Page 158 Books is thrilled to welcome author Padgett Gerler back to the store to celebrate her novel, She's the Same.

Pregnant teen Kate O’Conner purchases a ticket to the end of the line on the next bus leaving the local Greyhound bus station. She has never heard of Palmetto, North Carolina, but it’s as far from her judgmental hometown and disappointed parents as her boarding pass will take her. Rescued by Al Riley, Palmetto’s beloved doctor, and his housekeeper, Comfort, Kate settles into this idyllic town on the Pamlico Sound to await the birth of her child. Even Kate says she feels as though she has fallen into a Hallmark movie. But the movie ends abruptly when Kate gives birth to twins, Riley and Bailey. Bailey has Down syndrome. Kate wants desperately to be the perfect mother for her children, but it is the innocence and wisdom of six-year old Riley that teaches Kate all the really important things she needs to know about parenting: A child’s grasp is only as far as she is allowed to reach.

Padgett Gerler is the award-winning author of The Girl Who Feared Trains (2022), Getting the Important Things Right (2012), Lessons I Learned from Nick Nack (2014), The Gifts of Pelican Isle (2016), What Does Love Sound Like? (2017), Invisible Girl (2019), and The Summer the Air Changed (2021). Lessons I Learned from Nick Nack and Invisible Girl were awarded the indieBRAG Medallion, while Lessons I Learned from Nick Nack also received honorable mention in the Writer’s Digest Self-published Book Awards. The Gifts of Pelican Isle was a Finalist in the 2018 Best Book Awards sponsored by American Book Fest. Padgett’s short story “The Art of Dying” won first place in the Southwest Manuscripters Awards. Her short story “I Know This Happened ’Cause Somebody Seen It” is featured in the anthology Self-Rising Flowers, published by Mountain Girl Press.

Padgett is a member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. 

Padgett and Ed live on pastoral and inspirational Lake Winchester in Raleigh, North Carolina, where Padgett writes the southern voice, from the mountains to the coast.