Susan Sofayov
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Susan Sofayov is the author of three novels. She has a BA in English Literature and Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh and an MA in Teaching from Chatham University. She spent two years in Tel Aviv bonding with her husband’s outrageously large family. Today, she lives in the occasionally sunny Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her husband and the most hated dog in the neighborhood. Together with her husband and sons, they run a real estate development company. Her daughter lives in Columbus, Ohio.
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Defective
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New Adult
University of Pittsburgh law student, Maggie Hovis, battles an enemy she cannot escape—her own brain. Her family calls her a drama queen. Her fiancé, Sam, moves out after she throws a shoe at his head. Maggie knows there is only one way to get him back—control her moods. So she takes the step most of her family is against: therapy. After a diagnosis of Bipolar II Disorder, Maggie begins to investigate her family tree—which is plagued by mental illness and hidden relatives—and develops empathy for her deceased Great Aunt Ella, who lived her life in a mental institution. But Maggie’s journey leads her into fear and insecurity, afraid she’ll end up like Ella and never get Sam back. But what about Nick, her super-sexy old flame, who wants to reignite their passion? And does it even matter, anyway? Won’t mental illness stop any man from loving her? 
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The Kiddush Ladies
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Women's Fiction
Life-long Jewish friends Naomi, Miriam, and Becky are approaching middle-age gracefully and are content—despite a few hot flashes and mood swings—until life tosses each woman a crisis… When Becky, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, learns of her only son’s engagement to a non-Jew, she rallies against the marriage and becomes obsessed with finding him a Jewish bride. Naomi—whose husband left her for a man, crushing her small amount of self-confidence—is stuck with a dead-end job and a big house in a neighborhood filled with couples. She hates the loneliness of weekends and the empty side of the king-size bed. Miriam, an only child of parents who were also only children, struggles with the fact that she has no blood relatives besides her children. She recognizes that it’s siblings who connect the past, the present, and the future, and the closest thing she has to sisters are Becky and Naomi. Then a dusty discovery delivers a potentially lethal blow to their friendship. While two of the women fight to save the relationship, one desires nothing more than its demise. 
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Jerusalem Stone
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Women's Fiction
On September 15, 2008, Julie Wasserman’s life collapsed. In the morning, she lost her job at Lehman Brothers. That afternoon, she lost her twin brother, Jack, in a car crash. A year and a half later, she returns home to Pittsburgh to start a new job and live up to a pledge to visit her brother’s grave every day. With six weeks to wait before the start of the new job, she steps out of character and purchases a plane ticket to Thailand, the one place her brother dreamed of visiting. She arrives in Thailand, focused on trying to figure out how she is going to live in the world without her twin brother and best friend. But an interruption in the form of a sexy Israeli, Avi, distracts her from this goal. As he tries to make her see that their meeting was beshert, meant to be, she insists that she must return home to live up to her promise to Jack. Feeling responsible for Jack’s death, Julie believes that he wouldn’t want her to be happy, but would expect her to mourn for the rest of her life. Can Avi find a way to convince her they are bashert and Jack wouldn’t want her to stop living, or is Julie doomed to a life of guilt and unhappiness unless a higher power steps in? 
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