Keepsake


Kristina Riggle - 2012
    I was pulled in from the first page."--Marisa de los Santos, New York Times bestselling author of Falling TogetherFor her previous novels (Things We Didn't Say, The Life You've Imagined, Real Life & Liars), author Kristina Riggle has garnered fabulous reviews and established herself as a rapidly rising star of contemporary women's fiction. In Keepsake, she explores that most complicated of relationships, as two sisters raised by a hoarder deal with old hurts and resentments, and the very different paths their lives have taken. As always, Riggle approaches important topics poignantly and honestly--including hoarding and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) in her remarkable Keepsake--while writing with real emotional power and compassion about families and their baggage. For readers of Katrina Kittle and Elin Hildenbrand, Kristina Riggle's Keepsake is a treasure.

Pieces of Happily Ever After


Irene Zutell - 2009
    When her attorney husband lands a trophy client – box-office queen Rose Maris – things begin to look up. Then Alex starts working late – a lot. He crunches his paunch into a six-pack and trades his Gap ensembles for Armani everything.Soon, Rose and Alex's affair blazes in the tabloids and Alice is plunged into trash-gossip hell. Her life crumbles around her as she navigates her newly single self through suburban LA --a place rife with porn stars, psycho soccer moms and nutty neighbors.Is there a chance to wrest Alex from the Sexiest Woman Alive? And if so... would Alice want him back? And what about George--her college sweatheart? Or Johnny, a walking charm-bomb paparazzo? As Alice inventories the rubble of her life, she desperately searches for her bearings and is forced to ask herself what she really wants from life, love and herself.

What She Left Us


Stephanie Elliot - 2013
    Jenna broke off her engagement to the man she thought she'd love forever, while Courtney headed back to college to take charge of a dorm-floor full of college students as a resident assistant.Six months later, Jenna is fueled by panic over the news that the sisters may have the same disease that caused their mother's death and she makes an irrational decision - she packs it up and heads to college to be with Courtney. The timing couldn't be worse for Courtney, who's discovering love for the first time with Mitch, a sexy guitar player who may just be off limits.Emotionally unstable, Jenna wonders if she made the worst mistake of her life by breaking off her engagement with Darren, and when he shows up to make amends, she can't help but second-guess her decision. But then there's Clay, the compassionate bartender at Klippy's who seems to understand everything Jenna's going through. And those hazel eyes just seem to see right through to Jenna's soul…As the girls maneuver through their unpredictable futures, trying to manage their new health risks as well as tumultuous love lives, Courtney finds a disturbing photograph that indicates there may be more to their family than she ever imagined.This stunning revelation could shatter the sisters to the very core, making them question everything they thought they knew about their family, their faith, their past and, most of all, each other.

Not Her Daughter


Rea Frey - 2018
    Five years old. Gray eyes, brown hair. Missing since June.Emma is lonely. Living with her cruel mother and clueless father, Emma retreats into her own world of quiet and solitude.Sarah Walker. Successful entrepreneur. Broken-hearted. Kidnapper.Sarah has never seen a girl so precious as the gray-eyed child in a crowded airport terminal. When a second-chance encounter with Emma presents itself, Sarah takes her—far away from home. But if it’s to rescue a little girl from her damaging mother, is kidnapping wrong?Amy Townsend. Unhappy wife. Unfit mother. Unsure whether she wants her daughter back.Amy’s life is a string of disappointments, but her biggest issue is her inability to connect with her daughter. And now Emma is gone without a trace.As Sarah and Emma avoid the nationwide hunt, they form an unshakeable bond. But what about Emma’s real mother, back at home?

The Arrangement


Sarah Dunn - 2017
    They've got a two hundred year-old house, an autistic son obsessed with the Titanic, and 17 chickens, at last count. It's the kind of paradise where stay-at-home moms team up to cook the school's "hot lunch," dads grill grass-fed burgers, and, as Lucy observes, "chopping kale has become a certain kind of American housewife's version of chopping wood."When friends at a wine-soaked dinner party reveal they've made their marriage open, sensible Lucy balks. There's a part of her, though – the part that worries she's become too comfortable being invisible-that's intrigued. Why not try a short marital experiment? Six months, clear ground rules, zero questions asked. When an affair with a man in the city begins to seem more enticing than the happily-ever-after she's known for the past nine years, Lucy must decide what truly makes her happy – "real life," or the "experiment?"

