Books, Bubbles, and Brunch featuring Micki Berthelot Morency

What

Every month, this book club will discuss a book by a local author while mimosas and brunch are being served.

October’s featured book is The Island Sisters by Micki Berthelot Morency.

Four women from Haiti, St. Thomas, and Guam meet at a college counseling session for first-year students and learn they have a shared history of abuse. Dubbing themselves the “island sisters,” their unyielding friendship is their touchstone across oceans, through labyrinths of forced marriages and violent men, motherhood, and their dreams of freedom.

Strong-willed and hot-headed Monique, quiet and romantic Cecilia, devout Lanei, and determined Ella are four friends who seem to make up for what the other lacks. But no matter what is happening in their lives or the struggles they face, they share an unbreakable bond of friendship that serves as their anchor, helping and supporting each other through and through.

To succeed, each woman must make choices that will challenge her long-held cultural beliefs, choices that will come with consequences, in the pursuit of her own individual freedom.

An empowering narrative told from alternating perspectives of each friend, Micki Berthelot Morency has crafted four remarkable and hard-to-forget women whose fates are bound together by culture, by history, and most importantly, by a deep, irrevocable friendship. Heartfelt and deeply moving, THE ISLAND SISTERS is an important story about hope and determination.

Micki Berthelot Morency is Haitian-American, and she lives in St. Petersburg Florida. Her publications have appeared in the Tampa Bay Times, The Weekly Challenger, print magazines and online. She recently won a Writer’s Digest contest, and her story was published in their 100th anniversary issue.

She is an advocate for women and children and her experience as a Case Manager at a transitional housing program inspired her to write her debut novel, The Island Sisters. Through her writing, she hopes to give a voice to the voiceless.

Micki is Vice President of DEI at  Women Fiction Writers Association (WFWA). She’s a long-time board member of Partners With Haiti, (PWH) a local NGO with many projects in Haiti. She’s a member of many writers organizations.