Hello friend. Happy Friday! Today’s Indie Recommends Indie post features author Nicole Zelniker, author of the historical fiction From Where We Are. Featuring a variety of genres, here are 7 books for your consideration. As always, learn about Nicole’s book at the end of her recommendations. Let’s dive in! 🙂
Welcome to Armed with A Book, Nicole! Please tell me and my readers about yourself!
Thank you for having me! I’m Nicole (she/they), author of FROM WHERE WE ARE, which comes out with Vine Leaves Press on May 21. I’m also the founder of Knee Brace Press, where we publish creative work dedicated to mental and physical health, and a proud cat mom to my semi-feral tabby girl, Artemis. My debut young adult novel, ALL I KNOW SO FAR, comes out next year. When I’m not working on edits for that, I’m probably listening to musicals on repeat, posting about being chronically ill online, or bothering the aforementioned cat with my love.
Do you primarily read indie books or big publishers books as well? (Estimate %age of each for a month)
I used to read traditionally published books pretty exclusively, so I’ve been making the effort to add more indies to my list by finding books that interest me on social media or getting recs from close reader friends. Of the roughly 200 books I’ve logged on GoodReads in the last three or so years, forty-four have been indie – forty-five when I add my most recent read!
Nicole’s Indie Recommendations
All Water Has Perfect Memory by Nada Samih-Rotondo
Genre: Memoir
Published Year: 2023
Standalone
Life changes forever for six-year-old Nada when Iraq’s invasion of her birth country of Kuwait pushes her mother to immigrate with her to the United States. Just as she finally settles into her strange new existence apart from her father in Rhode Island, learns English, and grasps the fact that she is there to stay, Nada begins discovering revelations that changes her perspective on her world and family. With an imaginative blend of folklore and history that explores the relationship between our bodies, ancestors, and the lands that hold us, All Water Has Perfect Memory is a memoir that takes readers through the author’s ancestral origins-the coast of Palestine, Kuwait, and the shores of Rhode Island- and explores generations of silence and eventually, connection.
A stunning debut filled with lyrical prose, ALL WATER HAS PERFECT MEMORY is an important story by an author with something important to say. I initially picked this book up because Nada and I are small press twins (go, Jaded Ibis Press!) and was delighted to discover a beautifully written and fleshed-out historical memoir. Nada’s book is both a tale of familial love and mistakes and a masterclass in speculative fiction.
Nada is the central narrator of the story, as it is a memoir, but she also incorporates elements of her mother’s story, and her grandmother’s story, and her great-grandmother’s story, in an homage to the women that made her who she is. This is a book for anyone interested in family histories and intergenerational trauma, for readers hoping to educate themselves on what it’s like to be exiled from your own home, and folks interested in an infusion of memoir and mysticism.
Wander by Allison Stalberg
Genre: Fantasy
Published Year: 2019
Standalone with a possible future sequel
People in the world of Awei don’t always understand the magic that surrounds them. Air-born humans form fully grown from the sky, but with the minds of children. Guardians haunt old lands. Spirits make the most of society.
Raised by a winged spirit in an enchanted forest, air-born Wander is a stranger to the world. Forced out of her home by a magical fire, she finds herself in lands scarred by war. With the disappearance of her winged friend and guardian, Masu, she has to dive deep Awei’s conflict and politics to find him.
Not everyone is willing to help. Elemental spirits are far more interested in their own disputes, land-born armies scour the earth, and even Wander’s allies may not be what they seem. As Wander decides who she can trust, she discovers powers that no human, air-born or otherwise, should be able to wield. Only one thing remains certain: she will get her winged friend back, no matter the cost.
WANDER is of my favorite books I’ve read in the last few years. The world building stood out to me as especially brilliant and I fell in love with the characters – especially Wander, the protagonist, and Masu, her guardian and the catalyst for Wander’s adventures. The description of Wander’s chronic pain rang especially true to me as someone who lives with fibromyalgia, and several times it felt more like I was watching the events unfold more than reading a book.
Something that especially stood out to me in reading this book was how often Wander was allowed to make bad decisions, or how often there were decisions she had to make with no right answer. I love watching women be messy, especially as queer women and especially as the main character. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for in-depth high fantasy with chaotic women MCs, who loves found family and non-romantic relationships, and who wants to read more books with asexual and/or chronic pain representation.
