10 November 2025
Welcome to Books By My Friends!
Today we are featuring:
- DESTINEE BROOKE
- JANE CARY AND KAAREN CARY FORD
- MOLLY KENDALL
- BARBARA JEAN MILLER
- DAVID MOULD
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DESTINEE BROOKE
BOOK: The Girl Who Lived: A True Story of a Resilient Heart
AUTHOR: Destinee Brooke
GENRE: Memoir
BLURB: Destinee was four years old when her mom tried to make her kill herself. The trajectory of her life was forever altered as the emotions associated with that night later became the foundation on which she would build her identity. After living with different families throughout the years, and conforming to fit in, she became desperate to find somewhere to belong and be loved for who she was – baggage and all. She struggled to find reasons to stay alive as the demons of her own past, and the demons which plagued her family for generations, threatened to crush her spirit. This is a story of one girl’s journey to overcome loss, search for love, and find redemption.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Destinee Brooke has always used writing as a therapeutic outlet, starting at a young age. She started writing The Girl Who Lived: The Story of a Resilient Heart during a creative writing class her senior year of college after realizing the healing power of writing about her trauma. Since then, she’s graduated with degrees in both English Education and Creative Writing. She’s made it her mission to help others, her students included, work through their trauma and bring awareness of how to overcome generational pain. She lives in West Virginia with her son.
JANE CARY, KAAREN CARY FORD, Editor
BOOK: Tuscawilla: Stories of a Farm
AUTHOR: F. Jane Cary, Kaaren Cary Ford, Editor
GENRE: Memoir; History
BLURB: Tuscawilla: Stories of a Farm is a collection of stories by the late F. Jane Cary about farm life in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, in the middle of the twentieth century. Cary lived her entire life on Tuscawilla Farm, eventually managing it after the deaths of her brothers. This fascinating account of the realities of post-war farm life features P.O.W.s, the ins and outs of hog butchering, how to make the perfect apple butter and much more. Cary’s unique personality and love of the world around her shines through, and takes the reader back to an America that can be hard to recognize.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: F. Jane Cary (1923-1995) lived her entire life on Tuscawilla Farm, just outside of Lewisburg, West Virginia. She was the second daughter of the farm manager, and after the deaths of her father and two brothers, took on the position herself, managing all aspects of the farm from animal husbandry to gardening to cooking large meals for friends and family. In her youth, Cary had wanted to become a teacher, but ill health prevented her from finishing high school, and instead she instilled her love of West Virginia history and farming by instructing the many young people who worked for her. Well-known and well-liked, she rarely left home, and documented her experiences of the farm on many legal tablets, transcribed and edited by her niece, Kaaren Cary Ford, after her death.
MOLLY KENDALL
BOOK: Saving Ariel
AUTHOR: Molly Kendall
GENRE: New Adult Romance/Mystery
BLURB: Ariel Matthew enjoys escaping into the worlds and adventures of her favorite books, but she can’t escape her past, no matter how hard she tried to push it from her mind. Haunted by a traumatic event, Ariel struggles to find peace from her memories of what happened. When Axel Stone walks into the small coffee shop where she works, her world is changed forever, and she begins to believe that happiness might be possible. But neither one of them is ready for the devastation that ensues when both of their pasts come back with a vengeance.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Molly Kendall is quick-witted and quiet, and appreciates a dramatic story when she reads one, as well as crafting such tales of her own. She aims to inspire hope within her readers hearts as she shines light onto darker topics. When she doesn’t have her nose stuck in a book, you can find her at home with her husband, cats and bunnies.
BARBARA JEAN MILLER
BOOK: Last Ditch
AUTHOR: Barbara Jean Miller
GENRE: Regency Romance
BLURB: When a greedy, scheming relative drives Ellie Waltham and her mother from their home, her brother-in-law Gareth Delaney steps in, but safety is short-lived when Ellie is abducted in an attempt to force her to marry someone she knows intends to kill her so he can claim her inheritance. Only a last-ditch effort by Ellie will save her from certain death.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Barbara Jean Miller is an author, educator, and nature observer.
https://barbarajeanmiller.substack.com/
DAVID MOULD
BOOK: Mission to Madagascar: The Sergeant, the Jing and the Slave Trade
AUTHOR: David H. Mould
GENRE: Historical Biography
BLURB: In 1817, James Hastie, a 30-year-old East India Company sergeant, travelled to the court of Radama, ruler of the most powerful kingdom in Madagascar, to convince him to stop the export of slaves. Radama manipulated the envoy to assert power over the nobility who profited from the trade. Hastie became the British agent, and a trusted advisor to the king. Mission to Madagascar is based on his unpublished journals, one recently discovered. This is the first biography of a man, whom Sir Mervyn Brown, a former UK ambassador and historian of Madagascar, described as “one of the most important figures in the history of Anglo-Malagasy relations.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: David Mould, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Media Arts and Studies at Ohio University, has published books and articles on a range of historical topics, including news and documentary film in World War One, canals and railroads in the 19th century in the US Midwest, television coverage of the first Gulf War, post-Soviet media in Central Asia, and oral history. Born in the UK, he worked as a newspaper and TV journalist before moving to the US. His essays and articles have been published in Newsweek, Christian Science Monitor, Times Higher Education, History Ireland, History News Network and other print and online outlets. He has published three books on travel, history and culture. He is a frequent presenter at libraries and for adult learning classes.
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JOY E. HELD is an author, educator, editor, book coach, entrepreneur, and literary citizen responsible for this site and its contents. She is the author of
Writer Wellness: A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity (Headline Books, Inc., 2020)
Writer Wellness Workbook: A Guided Workbook and Journal to Accompany Writer Wellness: A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity (Headline Books, Inc., 2023)
The Mermaid Riot (Fire and Ice YA, 2024) Young Adult Historical Fantasy
She writes spicy historical fiction under a pen name.
She is the winner of multiple writing and book awards:
West Virginia Writers, Inc. Annual Writing Contest, Honorable Mention, Novel, 1998.
New York Book Festival, Honorable Mention, Writer Wellness, 2020.
Next Generation Indie Book Awards, Finalist, Writer Wellness, 2021.
Northeast Ohio Romance Writers of America, Member of the Year, 2020.
Northeast Ohio Romance Writers of America, First Book Award, 2020.
She is an adjunct faculty member in the Southern New Hampshire University Online MFA Creative Writing.
She is a proud graduate of Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA with an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction.
She is a member of The Authors Guild and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
Joy is the founder and CEO of My WRITEDAY Subscription Box for writers and readers.
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