Hetty "Handful" Grimké, an urban slave in early nineteenth- century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimké household. The Grimkés daughter Sarah has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. On Sarahs eleventh birthday in 1803, she is given ownership of ten-year-old Handful, who is to be her handmaid....

"Set in South Carolina during the tumultuous summer of 1964, The Secret Life of Bees also ushered young Lily Owens, a girl transformed by the power and divinity of the female spirit, into the canon of modern-day heroines. Lily and her fierce-hearted black 'stand-in mother escape the racism of their hometown and find refuge with an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, whose world of bees, honey, and the Black Madonna is mesmerizing."--Publisher's...

Sue 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...

"Sue Monk was a 'conventionally religious, churchgoing woman, a traditional wife and mother' with a thriving career as a Christian writer until she began to question her role as a woman in her culture, her family, and her church. From a jarring encounter with sexism in a suburban drugstore to monastery retreats and rituals in the caves of Crete, Kidd takes readers through the fear, anger, healing, and transformation of her awakening. Retaining a meaningful...

During the summer of 1964 in rural South Carolina, a young girl is given a home by three black, beekeeping sisters. As she enters their mesmerizing secret world of bees and honey, she discovers a place where she can find the single thing her heart longs for most.

"the story follows Hetty "Handful" Grimke, a Charleston slave, and Sarah, the daughter of the wealthy Grimke family. The novel begins on Sarah's eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership over Handful, who is to be her handmaid. "The Invention of Wings" follows the next thirty-five years of their lives. Inspired in part by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke (a feminist, suffragist and, importantly, an abolitionist), Kidd allows herself to go...

After sending her daughter off to school, Jessie finds herself feeling alone and restless in her 20-year marriage. When she receives a disturbing phone call, she embarks on a journey to her childhood home on a beautiful island to deal with the shocking behavior of her mentally unstable mother. Jessie meets and finds herself undeniably attracted to a Benedictine monk. Jessie undergo a spiritual, artistic, and erotic awakening.