One cold February evening in 1791, at the back of a dark London alley in a hidden apothecary shop, Nella awaits her newest customer. Once a respected healer, Nella now uses her knowledge for a darker purpose—selling well-disguised poisons to desperate women who would kill to be free of the men in their lives. But when her new patron turns out to be a precocious twelve-year-old named Eliza Fanning, an unexpected friendship sets in motion a string of events that jeopardizes Nella’s world and threatens to expose the women whose names are written in her register.

In present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her wedding anniversary alone, reeling from the discovery of her husband’s infidelity. When she finds an apothecary vial near the river Thames, she can’t resist investigating, only to realize she’s found a link to the unsolved “apothecary murders” that haunted London over two centuries ago. As she deepens her search, Caroline’s life collides with Nella’s and Eliza’s in a stunning twist of fate—and not everyone will survive.

"Sarah Penner convincingly weaves three heroines and two timelines into one tale of poison, revenge, and the silent network of women helping other women in a world stacked against them.... A bold, edgy, accomplished debut!"

— Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author