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Best Sellers
Story Sanctum Books
In addition to featuring fiction and nonfiction stories, Story Sanctum also publishes books by our contributors and other writers interested in publishing under our imprint. Story Sanctum books span a wide range of topics from death to hope to everything in between. All our books contain a deep human element that drives home the story in a unique and unforgettable way. We encourage you to browse our growing library of books.
Want to publish a book with Story Sanctum? Contact us for publishing options.
BEAUTIFULLY BROKEN
Brokenness is not a sign of weakness. Rather, it is a sign of strength. Scars are a sign of healing, of hard work that has been done. Walking through life’s fires, it is inevitable that you will get burned. But God can make something beautiful from those ashes. Broken people are the most genuine people out there. They don’t live their lives as if nothing is the matter with them.
In Beautifully Broken, Ruth revisits the trauma of her childhood as a missionary kid in Nigeria, details her search for her biological parents, and shares her brave journey of living with terminal illness.
Ruth’s message to those who have been shattered by life’s cruelty is that God can mend broken people, making them into something beautiful.
This is the story of an ordinary girl who has lived an extraordinary life.
BETO & THE APOCALYPSE
What happens when the world is coming to an end and you still have to adjust to a new high school?
For Beto Gonzalez, this means every decision he makes now has life and death implications. Beto and his new friends have to rethink everything they know as they prepare for a disastrous future. Fortunately or unfortunately, the mysterious headmaster of their school, Justo Contreras, is one step ahead of them.
Although no one wants to admit that everything is falling apart, diseases are spreading unchecked and food and water shortages have reached the wealthiest of countries. Entire U.S. cities have been evacuated. Headmaster Contreras believes the only way forward is to move back onto the land in small communities that are in touch with the new cycles of nature. Beto and his friends see this as an adventure at first, but they soon realize how difficult this new way of life will be.
BRAVE VOICE
Brave Voice is an invitation to listen to your own soul cries and to share your vulnerable self with others. Author Heather Bickel Stevenson chronicles her lifelong journey to find her authentic voice and use it for good.
Among hard relationships and chronic illnesses, Heather has had to learn that it is OK to not be OK, that helpers need help too, and that healing happens when we speak and listen from the heart. Sharing stories that have never been told before, she hopes to encourage others to courageously tell their stories for the good of the world.
If you are struggling to find your God-given voice, your unique passion and calling, this book will help you discover your own Brave Voice!
CUBAN TRANSPLANT
Cuban Transplant is the autobiography of Matias Travieso-Diaz, a gifted boy who grew up poor in Havana, Cuba until his life was put on hold by the Castro regime and its conflict with the United States. After a series of miraculous events, he came to America in 1963 as a refugee, and was able to complete his education – thanks to assistance from the U.S. Government. After working in the aerospace industry, he enrolled in a major law school, graduated with a Law degree, and practiced as a partner in a Washington, D.C. law firm until his retirement. He then began a literary career as a fiction writer, writing and publishing nearly two hundred short stories and a novel.
The author describes in detail his unique experiences in leaving Cuba, adapting to the Midwest, and going through a series of personal and career changes. After losing his wife to cancer, the author and his daughter have striven to adapt to living together, experiencing a joint grieving process that is still ongoing while he navigates the final years of a prolific life.
LIFE ON THE EDGE
Hospice chaplain Suzanne Bea Slover Leahy has cared for hundreds of people on the edge of death. Life on the Edge is a moving collection of heartwarming stories packed with deep insights from Suzanne’s reflections on the front lines.
Death isn’t a subject people like to discuss, but the reality is, everyone is going to die. Suzanne not only normalizes dying, she humanizes it by reflecting on what it’s like to accompany individuals at the end of their lives.
Suzanne shares about the early days of her career, her experiences working at a cancer treatment center, as well as the present challenges of caring for patients during the COVID pandemic. With humor and grace, Suzanne honors the lives of her patients who have died, by passing on the wisdom they’ve taught her in their final moments.
Whether you’re a caregiver, family member, or individual, Life on the Edge will inspire you to make every moment count and to begin to face the reality of death without fear.
MISERERE MEI
Miserere Mei is translated simply as “have mercy on me,” and has the same root as myrrh, or healing oil. Artist Georges Rouault channeled this healing energy in his powerful series Miserere et Guerre, a collection of prints created amidst World War I in France. This stunning series of images still beckons the viewer on a healing journey.
As an artist, therapist, and spiritual seeker, author Joel Klepac explores themes of suffering, grief, love, and hope in the first 33 plates of the Miserere series (images included).
Prepare to go on a journey into the subtle nuances of Rouault's images as well as the author's experiences in Romania, Russia, and India harmonizing with Rouault's themes. As an Internal Family Systems trained therapist, Klepac leverages his clinical training to guide the reader into their own connections with the images making available both written and audio versions of the guided meditations based on those themes. As you move through the Miserere series, you are invited into the compassionate gaze of Georges Rouault, to be illuminated and healed by his vision of humanity and inspired in your own way to embody compassion.
