I’ve heard many stories from friends who, as adults, discovered that the person they always believed to be their mother or father was not, and saw what it did to their sense of self. I became fascinated by the how and why a family would perpetuate such a lie, and it made me wonder about the difference between a secret and a lie, and if there is one. This set me off writing novels about family secrets, and reading many more. I enjoy exploring what such devastating news does to a person, and to the entire family, once the secret is discovered.
I was drawn in immediately by the prose, tone, and atmosphere, not to mention the mystery.
I wanted to just sit and read this book and forget everything else I had to do. How can you not love a story about a legendary book, a lost mother, and a daughter's search for both of them?
And I loved the settings: London, England’s Lake District, and South Carolina’s Low Country. They’re so vivid, I felt as if I was there with the characters.
I was captivated by this story with its long-held shocking family secret, plus I love learning something new in a novel, and am especially fascinated learning about Native American tribes, as I did in this book.
The characters are layered and well-drawn. They jump off the page. They’ve stayed with me long after I, reluctantly, closed the book.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER 2023 Barnes & Noble Discover Prize Winner Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a mystery that will haunt the survivors, unravel a family, and remain unsolved for nearly fifty years
"A stunning debut about love, race, brutality, and the balm of forgiveness." —People, A Best New Book
July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother,…
A coming-of-age love story between three best friends growing up in a small-town Wyoming neighborhood during the late 1960s, early 1970s.
If you are familiar with “The Wonder Years,” this is the wonder years out west. Smart-mouthed Maggie Moore is instantly smitten with the laid back, sometimes infuriating Bucky. Too…
This story grabbed my heart, sometimes clutching it in pain, sometimes bursting with pleasure.
This is a family saga I will long remember. I love a book with gorgeous prose that makes me stop and re-read. Napolitano’s sentences and phrases, metaphors, and similes did that. I wanted to savor the words, like rich dark chocolate, on my tongue.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Dear Edward comes a poignant and engrossing family story that asks: Can love make a broken person whole?
“Hello Beautiful is exactly that: beautiful, perceptive, wistful. It’s a story of family and friendship, of how the people we are bound to can also set us free. I loved it.”—Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him—so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman…
It’s as compulsive as reading any great mystery, yet it’s a memoir. I usually read novels about family secrets, but this is a true story about a staggering family secret. The secret ripped the author’s life apart, and her honesty and exquisite prose grabbed my heart.
It made me contemplate my own identity and my belief of what makes one a parent and what makes a family, and I found myself exploring what should and should not be kept secret. And if there are any good reasons to keep a secret.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed author of Inheritance and host of the hit podcast Family Secrets: a memoir about the staggering family secret uncovered by a genealogy test, an exploration of the urgent ethical questions surrounding fertility treatments and DNA testing, and a profound inquiry of paternity, identity, and love.
“Memoir gold: a profound and exquisitely rendered exploration of identity and the true meaning of family.” —People
In the spring of 2016, through a genealogy website to which she had casually submitted her DNA for analysis, Dani Shapiro received the stunning news that her beloved deceased father…
A haunting portrait of what happens when ambition, grief, and guilt collide. Some books break your heart. Others help you pick up the pieces. A Fine Layer of Dust does both.
After one irreversible moment tears two families apart, everyone must confront the impossible choices that shaped them. This is…
I was drawn into this story from its first brilliant line.
Before this book was released, I read an ARC of the novel as a member of the Group Reads committee that curates a list of novels perfect for book clubs. Immediately, I felt this would be a bestseller and am so glad I was right.
The multilayered characters are so well drawn, and the propulsive mystery is deftly laid out, making it a page turner. This is a novel I kept reading late into the night.
The acclaimed debut novel by the author of Little Fires Everywhere and Our Missing Hearts
"A taut tale of ever deepening and quickening suspense." -O, the Oprah Magazine
"Explosive . . . Both a propulsive mystery and a profound examination of a mixed-race family." -Entertainment Weekly
"Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet." So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia's body…
Lucy never wanted the ring on her finger or the baby in the crib, but in 1922, there isn’t much she can do about it. She’s forced to make an impossible decision and leaves behind a life she can no longer endure. Three decades later, her daughter, Anna, uncovers a shocking secret in her grandmother's journal that's been hidden away for years. It casts doubt on everything Anna believes.
Among the clues is the story of a pair of earrings, hinting at truths that defy what Anna has always known. Devastated and determined to understand her past, Anna embarks on a journey to unmask the truth, only to discover the past isn't just something to uncover—it's something that could determine her future.
It's 1943, and World War II has gripped the nation, including the Stilwell family in Jacksonville, Alabama. Rationing, bomb drills, patriotism, and a changing South barrage their way of life. Neighboring Fort McClellan has brought the world to their doorstep in the form of young soldiers from all over the…
I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places…