The Family Next Door


Sally Hepworth - 2018
    It's the kind of place where everyone knows their neighbours, and children play in the street.Isabelle Heatherington doesn't fit into this picture of family paradise. Husbandless and childless, she soon catches the attention of three Pleasant Court mothers. But Ange, Fran and Essie have their own secrets to hide. Like the reason behind Ange's compulsion to control every aspect of her life. Or why Fran won't let her sweet, gentle husband near her new baby. Or why, three years ago, Essie took her daughter to the park - and returned home without her.As their obsession with their new neighbour grows, the secrets of these three women begin to spread - and they'll soon find out that when you look at something too closely, you see things you never wanted to see.

Me & Emma


Elizabeth Flock - 2005
    The girls live in a terrible situation: they depend on an unstable mother that has never recovered from her husband's murder, their stepfather beats them regularly, and they must forage on their own for food. Stop here and you have a story told many times before, as fiction and nonfiction in tales like Ellen Foster, or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings --stories in which a young girl reveals the horrors of her childhood. Me & Emma differentiates itself with a spectacular finish, shocking the reader and turning the entire story on its head. Through several twists and turns the reader learns that things are not quite the way our narrator led us to believe and everything crescendos in a way that (like all good thrillers) immediately makes you want to go back and read the whole book again from the start.

Those Other Women


Nicola Moriarty - 2018
    .Poppy's world has been tipped sideways: the husband who never wanted children has betrayed her with her broody best friend.At least Annalise is on her side. Her new friend is determined to celebrate their freedom from kids, so together they create a Facebook group to meet up with like-minded women, and perhaps vent just an little about smug mummies' privileges at work.Meanwhile, their colleague Frankie would love a night out, away from her darlings - she's not had one this decade and she's heartily sick of being judged by women at the office as well as stay-at-home mums.Then Poppy and Annalise's group takes on a life of its own and frustrated members start confronting mums like Frankie in the real world. Cafés become battlegrounds, playgrounds become war zones and offices have never been so divided.A rivalry that was once harmless fun is spiraling out of control.Because one of their members is a wolf in sheep's clothing. And she has an agenda of her own . . .

Don't Go


Lisa Scottoline - 2013
    Mike Scanlon is called to serve as an army doctor in Afghanistan, he's acutely aware of the dangers he'll face and the hardships it will cause his wife Chloe and newborn baby. And deep inside, he doesn't think of himself as a warrior, but a healer.However, in an ironic turn of events, as Mike operates on a wounded soldier in a war-torn country, Chloe dies at home in the suburbs, in an apparent household accident. Devastated, he returns home to bury her, only to discover that the life he left behind has fallen apart. His medical practice is in jeopardy, and he is a complete stranger to the only family he has left - his precious baby girl. Worse, he learns a shocking secret that sends him into a downward spiral.Ultimately, Mike realizes that the most important battle of his life faces him on the home front and he'll have to put it all on the line to save what's dearest to him – his family.

Little Island


Katharine Britton - 2013
    A note that Joy’s mother, Grace, has interpreted as instructions for her memorial service. And so, the far-flung clan will gather at their inn on Little Island, Maine, to honor her. Joy can’t help dreading the weekend. Twenty years ago, a tragedy nearly destroyed the family—and still defines them. Joy, Grace, her father Gar, and twins Roger and Tamar all have their parts to play. And now Joy, facing an empty nest and a nebulous future, feels more vulnerable than ever to the dangerous currents running through her family. But this time, Joy will discover that there is more than pain and heartbreak that binds them together, when a few simple words lift the fog and reveal what truly matters…

