Donna Baier Stein uncovers the sometimes heady glint of danger in relationships in a brilliantly edgy collection of stories that gets under your skin as even as it illuminates love, lust–and everything in between.

—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You and Is This tomorrow

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Donna Baier Stein writes with the grace and precision of a poet, but also with a cool intelligence that creates intriguing stores that engage immediately, hold throughout, and, best of all, resonate in a reader’s mind long after their conclusion. Here is a writer who trusts not only herself, but her readers, who, rather than feel beaten about the head with an author’s “message,” will instead be skillfully guided into coming to their own satisfying conclusions.

—Elizabeth Berg, New York Times bestselling author, most recently of Tapestry of Fortunes

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Ms. Stein’s stories are powerful in both language and character. Each story offers a life of yearning that fits all ages. Through a sharp lens of wit and intelligence, her characters play out their lives in both negative and positive ways. Ms. Stein balances a fierce wish to love and to be loved with a the hard reality of loss and failure, yet the yearning does not diminish. A profound accomplishment.

—Elizabeth Cox, author of The Slow Moon and The Ragged Way People Fall Out of Love

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Donna Baier Stein is a discovery. Her deceptively mild story-telling veers swiftly into the savage but often unacknowledged discontent of suburban life—wives dabbling with drugs and alcohol, struggling with marital disappointment and missed opportunities, celebrating and often betrayed by unexpected friendships—all explored with language that engages and surprises.

—C. Michael Curtis, Fiction Editor, The Atlantic

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It is a wonderful woven book of short stories about life and all its intricacies. The author took the time to cultivate each character and storyline, making the reader CARE about the stories themselves. The events and feelings that are experienced and absorbed by the characters are simultaneously felt by the reader. This is exactly what should happen in a book.

—Book Fidelity

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This is an interesting series of stories showing the emotions we all go through. Some stories will have you cry, some smile and some wonder about the decisions some make. Each story shows the consequences of someone’s actions and what can happen when you face a fork and must decide what to do. The meaning is greater than what is seen for there is a hidden meaning in each decision and story. This is a collection of stories that will have you thinking deeply.

—Books Are Love

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To read Sympathetic People is to immerse oneself in the figurative language, authentic characters, and realistic tales of author Donna Baier Stein. Stein relies on first person narration throughout the collection, giving voice to women dealing with life experiences of marriage, motherhood, divorce, and death. The action is retrospective, reflective, and reminiscent of Anne Beattie’s work. […] These characters are sympathetic without being pitiful. There’s not the happily ever-after promised; rather, there’s an edginess that is heightened by the bit of endnote considerations, such as the yellow lights of indecision and the “collective hunger of the times.” Her stories strike a chord of realism and balance and readers of certain age (like me) can identify with many of the circumstances of her work and nod in agreement at the narrator’s reflective concluding comments. This is a most satisfying read.

—Story Circle Book Review

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