Where Are the Cocoa Puffs?

Well, I finally know where my Cocoa Puffs are.... My debut novel has been launched! First weeks of sales have been very good and the novel has already gone through a second printing. See what others are saying:


Early Praise for
Karen Winters Schwartz’s
Where Are the Cocoa Puffs?
A Family’s Journey Through Bipolar Disorder

Where Are the Cocoa Puffs? is an engaging family story of what happens when the eighteen-year-old daughter develops bipolar disorder. It is very well written and accurately reflects the effects of this disorder on all members of the family. Strongly recommended.
– E. Fuller Torrey, M.D., author of Surviving Schizophrenia and
Surviving Manic Depression

Where Are the Cocoa Puffs? is a coming of age story. It provides an authentic look at a teenager, her family, and friends who struggle to come to terms with the onset of her mental illness and to find a balance between hope and acceptance. Read it for its own sake. Read it to learn. It speaks to many truths.
– Michael J. Fitzpatrick, MSW Executive Director, NAMI National

Fasten your seat belt as you’re drawn into the Benson family’s desperate struggle to manage their eighteen-year-old daughter’s terrifying plunge into a world where the line between rationality and madness is often blurred — the world of bipolar disorder. I highly recommend this book. It will challenge, educate, and most importantly, it will inspire you.
– Dr. Joseph J. Luciani, bestselling author of Self-Coaching:
The Powerful Program to Beat Anxiety & Depression

Welcome to the world of mental illness. This emotionally raw novel pulls you into
the belly of the beast — in this case, into the chaos of the Benson family, where survival and sanity hang by a thread. There is no escape; it feels like you are part of the family. Ultimately, this is a love story. It’s about the love that binds a family together in the midst of dealing with everything that threatens to pull them apart. Very highly recommended!
– Alan Gettis, Ph.D., author of the award-winning book The Happiness
Solution: Finding Joy & Meaning in an Upside Down World

What would it be like to be part of a family in which the teenage daughter begins to exhibit wild mood swings that are finally diagnosed as bipolar disorder? By entering the interiors of this young woman, her mother, father, sister, and boyfriend, Karen Winters Schwartz’s novel Where Are the Cocoa Puffs? takes the reader on that roller coaster with insight and sympathy for all. Spending time with this family will be a comfort to those who have had similar experiences and it will deepen the compassion of those who haven’t. The novel accurately portrays the complexities and strain of living with someone who has a mental illness, but it also offers hope as a result of the medical world’s increasing understanding of biochemical imbalances in the brain.
– Ginnah Howard, author of Night Navigation

Where Are the Cocoa Puffs? is a tragic tale of a family besieged by perhaps the most insidious of all diseases. It is one of those rare reads that can teach us something about the trials faced by those attempting to live with or support loved ones with mental illness, while also teaching us something about ourselves. It is a story of betrayal and anguish, of coming to terms with loss and accepting alternatives all of us should pray we never suffer. If you already know how arduous living with mental disorders can be, you owe it to the author to read this book.
She has given your cause a beautiful voice — a fine example of the perseverance and will required to love someone so afflicted. But if you only think you know the trials and tribulations endured by those poor souls, you owe this read to yourself.
– Donald R. Dempsey, author of Betty’s Child