Over the course of these nine stories, Mary Rechner brings frank, humorous, and illuminating narrative voice to the subjects of sex, marriage, family, and work. A grieving woman considers pursuing her dead lover's twin. A master gardener envies the freedom of her widowed friend. A poet considers which of her pieces reads best in a strip club. Resisting expected behaviors and received opinions, the protagonists of Nine Simple Patterns for Complicated Women fight to maintain their sense of self amid mounting personal and social pressure. Nominated for awards and the recipient of fellowships from organizations on both sides of the country, Rechner captures the journey of women who came of age at the end of the twentieth century and then tumbled headlong—in families, careers, and friendship—into a bewildering new era.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Series: Northwest Collection (#4)
ISBN: 9781955593052
Publication Date: May 16, 2023
Paperback, 5 x 8 in.

In 1936, Alan Hart published The Undaunted, his second bestseller. The novel, which follows young doctor Richard Cameron’s attempts to find an effective treatment for anemia, begins in the west coast city of Seaforth, a stand-in for 1920s Seattle. Within the medical-research plot, Hart also weaves the story of men—Cameron and radiologist Sandy Farquhar—whose personalities and bodies do not fit neatly within the norms of the social and medical establish-ment. Dedicated to medicine and the understanding that scientific knowledge can decrease human pain and suffering, Cameron and Farquhar must nevertheless pursue their careers at personal cost. Lauded in its time for its insights into the inner workings of the medical field, The Undaunted is also an important document of the struggle of the human heart.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Series: Northwest Collection (#2)
ISBN: 9781955593038
Publication Date: November 1, 2022
Paperback, 5 x 8 in.

Sheila Evans’ The Northport Stories offers a clear-eyed glimpse into the lives of characters drawn to, and shaped by, the rugged weather, geography, and social life of the coastal Pacific Northwest. The stories follow women and men as they encounter turning points in their marriages, relationships with adult children, and hopes for the future in the fictional coast town of Northport, Oregon. Past relationships haunt current crises, new identities are built in defiance of old patterns, and at all times, the larger world encroaches—or entices—in the form of tourists, development, and new ways of living. In skilled, wry sketches of adult life in the final decades of the twentieth century, Evans captures not only a way of living at a particular edge of the American map, but also deeper political and cultural conflicts that are a part of the history of America itself.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Series: Northwest Collection (#1)
ISBN: 9781955593014
Publication Date: November 1, 2022
Paperback, 5 x 8 in.

Nicholas Allander, thirty-one, carless, and careerless, is trying to pay off debt, impress his girlfriend, keep his job, cast off his introversion, and accept the world’s imperfections without abandoning his heart. He considers growing his beard, taking up alcoholism, abandoning scrounging, and owning an automobile. All the while he clings to his bicycle, a simple machine whose purpose and workings he grasps. Written in the wake of the 2008-2009 financial meltdown, this subtle, charming novel about the attempt to maintain one’s humanity in the face of constant affronts to it is as timely now as when first released.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Series: Northwest Collection (#3)
ISBN: 9781955593045
Publication Date: November 1, 2022
Paperback, 5 x 8 in.