MY MOTHER'S WAR
Hitler's forces were no match for Evelyn Fryd.
My Mother’s War, by author and Holocaust survivor Michael Fryd, is a gripping memoir about a familiy's harrowing escape through the killing fields of Poland, to Paris, and finally to New York. This compelling true story follows Fryd's larger-than-life mother who outsmarted the Nazis and saved her family.
Michael Fryd was only three years old when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, triggering World War II and one of humanity’s darkest chapters. Forced to leave their home and everything they knew, Fryd's mother went to near impossible lengths to keep her family safe from Hitler’s clutches, including crafting clever lies, dealing in the black market, and even flirting with the enemy.
Evelyn Fryd epitomized the saying, "Well behaved women seldom make history."
STRANGE FIRE
"Don't starve the monster, lest ye all should perish!"
You are about to enter into the world of the peculiar and the bizarre. Strange Fire is a collection of 15 stand-alone short stories by Story Sanctum co-founder Shawn Casselberry, that will grip your heart and keep you guessing to the end. Monsters are on the loose in Hollow Town and no child is safe who has the Mark. A social media influencer must learn to shed more than her apathy in Skin. A 15-year-old from the South Side of Chicago discovers he has special powers when he protects his best friend from police brutality in The Windy City Wizard. Writer Arthur G. Blum is ready to end it all when his fictional subjects stage an intervention in Characters. Strange Fire will transport you to unusual worlds and will transform you so you'll never be the same. (Proceeds from the book help defray costs of the Story Sanctum site).
TALES FROM THE VAULT
Prepare to enter the Story Sanctum vault! Inside these pages, you will find a rich anthology of stories designed to speak to your heart, mind, and soul. These tales were taken from our vault of fiction and nonfiction stories. They represent some of our favorite stories from our first two years.
Contributing authors: Michael J. Adee, C. J. Anderson-Wu, Rebecca Blackwell, Jen Casselberry, Shawn Casselberry, Kathleen Chamberlin, David Clear, Doug Dalglish, Michael Fryd, Yasmin Gudino, Joel Klepac, Simeon Klepac, Richard Lehan, Michelle Patterson, Niles Reddick, Luisa Kay Reyes, Eduard Schmidt-Zorner, Angela Townsend, Krin Van Tatenhove, Pieter Van Tatenhove, Robert D. Vivian, Carol Zapata-Whelan, Jenn Zatopek.
THAT YEAR OF UNEXPECTED THINGS
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A year can change everything!
School, sports, memories of childhood, plans for the future. Boys, girls, calls, texts, dates, prom. Teachers, siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends—and enemies. The everyday world of ordinary teenagers in the rural South.
But ordinary has its limits. When Tim and Jadon take interest in Kallie and Marisha, strange things begin to happen. And then even stranger. The world will never be ordinary again, after that year of unexpected things.
A debut novel by W. David Holden.
THE BRIDGE AT DAWN
A reminder to look for the humanity in everyone we see.
After suffering a devastating loss, Henry Thornwood, a former college professor, finds himself living in a homeless encampment in the Northwest. As he makes the rounds, extending kindness and cups of coffee to vulnerable members of the community, he meets Cindy Rhodes, a realtor and domestic abuse survivor, who is also running from a painful past.
The two of them bond over their trauma and set out on a soulful journey. What follows is an unlikely love story that leads them to a commune along the Columbia River Gorge, the sanctuary they need to heal.
Full of compelling human drama and plot twists that climax on a bridge at dawn, this novel by Krin Van Tatenhove is ultimately a tale of hope and spiritual redemption.
THE HEMINGWAY BIBLE
Scientist and atheist Dr. Lydia Cheyenne Wagner thinks she's the only survivor of an asteroid strike she predicted until she discovers Father Jules, a devout priest who has "miraculously" survived. Their beliefs and personalities clash as they try to find a way to peacefully coexist in a post-apocalyptic world. Everything changes when they encounter a fanatical teenage cult that has made a Hemingway novel their Bible. The erratic cult leader, known as the Captain, wages war against any unbelievers, causing Dr. Lydia and Father Jules to choose sides in a life and death battle over what is faith, what is fact, and what is fiction.
The Hemingway Bible is a provocative, engaging post-apocalyptic story about the dangers of religious extremism and the urgent need to come together across the ideologies that divide us.
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
In this fascinating memoir, Woods traces his 60-year odyssey in journalism, a career that included witnessing the bomb-shattered wartime devastation in Britain and the aftermath of much of the obliteration of German cities in World War II.
Poet Robert Frost described the road not taken as one of good and bad choices that have a lasting bearing on one’s future life and career. Woods shares about his choices and historical surroundings, and the literary and other characters he has encountered along the way. He also tells the harrowing story of the illness and death of his 19-year-old son.
The Road Not Taken is a captivating account of Woods’ incredible life and career.
WHAT GIVES YOU HOPE?
