★★★★★
Had me laughing out loud in a way I haven’t while reading a book in…well, I don’t know how long.
-Carolyn P., Amazon
★★★★★
Like eating a bag of delicious potato chips…you just can’t stop until the bag is empty!
-Mary L., Amazon
★★★★★
10/10. Devoured this in one sitting.
-Allison B., Goodreads
When You Read This
For four years, Iris Massey worked side by side with PR maven Smith Simonyi, helping clients perfect their brands. But Iris has died, taken by terminal illness at only thirty-three. Adrift without his friend and colleague, Smith is surprised to discover that in her last six months, Iris created a blog filled with sharp and often funny musings on the end of a life not quite fulfilled. She also made one final request: for Smith to get her posts published as a book. With the help of his charmingly eager, if overbearingly forthright, new intern Carl, Smith tackles the task of fulfilling Iris's last wish.
Before he can do so, though, he must get the approval of Iris' big sister Jade, an haute cuisine chef who's been knocked sideways by her loss. Each carrying their own baggage, Smith and Jade end up on a collision course with their own unresolved pasts and with each other.
Told in a series of e-mails, blog posts, online therapy submissions, text messages, legal correspondence, home-rental bookings, and other snippets of our virtual lives, When You Read This is a deft, captivating romantic comedy—funny, tragic, surprising, and bittersweet—that candidly reveals how we find new beginnings after loss.
Available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook
Privilege
★★★★★
This book is absolutely savage in the best possible way.
-Heather M., Goodreads
★★★★★
This book exceeded my expectations.
-Caroline T., Goodreads
★★★★★
I finished and immediately texted my girlfriends, “You have to read this book.”
-Collyn B., Goodreads
Carter University: “The Harvard of the South.”
Annie Stoddard was the smartest girl in her small public high school in Georgia, but now that she’s at Carter, it feels like she’s got “Scholarship Student” written on her forehead.
Bea Powers put aside misgivings about attending college in the South as a biracial student to take part in Carter’s Justice Scholars program. But even within that rarefied circle of people trying to change the world, it seems everyone has a different idea of what justice is.
Stayja York goes to Carter every day, too, but she isn’t a student. She works at the Coffee Bean, doling out almond milk lattes to entitled co-eds, while trying to put out fires on the home front and save for her own education.
Their three lives intersect unexpectedly when Annie accuses fourth-year student Tyler Brand of sexual assault. Once Bea is assigned as Tyler’s student advocate, the girls find themselves on opposite sides as battle lines are drawn across the picture-perfect campus—and Stayja finds herself invested in the case’s outcome, too.
Told through the viewpoints of Annie, Bea, and Stayja, Privilege is a bracingly clear-eyed look at today’s campus politics, and a riveting story of three young women making their way in a world not built for them.
Available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook
I was so incredibly sucked into this book that I finished it in a day even though I very much had other things to do and hadn’t planned to read all day. I can’t believe it hasn’t had more hype!
-Becca Freeman, author of Back Where We Started and The Christmas Orphans’ Club
★★★★
Talk about a page turner!
-Elizabeth D., Goodreads
★★★★★
I've read all of Mary Adkins books. I liked them all but this was my favorite.
-Kathy, Amazon
Palm Beach
Living in a tiny Queens apartment, Rebecca and her husband Mickey typify struggling, 30-something New Yorkers—he's an actor, and she's a freelance journalist. But after the arrival of their baby son, the couple decides to pack up and head for sunny, comfortable Palm Beach, where Mickey's been offered a sweet deal managing the household of a multimillionaire Democratic donor.
Once there, he quickly doubles his salary by going to work for a billionaire: venture capitalist Cecil Stone. Rebecca, a writer whose beat is economic inequality, is initially horrified: she pillories men like Stone, a ruthless businessman famous for crushing local newspapers. So no one is more surprised than her when she accepts a job working for Cecil's wife as a ghostwriter, thinking of the excellent pay and the rare, inside look at this famous Forbes-list family. What she doesn't expect is that she'll grow close to the Stones, or become a regular at their high-powered dinners. And when a medical crisis hits, it's the Stones who come to their rescue, using their power, influence, and wealth to avert catastrophe.
As she and Mickey are both pulled deeper into this topsy-turvy household, they become increasingly dependent on their problematic benefactors. Then when she discovers a shocking secret about the Stones, Rebecca will have to decide: how many compromises can one couple make?
Available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook
★★★★★
This book provided the catharsis I needed as I dealt with all the emotions that came with weekly lab draws and an elevated hCG that hung on for weeks before finally coming back down to zero. The only reason I ever put it down was because it was evoking emotions I knew I needed to pause to process, or because it was feeling so on-the-nose relatable in making me feel less alone that I wanted to savor reading it for as long as possible. Not to mention, Adkins writes in a colloquial style that I would emulate if I was a writer. Overall: it made me laugh, it made me cry, and it helped me refocus on what matters.
-Alyssa M., Goodreads
★★★★★
Somehow this book by someone who claims not to know what she believes, made ME believe in something more… something beyond. Just like her sister in the book, I believed her ghost story. I’m now keeping my eyes peeled for signs from another dimension, another fold in the multi-verse.
-Liz F., Goodreads
★★★★★
This was the FIRST book I’ve quickly read, cover to cover, in 4 years.
-Carly, Goodreads
You Might Feel a Little Pressure: Finding Wonder After Miscarriage
When Mary Adkins became pregnant with her second kid at thirty-nine, she was thrilled. Instead of a smooth pregnancy, she’d lose three pregnancies over nine months, a journey that would lead her to question more than just her fertility. Having long believed that hard work equals success, she found herself facing an ideological crisis: If sheer effort couldn't produce her greatest want— another baby—where did she go from here? And if she couldn't control this, what else was out of her control?
Available in paperback and ebook