If you’re looking for books that warm your heart this winter season, three luminous new reads offer stories of resilience, love, and the quiet strength of the human spirit. Colm Tóibín’s Long Island revisits Eilis Lacey from his beloved Brooklyn, weaving a tale of midlife reckonings and unspoken truths. Ruthie Chamichian-Smith’s memoir Resting Warrior shines with raw honesty and poetic grace as she transforms grief into survival and self-discovery. And Jodi Picoult’s By Any Other Name immerses readers in a dual-timeline journey that celebrates women’s creativity across centuries. Together, these books remind us that even in the coldest months, literature can illuminate the warmth of endurance, connection, and hope.

The Sequel to Ellis Lacey’s Bestseller Brooklyn

Colm Toibin’s Long Island is a novel of quiet restraint that revisits Eilis Lacey, introduced in Toibin’s first book Brooklyn, as she raises her family two decades later on Long Island. This sequel starts with a bombshell that immediately sets the plot in motion.

Eilis seems settled, even comfortable, living with her husband Tony, a Bensonhurst plumber, and their two teen age children. Tony’s dream of starting a construction business with his brothers out on the island, with a cluster of houses where the whole extended Fiorello family will live, has become a reality, and Eilis is very much entrenched in the family dynamic.

In the opening pages, fate deals her a wild card. A stranger shows up at Eilis’s door to inform her that his wife is pregnant and that Tony, who has done some repairs for the family, is the father. He insists that he’s not keeping “an Italian plumber’s brat” in his house with the decent children he fathered. Perhaps because this stranger is Irish, as is Eilis, she believes him and feels equally adamant that the child will not live with her.

Tony’s transgression, and his family’s response to embrace the baby as belonging to them, underscores Eilis’s alienation from the large Italian American family she married into. With her marriage in limbo, she decides to return to Enniscorthy for the first time in more than 20 years, to the home of her mother and childhood friends.

Her return sets off another plot of unfinished business with a former love interest and the woman he has settled upon in Eilis’s absence, who at one time was Eilis’s best friend.

The tension in this novel doesn’t come from dramatic plot twists, but from the quiet persistent pressure of unspoken truths. We learn to know the characters by observing their restraint and rebounding silence. Eilis’s internal life is nuanced with the layered emotional reality of midlife and the complexity of the human heart.

Note: It is really not necessary to read Brooklyn first, as this book stands alone in terms of plot and character development. GET THE DETAILS.

~Joan Pagano is the owner of Joan Pagano Fitness, NYC

A Story of Survival at Its Absolute Best

Resting Warrior by Ruthie Chamichian-Smith is such a beautifully written memoir told in prose and poetry.  The cover of this book is just gorgeous.  The story takes the reader through Ruthie’s heartfelt grief, identity loss and the rebuilding of her life transformed by trauma.  I loved everything about this book even though parts of it were sad and hard to read.

Ruthie takes us through her unimaginable pain-her beloved husband’s 15-year battle with cancer, the heartbreaking loss of her best and dearest friend, and then going through two cancer diagnoses of her own.  Her story unfolds in poetic and narrative fragments each while showing a glimpse into survival, resilience, and self-reclamation.  There is a lot of raw emotion in this book but told with such grace and honesty.

This book is not only suffering but so much more in my opinion.  It is clearly about survival, rediscovery of one’s self and most of all the human strength.  Ruthie is a true example of showing strength when enduring loss, pain, and grief.  She shares with the reader the process of rebuilding a life, showing that healing does not come easily or quickly but through small steps along the way.  You know the saying “simply one day at a time”, that is exactly what she does.  Her path to find herself again after so much pain and loss is extraordinarily inspiring.

Resting Warrior is for every woman who has asked “Who am I without the roles I have played”? It is a book of hard-won wisdom, radiant change, and the beauty that can rise from ashes and heartache.  I think this book is about survival at its absolute best in every way, told honestly and passionately. I cannot recommend this book enough.  It is a five-star read.  Make sure to read this truly inspiring memoir.  GET THE BOOK.

~Francene Katzen, advocate for parents of children with drug addictions, Richmond, VA

Thought-Provoking and Immersive

Jodi Picoult is one of my favorite writers and her latest novel By Any Other is on my must read lead list. It’s a sweeping dual-timeline novel that intertwines the life of Emilia Bassano, a brilliant but overlooked poet of Elizabethan England, with that of her modern-day descendant, Melina Green, who is fighting for recognition in today’s theater world. Picoult vividly reconstructs the world of Renaissance London—its plague-ridden streets, glittering court intrigue, and the precarious position of women whose voices were often silenced. Through Emilia, she explores the tantalizing possibility that Shakespeare’s plays may have been penned by someone else, a woman whose genius was hidden behind a man’s name.

The contemporary storyline, following Melina’s attempt to stage a play about Emilia, mirrors her ancestor’s struggles and highlights how systemic barriers against women’s creativity persist even now. Together, the two narratives form a powerful meditation on authorship, erasure, and resilience. Picoult’s trademark emotional depth and meticulous research make By Any Other Name both thought-provoking and immersive—a novel that challenges readers to reconsider literary history while celebrating the courage of women who dared to write against the odds. GET THE DETAILS.

~Cheryl Benton, aka “The Head Tomato”, New York