The Second Home


Christina Clancy - 2020
    If only she’d stayed in Wisconsin, she might never have met Anthony Shaw, and she would have held onto the future she’d so carefully planned for herself. Instead, Ann ends up harboring a devastating secret that strains her relationship with her parents, sends her sister Poppy to every corner of the world chasing waves (and her next fling), and leaves her adopted brother Michael estranged from the family. Now, fifteen years later, her parents have died, and Ann and Poppy are left to decide the fate of the beach house that’s been in the Gordon family for generations. For Ann, the once-beloved house is forever tainted with bad memories. And while Poppy loves the old saltbox on Drummer Cove, owning a house means settling, and she’s not sure she’s ready to stay in one place.Just when the sisters decide to sell, Michael re-enters their lives with a legitimate claim to a third of the estate. He wants the house. But more than that, he wants to set the record straight about what happened that long-ago summer that changed all of their lives forever. As the siblings reunite after years apart, their old secrets and lies, longings and losses, are pulled to the surface. Is the house the one thing that can still bring them together––or will it tear them apart, once and for all?Told through the shifting perspectives of Ann, Poppy, and Michael, this assured and affecting debut captures the ache of nostalgia for summers past and the powerful draw of the places we return to again and again. It is about second homes, second families, and second chances. Tender and compassionate, incisive and heartbreaking, Christina Clancy's The Second Home is the story of a family you'll quickly fall in love with, and won't soon forget.

Twenty Weeks


Melisa M. Hamling - 2011
    She thought she had the answers, but in one terrifying moment, she can no longer pretend to be ignorant.

After You Left


Carol Mason - 2017
    It isn’t the pain of him not being there—loneliness is manageable. The worst thing is not knowing why.When Justin walks out on Alice on their honeymoon, with no explanation apart from a cryptic note, Alice is left alone and bewildered, her life in pieces.Then she meets Evelyn, a visitor to the gallery where she works. It’s a seemingly chance encounter, but Alice gradually learns that Evelyn has motives, and a heartbreaking story, of her own. And that story has haunting parallels with Alice’s life.As Alice delves into the mystery of why Justin left her, the questions are obvious. But the answers may lie in the most unlikely of places…

He's Gone


Deb Caletti - 2013
    Keller?”The Sunday morning starts like any other, aside from the slight hangover. Dani Keller wakes up on her Seattle houseboat, a headache building behind her eyes from the wine she drank at a party the night before. But on this particular Sunday morning, she’s surprised to see that her husband, Ian, is not home. As the hours pass, Dani fills her day with small things. But still, Ian does not return. Irritation shifts to worry, worry slides almost imperceptibly into panic. And then, like a relentless blackness, the terrible realization hits Dani: He’s gone.As the police work methodically through all the logical explanations—he’s hurt, he’s run off, he’s been killed—Dani searches frantically for a clue as to whether Ian is in fact dead or alive. And, slowly, she unpacks their relationship, holding each moment up to the light: from its intense, adulterous beginning, to the grandeur of their new love, to the difficulties of forever. She examines all the sins she can—and cannot—remember. As the days pass, Dani will plumb the depths of her conscience, turning over and revealing the darkest of her secrets in order to discover the hard truth—about herself, her husband, and their lives together.

Danny's Mom


Elaine Wolf - 2012
    Beth didn’t want Danny to drive that snowy night, but her husband insisted the roads were safe. Beth blames him for Danny’s death, and she blames herself for allowing fear of confrontation to paralyze her. Now back at work, Beth rails against the everyday injustices she had overlooked until her world cracked open. Her new circumstances cause Beth to become a major player in the moral battles being waged at Meadow Brook High—where homophobia snakes through the halls, administrators cling to don’t-rock-the-boat policies, and mean girls practice bullying as if it were a sport. While Beth struggles to find her “new normal,” she learns to speak out, risking her career, her marriage, and the very life she’s learned to embrace.Danny’s Mom illustrates what really goes on behind the closed doors of our schools, from the perspective of the adults who are charged with keeping our children safe. It is a powerful novel that will appeal to all readers, especially mothers, the millions of adults who work in our schools, and the LGBTQ community.