16 Excellent Books Worthy Of Your Mother + Daughter Book Club

When Val was only 11, her mother Eloise suddenly fled to her native London. In a bittersweet twist 19 years later, a disenchanted Val inherits her mother’s home and bookstore in London’s Primrose Hill. As she falls in love with her mother’s cozy flat and bookstore, Val discovers a stash of mysterious notes in a well loved novel. In her quest to save the financially struggling store and to discover more about the author of the intriguing notes, Val discovers truths about her mother she never imagined. Sarah Jio’s story about healing and loss reveals emotional truths we harbor about love, family and forgiveness.

Violeta has lived for 100 years and through her eyes, Isabel Allende shares a most remarkable story of determination, humor, and unforgettable passion. Violeta tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life has been shaped by some of the most important events in history: the fight for women’s rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and ultimately not one, but two pandemics. This is an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional. (Excerpt from Publisher)

In this WWII masterpiece, Kristin Hannah doesn’t show us the heartache of war through the eyes of those on the front lines, but from the hearts of the women on the home front.

With the men gone, the women are left to survive the German occupation of their French villages alone. What choices must they make to feed their children, protect their neighbors, and serve their country? In this epic story, two sisters take two very different paths of resistance, but each one’s courage reverberates for generations.

This is a hard but brilliant look at the lengths a woman will go to save and rebuild the good that remains in her life.

A sweeping, masterful debut about a daughter’s fateful choice, a mother motivated by her own past, and a family legacy that begins in Cuba before either of them was born.

In present-day Miami, Jeanette is battling addiction. Daughter of Carmen, a Cuban immigrant still wrestling with the trauma of displacement and the difficult relationship with her own mother, Jeanette is determined to learn more about her family history from her reticent mother. Steadfast in her quest for understanding, Jeanette travels to Cuba to see her grandmother and reckon with secrets from the past destined to erupt.

From 19th-century cigar factories to present-day detention centers, this book is a kaleidoscopic portrait of betrayals―personal and political, self-inflicted and those done by others―that have shaped the lives of these extraordinary women. A haunting meditation on the choices of mothers, the legacy of the memories they carry, and the tenacity of women who choose to tell their stories despite those who wish to silence them, this is more than a diaspora story; it is a story of America’s most tangled, honest, human roots. (Excerpt from Publisher)

Palestine, 1990. Seventeen-year-old Isra prefers reading books to entertaining the suitors her father has chosen for her. Within days, the naïve and dreamy girl finds herself betrothed, married, and living in Brooklyn. There Isra struggles to adapt to the expectations of her oppressive mother-in-law Fareeda and strange new husband Adam, a pressure that intensifies as she begins to have children—four daughters instead of the sons Fareeda tells Isra she must bear.

Brooklyn, 2008. Orphaned at 8 when her parents were killed in a car crash, Deya is now 18 and dreams of college. Her grandmother Fareeda is insistent she must meet with potential husbands to secure a worthy future through marriage to the right man. But fate has a will of its own, and soon Deya will discover shocking truths about her family—knowledge that will force her to question everything she thought she knew about her parents, the past, and her own future. (Excerpt from Publisher)

This powerful story paints an unforgettable portrait of a little known region and its people and celebrates the bond that connects mothers and daughters.

Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea — rituals and routines that haven’t changed for generations. When Li-yan has a baby outside of wedlock, rather than stand by tradition and have the child killed, she wraps her daughter in a blanket, with a tea cake hidden in her swaddling, and abandons her in the nearest city.

As the years pass, Li-yan slowly emerges from the security and insularity of her village to encounter modern life while Haley grows up a privileged and well-loved California girl. Despite Haley’s happy home life, she wonders about her origins; and Li-yan longs for her lost daughter. They both search for and find answers in the tea that has shaped their family’s destiny for generations. (Excerpt from Publisher)

One of Travel + Leisure‘s most anticipated books of summer 2020!

This book takes us with Zoe Fairchild to the small Devon village of her birth. Painful memories have kept her away for years, but the disappearance of her old friend, who is also her grandmother’s caretaker, brings her back to England with her 15-year-old daughter. When she reunites with her estranged mother, who left when Zoe was seven to travel the world, the emotional pain of the past is awakened.

Now the four Fairchild women will be tested in ways they couldn’t imagine as they contend with dangers within and without, desperate to heal themselves and their relationships with each other. (Excerpt from Publisher)

In 1918 Pauline Bright arrives with her husband and three daughters in Philadelphia, a city teeming with life and hope. But when the Spanish Flu devastates not just their new city but also their family and they are left to pick up the pieces amidst the tragedy, they learn what they cannot live without — and what they are willing to do about it.