Living Color: Angie Rubio Stories by Donna Miscolta
Genre: Historical fiction
Published Year: 2020
Standalone
We first meet Angie Rubio at age five, being scolded by her kindergarten teacher for not knowing how to skip properly.
Set in California in the 1960s and ’70s, Living Angie Rubio Stories takes Angie year by year from kindergarten through high school, offering a portrait of the artist as a shy, awkward Mexican-American girl.
This book traces Angie’s formation as a writer, from the child who loves Scrabble and jots down new words she learns in a notebook to the teenager publishing controversial opinions about success and belonging, a person whose voice is now “loud-enough-to-be-heard.”
Another Jaded Ibis Press title, LIVING COLOR was my introduction to Donna Miscolta and now it is my goal to read everything she has ever written. Angie is so beautifully written as a character, and I found myself thinking about the stories long after I put the book away. From the awkwardness she deals with at school to the isolation she feels at home as the middle child, her characterization was so vivid to me. That said, her family members all shine as complex and multifaceted, so despite Angie being the sole point-of-view character, we get to know all of them as individual people.
Angie watches the world around her with a keen eye and responds with wry humor privy to only herself and the reader. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the coming of age of a young Mexican girl, historical fiction from the 1960s and 70s, and a quick, insightful read.
Peachy by Camri Kohler
Genre: Horror, fantasy, romance
Published Year: 2023
First in a trilogy
When twenty-three-year-old surly, and slightly tipsy, Frankie finds her hag of a grandmother dead on the sofa, her best friend, playful Ben Bowen, introduces her to the magical underbelly of Aspen Ridge, Utah.
Ben is a witch, a seer to be exact, and he guides Frankie into her new identity as a healer, a restoration witch. With the help of Ben and his coven-mate Cleo, Frankie navigates the treacherous classes of witches: dragons, shifters, and the abhorred vampire—life-drinking witches. It was a vampire that killed Frankie’s grandmother, and she’s after Frankie. But, much to the chagrin of best friend Ben, it isn’t Frankie’s vitality that the vampire wants.
Frankie must work her newfound magic—despite her fear, her self-doubt, and her desire to have one more drink—with her friends to eliminate a common enemy. She’ll have to endure nightmares and commit horrors unspeakable, or risk losing them all.
It will take guts … whosever they may be.
Y’all, the psychological damage PEACHY gave me (in the best way). The whole book was brilliantly written, but the second half had me in a chokehold and wouldn’t let go until I finished, almost exclusively because of the vividness of the prose as MC Frankie and her witchy crew take on the one of the most terrifying monsters I’ve ever read in horror. And to be clear, I read a lot of horror.
Frankie herself is messy, and queer, and an asshole, and she has my whole heart. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – let more women in fantasy be bisexual and messy! The depiction of Frankie as someone dealing with grief (sometimes in a way that isn’t always healthy) rang really true to me as someone who has struggled with depression. This is a book for anyone interested in messy queer girls, stellar mental health representation, and a ragtag group of young witches who have no one but each other and their sometimes unstable powers.
From The Yellow House and On by Sojourner Davidson
Genre: Poetry
Published Year: 2023
Standalone
From The Yellow House And On is a memoir through poetry. The poems of this collection create a camera-like image of the writer’s childhood and adolescence in Ohio. Topics of abuse, love, disability, race, gender, and sexuality are meditated upon from the adult child’s perspective. The poet connects these topics by interweaving themes of love, longing, and acceptance. Ultimately, From The Yellow House And On is about moving forward after trauma, accepting what’s broken, and appreciating the tender moments. A poetry collection for readers of Rio Cortez and Fatimah Asghar.
I’m very lucky to have been asked by the author to speak at their launch – both because I was thrilled to support them and also because it meant I got to read an early copy of this book. I’m not usually a poetry person, but Sojourner’s writing is super accessible and easy to digest as a person who normally prefers prose. It reads a bit like a poetic memoir, with the poetry format serving as a way to delve deeper into the author’s point of view. While profoundly personal, Sojourner’s poetry also reads as deeply relatable.
This is a book for people who want to read about the early experiences of a neurodivergent, nonbinary person through their own eyes. All forty eight poems in this book exist at the intersection of politics and identity, of the world and ourselves, so if that’s your vibe, ten out of ten would recommend. I’m excited to see more of this poet’s work.
