A Life Chosen
For every woman who has ever been told she is too much — this is proof that she was always just potential. A memoir, a framework, and an invitation to choose.
Out October 29, 2026
“Be bold enough to choose self worth.”
Have you been waiting to step into who you are?
A Life Chosen is the story of one woman's journey from self-loathing to self-worth — told through memoir, science, and soul.
Somewhere along the way, you learned to shrink, to swallow your fire, and to say yes even when everything in you was screaming no. It kept you safe. It kept the peace. But it also kept you small.
A Life Chosen is not a guide to becoming someone new. It's a remembering of who you are at the core, before the world taught you to live in the no. Grounded in science and lived experience, it helps you face the patterns that have been running your life on autopilot, reclaim the parts of yourself you traded for approval, and learn what it actually feels like to choose fully, fiercely, and without apology.
Structured around four archetypes and four cycles, it gives shape to the patterns that keep women small — and the decision that sets them free.
This is more than a book; it's a threshold.
- Author
- Julia McElgunn
- Publisher
- Joan of Arc Publishing
- Release date
- October 29, 2026
- Formats
- Paperback, hardcover and eBook
- Paperback ISBN
- 979-8-951659-17-0
- Hardcover ISBN
- 979-8-951659-18-7
- eBook ISBN
- 979-8-951659-19-4
Read it from the ground up
A book with an architecture is a book you can quote, teach and carry into a room. A Life Chosen is drawn the way a geologist draws a section: Potential is the bedrock, and each catalyst is laid down on top of it.
A life becomes chosen when we stop unconsciously outsourcing authorship of it.
Each catalyst has an archetype, a light side readers recognize in themselves and a shadow pattern that holds them back. Together, they return at the end as permission to choose.
Reads bottom to top, the way you'd read rock.
Lines worth carrying
You must choose your power; if you don't, someone else will take it.
Stop outsourcing your power. Stop asking for permission.
Bold does not equal destructive. Bold does not equal chaos.
True boldness is confident, self-assured, grounded, and quietly sovereign.
Remember, you have a choice. You have permission to choose.
You have permission to live an extraordinary life.
Questions for your conversation
The best book club questions invite readers to map the framework onto their own lives. Start with these.
- Where in your life are you still waiting for permission?
- What would quiet boldness look like in your life?
- What have you tied your worth to?
- Where are you overgiving or overfunctioning?
- Which archetype do you recognize most strongly in yourself?
- What are you ready to choose?
Reading A Life Chosen with your group? Ask about having Julia join the conversation.
Invite Julia to Your Book ClubWhat early readers are saying