As Bright as Heaven is the compelling story of a mother and her daughters who find themselves in a harsh world not of their making, which will either crush their resolve to survive or purify it. (Excerpt from Publisher)

This laugh-out-loud funny escape introduces us to single mom Amy Byler–a relatable and lovable heroine who needs a break from her overworked, under-appreciated routine. So when the husband who abandoned her takes their kids for the summer, she escapes rural Pennsylvania for New York City.

With a little encouragement from her friends, the normally mild-mannered Amy embraces the city that never sleeps. She discovers culture, sophistication, and a few blind dates. One man, in particular, makes quick work of Amy’s heart, and as the summer comes to an end, Amy must make an impossible decision: stay in this exciting new chapter, or return to the life she left behind.

Before she can choose, a crisis forces the two worlds together, and Amy must stare down a future where she could lose both sides of herself, and every dream she’s ever nurtured, in the beat of a heart. (Excerpt from Publisher)

Alaska, 1974. Ernt Allbright came home from the Vietnam War a changed and volatile man. He impulsively decides to move his wife and daughter north where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.

Cora will do anything for the man she loves, and thirteen-year-old Leni, caught in the riptide of her parents’ passionate, stormy relationship, has little choice but to go along.

In a wild, remote corner of Alaska, the Allbrights find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women whose generosity make up for the newcomers’ lack of preparation and dwindling resources. But as winter approaches and darkness descends, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates and the perils outside pale in comparison to those within. In their snow-covered cabin, blanketed in 18 hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own. (Excerpt from Publisher)

April 18, 1906: A massive earthquake rocks San Francisco, igniting a devouring inferno. The fates of three women intertwine on the eve of the devastating earthquake, thrusting them onto a perilous journey that will test their resiliency, resolve and, ultimately, their belief that love can overcome fear.

Sophie Whalen, a young Irish immigrant desperate to flee New York, answers a mail-order bride ad and marries a man she’s never met. Though her new husband’s alarming aloofness leaves her uneasy about her choice, Sophie quickly falls for Kat, Martin’s silent five-year-old daughter.

Early one evening, a strange sets in motion a transforming chain of events. Sophie discovers hidden ties to two other women. The first, pretty and pregnant, is standing on her doorstep. The second is hundreds of miles away, grieving the loss of everything she once loved.

This is a gripping novel about the bonds of friendship and mother love, and the power of female solidarity. (Excerpt from Publisher)

The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They hardly ever leave home, but in some ways, they have never been farther apart. Yet, as their lives advance across decades, the Garretts’ influences on one another ripple ineffably but unmistakably through each generation.

Full of heartbreak and hilarity, French Braid is classic Anne Tyler: a stirring, uncannily insightful novel of tremendous warmth and humor that illuminates the kindnesses and cruelties of our daily lives, the impossibility of breaking free from those who love us, and how close–yet how unknowable–every family is to itself. (Excerpt from Publisher)

Three generations. Two chicken shacks. One recipe for disaster. This is a charming, feel-good story about sisters, secrets, sibling rivalry, and everything else that makes a family. Oh, and chicken. Be warned: you will crave fried chicken throughout this book!

In tiny Merinac, Kansas, Chicken Mimi’s and Chicken Frannie’s have spent a century vying to serve up the best fried chicken in the state–and feuding with each other. Thirty-five-year-old widow Amanda Moore, born into Mimi’s but married into Frannie’s, is tired of being caught in the middle. She sends an SOS to Food Wars, the reality TV competition that promises $100,000 to the winner — launching both families out of the frying pan and directly into the fire. . .

Mae Moore, Amanda’s sister, is a famous NY personality whose career is infamously imploding. Helping Mimi’s win Food Wars is her best chance to reclaim the limelight. When family secrets become public, will the sisters fight each other, or for their heritage? (Excerpt from Publisher)

Three generations of women and secrets. A captivating tale of life, loss, and love…

Neva, a third-generation midwife, is determined to keep the details surrounding her own pregnancy – including the identity of the baby’s father – hidden for as long as possible. For Floss, Neva’s grandmother and a retired midwife, Neva’s situation thrusts her back 60 years in time to a secret that eerily mirrors her granddaughter’s – one which, if revealed, will have life-changing consequences for them all.

Will these women reveal their secrets and deal with the inevitable consequences, or are some secrets best kept hidden? (Excerpt from Publisher)