The Twin Stars by Bridgette Dutta Portman
Genre: Fantasy, sci-fi
Published Year: 2023
First in a trilogy
A magical journal. A world savaged by its own suns. An evil prince. A princess in hiding. And a teenage girl who learns to be the hero of her own story.
Sixteen-year-old Olive Joshi has obsessive-compulsive disorder, and can’t stop worrying about hurting the people she loves. She finds refuge in writing about Coseema, a magical princess on a distant planet. Coseema is fearless, confident, and perfect – everything Olive thinks she’ll never be. When she falls through a portal into her own unfinished story, Olive finds herself in a world in peril: double suns scorch the land, the brutal Prince Burnash seeks supreme power, and Coseema is nowhere to be found. Together with her friends – a bold poet, a cursed musician, a renegade soldier, and an adventurous girl from the desert – Olive will have to face her deepest fears to find the hero in herself.
An engrossing new portal fantasy in the spirit of the Wizard of Oz, the Neverending Story, and the Chronicles of Narnia.​
THE TWIN STARS and its subsequent books are the most real and raw representation I’ve read of a character with OCD since John Green’s TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN. I met Bridgette at a book festival in Louisville and was immediately intrigued by the premise of her trilogy – a young girl with OCD who creates a world of her own to escape into when her head gets too loud. It very much reflects my own experiences growing up, though my real life unfortunately didn’t have as many spaceships or magic powers.
The world building was phenomenal, as was Olive as the point-of-view character. I bought the second book as soon as I finished the first so I could continue Olive’s story because I wasn’t ready to let go of her quite yet. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for neurodivergent representation by an author with lived experiences, distant planets and the people who occupy them, and a complex relationship between the main character and the girl she created to embody herself.
Vow of Moonlight by Morgana Stewart
Genre: Fantasy
Published Year: 2023
Standalone with a possible future sequel
Princess Aurora has a secret. She thinks she owes everything to her fiancé, because he is kind and is helping save her kingdom from war debts. But, inside her heart, she knows she will never belong to him.
Prince Elias has a secret. He loves Aurora with all of his heart, but he knows that he can only love her this way and doesn’t know how to tell her.
The witch has too many secrets. Her past, the reason behind the vows, the blood on her hands, and the worry that aches in her chest. She may delight in torturing the princess with harsh words, but can she face what she feels when Aurora begins to place her life in danger?
Nobody wants their secrets found but war uncovers many hidden things. The moonlight gods are no longer watching, shadows have voices, and nothing is as it seems.​
Before you read this book, prepare to be absolutely wrecked emotionally. I finished this book over boba while sitting outside at a café and I think being in public might be the only reason I didn’t start ugly crying. Retellings are my lifeblood, especially when they’re queer, and VOW OF MOONLIGHT was right up there for me with CINDERELLA IS DEAD and SELF MADE BOYS. But when they’re enemies to lovers? And have a whole universe of gods? That’s a recipe for my new favorite book.
Beyond the surface, VOW OF MOONLIGHT contains important and real representation I love to see in all books, but it’s extra cool to see queer characters and characters struggling with their mental health in the fantasy worlds we’ve been excluded from for so long. The three leads are asexual, bisexual, and lesbian and they’re all going through their own mental health journeys throughout the story. I’d recommend this book to folks looking for positive mental health and queer representation, sapphic retellings of their favorite fairytales, and anyone looking to have their brain chemistry changed forever.
Nicole’s Book Spotlight
Book
Historical fiction, Published 2024
Gabi Keefer flees Holocaust-era Germany with nothing but her husband, her nephew, and the clothes on her back, but that isn’t the whole story.
Over generations, her granddaughter, Lena, struggles with drug addiction and an unplanned pregnancy; her sort-of nephew, Zane, grieves for his wife three years after her death in an antisemetic mass shooting; and her great-niece, Miranda, advocates for Palestinian liberation against her family’s wishes.
Each character’s tale begs the questions: What does it mean to be part of a family, what does it mean to survive, and is that enough?
Readers who enjoy interconnected stories like in Girl, Woman, Other and Jewish history like in Depart, Depart! would like this book.
Come find me at @NicoleZelniker on Instagram or at my website, nicolezelniker.com.
Thanks for hanging out with us today! Did you add any books to your TBR today based on this post or did you see any you have already read? Tell us in the comments!
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