Lucia Petrusova
Unapologetically Feminine: Red Flags, French Men and Returning to Yourself

Available NOW on Amazon!

Valentine’s Day is the commercial reminder that romance can feel less like a fairytale and more like a nightmare.

Patterns repeat, conversations circle, and certain lessons insist on being learned more than once. Lucia attempts to make sense of it all with wit and candor. Unapologetically Feminine’s bold self-awareness reaches beyond the page, like a ladies night with homemade mocktails, making it well suited to a Galentine’s reading circle.

Framing Parisian dating experiences as a living archive of contemporary relational patterns, Lucia reflects on attachment, emotional distance, and misplaced optimism. Each memoir unfolds with humor and self-compassion, inviting readers to recognize their own tendencies without judgement. Rather than assigning fault, she treats relationships as mirrors that reveal where one has been generous, perhaps a bit naïve, and eventually grown wiser.

What makes this book particularly engaging for Ivy League Book Club readers this month is its balance of narrative charm and psychological insight.

Lucia writes with a storyteller’s pacing, yet beneath the anecdotes lies a careful examination of how women negotiate affection, autonomy, and identity. At the heart of it all, the central theme is not a mockery or withdrawal from love; it’s about encouraging discernment and personal boundaries.

For a Valentine’s themed gathering, this text offers an elegant reminder that there are many facets to relationships. Companionship, friendship, vocation, and solitude all add sparkle to the richness of life, and our passion for them need not be forced or rushed. Lucia’s reflections suggest that dignity and delight are not contingent on being selected, but on choosing wisely, including loving oneself.

C’est magnifique!

Reader Discussion Guide

• Which anecdote in the book felt most familiar, and why do you think it resonated?

• How does Lucia’s tone balance humor with emotional honesty, and how does that influence your personal reflections?

• In what ways does the book challenge the idea that romantic success defines personal success?

• How do you feel themes of attachment and self-trust intersect with professional or creative life, beyond dating?

Journaling Prompts

• Recall a relationship or connection that taught you something essential about your boundaries. What stayed with you?

• Describe a moment when you chose yourself, even if it felt inconvenient or uncomfortable at the time.

• Write about how your understanding of femininity has evolved over the years. What feels most authentic now?

• Consider the concept of standards. Which standards feel non-negotiable, and which have softened with wisdom?

• Revisit these reflections in a month and note any shifts in perception or feeling.

There are seasons in a woman’s life when the noise of expectation grows louder than the pulse of her own truth.

For Priscilla Zorrilla, that dissonance reached its height during her years in corporate life. Outwardly, she had built what many would call success: a stable position, predictable routine, and the promise of advancement. Inwardly, she sensed depletion because the life she was living and the voice within weren’t in harmony.

In The Quiet Awakening: Dare to Dream, Zorrilla traces her moment of divergence. The unsettling awareness that something essential lay dormant. She has spoken on her Substack, In the Search Bar®, about how this book was born during her transition “from a 9-to-5 career into soul-aligned work” (Zorrilla 2025). As she bears her raw emotion, she gains the courage to embrace the unknown, and like caution scattered to the wind, words dance freely across lines in newfound freedom. It marks the turning point from structure to surrender, from control to trust.

Writing became her reclamation. Poetry allowed her to navigate what prose could not: the intangible textures of change—hesitation, longing, renewal. Each page, both confessional and instructive, reveals how vulnerability can coexist with purpose. Zorrilla found fluency in authenticity, encouraging others to consider how to make their own dream a reality.

The struggle, silence, and brilliance of her awakening emerge from stability and desire; it is the dream transcended.

Reader Discussion Guide

• What emotional or professional turning point in The Quiet Awakening: Dare to Dream most mirrors a shift you’ve faced in your own life?

• How does the use of poetry rather than traditional narrative shape your understanding of transformation?

• How might modern women reinterpret the idea of perseverance, not as endurance, but as continual alignment with their truth?

• The author describes her process as awakening. How does that word differ from “change” or “reinvention,” and where in your own life do you sense an awakening waiting to happen?

Journaling Prompts

• Describe one role or routine that once defined you but now feels misaligned.

  • What would alignment look like?

• Recall a period of silence in your life, an incubation.

  • How did it awaken within you?

• Write a letter to your past self when you made a major decision.

  • What does she need to hear?

• Choose a single word from the book that resonates.

  • Let it anchor a page of free writing.

• Revisit these reflections after one month to arouse any new insight.

“A life so full, so aligned, so rich, SO free—I couldn’t even imagine it from where I stand now.”

Zorrilla, Priscilla. The Quiet Awakening: Dare to Dream, “The Illusion of Freedom.” Kindle ed. Amazon Publishing, 2024.

Read on Amazon Now

We’ve unearthed something new at Arbor of the Vine!

The Ivy League Book Club

Conceived by Arbor of the Vine’s Creative Director, Ashley Fitzpatrick, this initiative is wholly aligned with our mission of feminine growth, resilience, and grace by reintroducing the community to overlooked women who live those truths. Through this new chapter, we continue our purpose to cultivate heritage that lasts, echoing wisdom for the challenges women face today and beyond.

No, the Ivy League isn’t a pun on universities, but a subversive reclaiming of “literary canon” space for those who were overlooked, marginalized, or silenced. Ladies who continued their work without the comfort of acknowledgment. Highly shareable, intellectually compelling, and culturally relevant, the ivy is emblematic of women whose words climbed the margins. Together, we discover their rise.

Step further than the usual reading list expectations to uncover the conditions that shaped each writer’s world:

• What risks did she take?

• How did she overcome any barriers?

• Why does she continue to write regardless?

Every season, we’ll spotlight a female writer whose work shaped thought, challenged norms, or spoke truth — even if history didn’t grant her the spotlight (yet). Readers are invited to peruse the works of women they may or may not be familiar with... Perhaps altering how we think and engage with others, with or without a platform.

In case you missed our first book recommendation…

Make it yours!