Hello friend!
This week felt like a mountain.
A sick kid. Back-to-back family trips to Michigan. An exciting (but exhausting) launch over at The Austen Pathway.
Sometimes, life is just like that.
You keep trekking, step after step, carrying all the weight, doing all the things (so. many. things.), and still feel like you’re not really getting anywhere. You look up and can’t even see the summit… just more fog, more rocks, more to climb.
Maybe you’ve had a week like that too.
What I’ve realized, and what Brianna Wiest writes so beautifully in The Mountain Is You (our book club pick this month), is that not every mountain we climb is truly ours.
Some are paths we’ve chosen because we thought we should. Others are climbs we’ve inherited because of expectations, pressure, or the image of who we thought we needed to be.
The harder truth… not every mountain leads where we want to go.
This has been on my mind with the launch of our new methodology at The Austen Pathway. After years of working with authors, Caroline and I noticed the same struggle repeating… brilliant writers were trying to force themselves into marketing styles that didn’t fit them.
They were climbing mountains that didn’t belong to them.
So we created pathway-based marketing, a way for authors to align with their natural communication style. When you’re on the path that feels like you, the climb is still hard, yes, but the air feels clearer. The direction makes sense. There’s ease where before there was only resistance.
And it’s the same with our personal lives. When we’re honest with ourselves about who we really are, not who we think we’re supposed to be, the mountain changes.
The steps are still there, but they feel different.
Lighter.
Possible.
That’s why this month in the book club, we’re reading The Mountain Is You.
Because life isn’t just about productivity or ambition, it’s about alignment. About finding the version of yourself who feels like home, and choosing paths that actually lead you somewhere worth going.
👉 If you’ve been carrying your own mountain this week, I’d love for you to join us.
Upgrade your subscription and come sit with us in the book club chat.
Bring your reflections, your questions, your “yes! same!” moments.
Because the mountain may be you, but you don’t have to climb it alone.
I’m excited to share these 3 book reccomendations of women who found their path.
An antiques dealer and an enigmatic heiress embark on a revelatory friendship in a haunting and hopeful novel about family ties, secrets, and belonging by the bestselling author of A Heart Like Home.
Cautious Claire Shelton, employee at a Maine antique shop, is surprised when she’s recruited to catalog the treasures of reclusive Hanna Reeves, sole descendant of the state’s most colorful shipbuilders and industrialists. Hanna’s retreat from society years ago is just one of many mysteries behind the walls of Rose Hill, her fabled estate.
Settling into Rose Hill’s carriage house, Claire finds Hanna, nearing eighty, to be a still-formidable woman. She’s demanding, judgmental, and protective of a mansion that is a veritable shrine to her ancestors. Then, diving into her work, Claire discovers a hidden library that is the stuff of legend among locals. An avid booklover, Claire is in heaven. More enthralling are Hanna’s leather-bound family journals that open Claire up to the past—and soon forge a rich and unexpected bond between two very different women.
A legacy is coming to light. All of Maine is talking. Because the revelations in the journals are enlightening enough to unite old friends, lovers, and families. And shocking enough to tear them apart forever.
Check it out HERE.
In nineteenth-century Texas, two tough-minded women dare to challenge the status quo in a warm, witty, and adventurous historical romance by New York Times bestselling author Carolyn Brown.
Daisy Lindberg and Lily Boyle traded a colorful past for a fresh start as seamstresses in Autrie, Texas, and their aim to spark a women’s rights movement is raising eyebrows among the town’s dumbfounded men. But among the ladies? Tired of being treated like possessions, they have two words: Amen, sister!
Beulah, a sassy shop owner as formidable as a cannon shot, is on board. So is Alma, a timid preacher’s wife who hit her breaking point. Before long, a courageous female posse has a liberating petition of demands. Surprisingly, they also have an empathetic ear in sheep rancher Matt Maguire, who’s as keen on women’s independence as he is on Lily.
As Daisy and Lily make waves in the small town, their secrets threaten to come out. But they haven’t traveled this far to let their past define them. In fact, with love and the forging of new lives on the line, they’ve never felt more defiant.
Check it out HERE.
There's no such thing as a perfect guy, but Xavier Rush comes disastrously close. A gorgeous veterinarian giving Greek god vibes—all while cuddling a tiny kitten? Immediate yes. That is until Xavier opens his mouth and proves that even sculpted gods can say the absolute wrong thing. Like, really wrong. Of course, there’s nothing Samantha loves more than proving an asshole wrong . . . unless, of course, he can admit he made a mistake.
But after one incredible and seemingly endless date, Samantha is forced to admit the truth, that her family is in crisis and any kind of relationship would be impossible. Samantha begs Xavier to forget her. To remember their night together as a perfect moment, as crushing as that may be. Only no amount of distance or time is enough to forget what's between them. And the only thing better than one single perfect memory is to make a life—and even a love—worth remembering.
Check it out HERE.
Just a little reminder that I share books from sweet to spicy, so please check to make sure they suit your preference. 🥰
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Something really odd, but maybe in a way appropriate struck me when you talked about your work aligning people's communications style with their work. And how it fits in with the book your club is reading this month.
Now this might sound stupid on the surface, but the fist thing that hit me was the RPG Dungeons and Dragons, and its' idea of a character's alignment. But here's the thing - what if you are living your life in accordance with somebody else's (particularly a parent or other family member's) construct of what a good manner of living might be, that is not one which brings you happiness. And that in itself would certainly be a huge heap of stones.