Home

Vanishing Shoals: A Memoir

Vanishing Shoals is a micro-memoir written during a year-long cancer journey. It is not a cancer memoir because life is not made of a singular event. With alternating timelines, Sita explores formative experiences in an ashram, with her parents’ battles of addiction and mental illness, and the contrast between spiritual involvement and parental neglect. In the present, it starts with a rare cancer diagnosis and becomes a reconnection to spirituality, radical acceptance, and unconditional familial nurturing.

Sita’s book asks the question—how do we move beyond a history we’d rather hide? And how do we learn to appreciate experiences of the past as part of being a whole and flawed human?

Order your copy today!
In Vanishing Shoals, Sita Romero takes the reader with her on a journey—not just of a cancer diagnosis and treatment, but of youth and grit, parenthood and divorce, hardship and friendship, and the lessons in all of it, the graces and gifts. Romero reminds us that it’s the people who truly love us that keep us afloat and who will save us until we know how to save ourselves. Vanishing Shoals is a journey of fear and doubt, hope and spirit. Romero doesn’t offer pat answers or easy endings, just as life doesn’t: we humans—at our best—take one step and then another, understanding the risks, willing ourselves to go out into life’s depths and move forward through it anyway. Romero does just that.
Shuly Xóchitl Cawood
Shuly Xóchitl CawoodAuthor of THE GOING AND GOODBYE: A MEMOIR
Romero’s writing perfectly captures the endless ebb and flow between grief and salvation. As a narrator, Romero expertly drops readers into the moment of devastation—a cancer diagnosis—then rewinds the clock to her childhood where we meet a girl gaining familiarity with loss, sickness, and the quivering thread that tethers us to mortality. Vanishing Shoals is the story of a hard-won victory, the struggles that predated, and the after-fight that never truly ends.
Samantha Otto Brown
Samantha Otto BrownAuthor of SUB WIFE: A MEMOIR FROM THE HOMEFRONT
A wonderful book, beautifully written. Switching from the past to the present, the author creates beauty out of disaster. Readers will find much to relate to in this memoir of a difficult and confusing childhood, and the way it impacts the journey to healing from a terrifying cancer diagnosis. I look forward to more from this author.
Gabi Coatsworth
Gabi CoatsworthAuthor of LOVE'S JOURNEY HOME
Previous
Next

Words We Cannot Say – Available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats!

What happens when women tell the truth about themselves, their desires, and the sacrifices they’re willing—or unwilling—to make? Words We Cannot Say is told through three diverse voices as three women navigate friendship, motherhood, pregnancy, and loss.

Buy Now

Chop Suey (signed & personalized copies)

Barnes & Nobles

Amazon

Bookshop

Purchase the audiobook

Review Now​

Reviews go a long way in helping authors whether its one word, one sentence, or one paragraph! Please consider leaving a review on Goodreads, Amazon, BookBub, and/or another site of choice.

“Over the course of the novel, Romero’s portrayal of the women’s experiences with and conversations about abortion, infertility, and nontraditional marriage have an honesty that’s refreshing, and they give clear voice to many women’s silent struggles.”

Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Words We Cannot Say

An engaging, humane, deeply thoughtful story about three women grappling with the big questions – love, faith, grief – as they try to be worthy of what life is asking of them. Romero weaves their stories into the most gracious, rich, unforgettable tapestry. I wanted it never to end.
Elisa Albert
Elisa AlbertAuthor of AFTER BIRTH and THE BOOK OF DAHLIA​
A beautifully written story about three women linked together by the bonds of humanity. With themes of love, loss, addiction, and friendship, Words We Cannot Say will have readers at a crossroads as they follow the women through some of life's hardest decisions. Author Sita Romero has woven together a wonderful tale that will evoke powerful emotions in women all over the world.
San Francisco Book Review
San Francisco Book ReviewKristi Elizabeth
From the heart-pounding opening in a labor and delivery ward, Words We Cannot Say is an insightful, emotional debut that weaves together three female voices to create a powerful novel about sisterhood, pregnancy, marriage, loss, and addiction. A must-read for book clubs eager to discuss women’s fiction!
Barbara Claypole White
Barbara Claypole WhiteBestselling author of THE PERFECT SON and THE PROMISE BETWEEN US
Words We Cannot Say is a refreshingly honest novel about the complex intersections of friendship and motherhood, an exploration of pregnancies wanted and unwanted, an original and contemporary story of three women striving to define themselves.
Susan Perabo
Susan PeraboAuthor of THE FALL OF LISA BELLOW
In Lotus, Nia and Penelope, we find the kind of female friendship that runs the world. And in the art and science of their separate journeys toward motherhood, we find all the tears and laughter and reckoning with life’s choices that make our friendships so important, that make them rock-strong. I loved Words We Cannot Say. And when I finished it, I made sure my girlfriends knew I loved them too.
Ashley Warlick
Ashley WarlickAuthor of THE ARRANGEMENT
Words We Cannot Say was an engaging, well-written, riveting story that I hated to see come to an end.
Manhattan Book Review
Manhattan Book ReviewSusan Miller
In Words We Cannot Say, Sita Romero tells the stories of three women who are at a stage in their lives that brings them together, but also highlights the ways in which they are different. Their paths converge briefly, then diverge again as their experiences take them in different directions. But what they learned in that moment of connection leads them to continue to support each other as they deal with heartbreak, new challenges, and new lives. At times heartbreaking, but ultimately uplifting, Romero’s well-drawn characters will stay with me for a long time.
Pamela Stockwell
Pamela StockwellAuthor of A BOUNDLESS PLACE
Words We Cannot Say is a touching and, at times, heart-rending book about the joys and tragedies of pregnancy in modern times.
Seattle Book Review
Seattle Book ReviewJo Niederhoff
Deep love, unrequited love, and unconventional love take center stage in this deeply affecting story by Sita Romero. Words We Cannot Say delves into the push and pull of motherhood, a Sisyphean task that women are responsible for in ways that men rarely are. Life is messy and that beautiful mess is portrayed lovingly in the story. I felt every loss, every doubt, every joy experienced by the characters. As the story takes a deep emotional dive into each of the character’s present and past, you won’t walk away dry eyed. Highly recommend.
Densie Webb
Densie WebbAuthor of WHEN ROBINS APPEAR
Previous
Next

Meet Sita!

Sita Romero writes fiction with themes of mothering, friendship, and identity. She has a particular interest in exploring the untold stories—the experiences of women that are often silenced. Her short fiction has been published in Third Flatiron, Transmundane Press, BWG Roundtable and Green Briar Review.

Her debut novel, Words We Cannot Say (April 2022) is out now with Red Adept Publishing. Her debut memoir, Vanishing Shoals, is set to release on July 1, 2022 with L10 Press Unzipped.

Read More

Stay Connected with Sita

Facebook-f Twitter Instagram Envelope