Book picks similar to
Things My Mother Told Me by Tanya Atapattu


review-copies
fiction
queer-secondary-characters
books-by-women

Across the Pond


Virginia Jewel - 2011
    

The Empty Nesters


Nina Bell - 2011
    Along with Clover's stylish, powerful friend, Alice, they share holidays, sleepovers, school runs and childcare. They're like one big family. But all families have their secrets. When the children leave home, Clover and Laura's lives and marriages change forever, and the old rules on love and loyalty no longer apply. And when Alice decides she wants what they've got, Clover and Laura have to find out who they really are. Without the children, can their marriages - and friendship - survive?

The Diary of V: The Breakup


Debra Kent - 2001
    V has to live in a sham marriage as she seeks information on her husband, his financial affairs and proof of his sexual affairs.

The Magic of Found Objects


Maddie Dawson - 2021
    All her life she’s been torn between the two. But now that she’s been betrayed by both love and the mother she once idolized, her rational side is winning.So when her best friend from childhood proposes that they give up on romance and marry each other, Phronsie agrees. Who better to spend your life with than your best friend? Maybe the connection they already have is love. Maybe there’s no falling to be done. But immediately after they announce their engagement, she encounters someone who makes a very charming and compelling argument for revisiting romance.While her even-keeled stepmother argues for the safety that comes with her new engagement and her mother relays messages from the universe to hold out for true love, Phronsie must look to her own heart to find the answers that have been there all along.

His Father's Son


Tony Black - 2013
    It's a far cry from his native Ireland, but he believes this is the place he and his wife can make a new life and forget the troubles of the past. And for a time, they do just that. There's a good life, a new house, regular work and, in time, they welcome their new son Marti into the world. But as the years pass, this new life thousands of miles from the Old Country comes under threat. Joey's wife has been struggling with demons of her own, their marriage is on the rocks and suddenly, Joey's wife disappears and takes Marti with her. Joey is beside himself, with no clues about where they are, with both his childhood sweetheart and his son - his pride and joy - now missing. Then, when Joey gets word that his wife and son have returned to Ireland, he knows that he'll now have to do the same if he ever wants to see his son again. And he also knows that he'll finally have to confront the ghosts of his past that he's been running from for years. His Father's Son is a touching and beautiful story of a family struggling to come to terms with their past, their present and an uncertain future.

White Fur


Jardine Libaire - 2017
    Although they are next-door neighbors in New Haven, they come from different worlds. Elise grew up in a housing project without a father and didn't graduate from high school. Jamey is a junior at Yale, heir to a private investment bank fortune and beholden to high family expectations. The attraction is instant, and what starts out as sexual obsession turns into something greater, stranger, and impossible to ignore.The unlikely couple moves to Manhattan in hopes of forging an adult life together, but Jamey's family intervenes in desperation, and the consequences of staying together are suddenly severe. And when a night out with old friends takes a shocking turn, Jamey and Elise find themselves fighting not just for their love but also for their lives.

Let It Snow


Nancy Thayer - 2019
    . . to warm the coldest of hearts--and maybe even find love.Christina Antonioni is preparing for the holidays at her Nantucket toy shop, unpacking last-minute shipments and decorating for her loyal Christmas shoppers. But when her Scrooge of a landlord, Oscar Bittlesman, raises her rent, it seems nearly impossible for Christina to continue business on the wharf.Even so, Christina hopes there is a warm heart underneath Oscar's steely exterior. When she bonds with Wink, his sweet, young granddaughter who frequents the shop, it becomes clear that perhaps he isn't so cold after all. And with the help of Wink's uncle, who happens to be a charming and very handsome bachelor, this may be the best Christmas any of them could have ever imagined. Nancy Thayer's enchanting Nantucket setting provides the perfect backdrop for this holiday love story.

Talk Me Down From The Edge


Jade Winters - 2011
    Both married and with children of their own, they settle down comfortably to follow life's script - until Sarah's husband suddenly leaves her. Unable to bear the shame and humiliation, the once solid friendship bends under the strain and Sarah leaves her hometown to move to London, where she hopes to find herself. Years later, Sarah returns with a mysterious friend in tow. And just in time it seems - as Laura is about to go through a private hell of her own...a hell that's going to test her marriage, her friendship, and her inner strength in ways that she never imagined.

Don't Say a Word


Jennie Hansen - 2021
    She needs to regain her balance, and her parents’ ranch in Montana provides the perfect escape. But respite is the last thing she finds. While camping near the Bitterroot Forest, a strange sound leads Cassie to make a startling discovery: a young child, abandoned in the wilderness. She acts on instinct, taking him home to the ranch with her. But she has no idea that by doing so, she will be forced to engage in a fight for his life—and her own. With the help of Deputy Parker Grafton, Cassie works to uncover the mystery behind the boy’s origins. The pair is drawn closer together each step of the investigation as they follow a bizarre trail of clues. But when a series of dangerous accidents begins to plague the family ranch, Cassie and Parker realize that an unknown assailant is closing in. They have to run. In a game of cat and mouse spanning the country, Cassie and Parker will stop at nothing to protect what’s become most important to them: the child in their care—and each other.

How to Save a Life


Eva Carter - 2021
    After years of working towards medical school, they are about to sit for their entrance exams. But on the eve of the new millennium, a classmate goes into cardiac arrest, changing everything.For nearly eighteen minutes, rising soccer star Joel Greenaway is dead. For nearly eighteen minutes, Kerry performs CPR on her long-time crush. And for nearly eighteen minutes, Tim is too shocked to help. And though they don't yet know it, those eighteen minutes will change the next eighteen years of their lives.Because as it turns out, saving a life doesn't always guarantee a happy ending.With his soccer career cut short, Joel lashes out and breaks Kerry's heart by ending their burgeoning relationship with a cruelty that derails her future, while Tim struggles to reconcile his dream of becoming a doctor with the reality of failing to act. As each struggles to move on from the events of that fateful New Year's Eve, their lives can't seem to stop colliding year after year. Pulled by their shared histories and her big heart, Kerry soon finds herself picking up the pieces after both broken men. But when Kerry is the one who needs saving, will anyone be there for her?As Kerry, Tim, and Joel discover what it means to love, to forgive, and to find your calling, this sweeping novel shows us that there is more than one way to save a life--and more than one path to finding meaning in your own.

Please Don't Leave Me Here


Tania Chandler - 2015
    Or why a man was found beaten to death in her apartment that same day.Brigitte claims she has no memory of what happened, but when the investigation is reopened fourteen years later, unwanted questions start cropping up:What was Brigitte doing before she was run over?Who killed the man in her apartment? And why is she haunted by the face of Kurt Cobain, who reminds her of someone she’d rather forget…?As Brigitte’s world begins collapsing in on her, she is forced to confront the truth about that night – even if it means losing her husband, her kids, and maybe even herself.

Map of the Heart


Susan Wiggs - 2017
    When her ageing father asks her to go with him to his native France, she has no idea that shes embarking on an adventure that will shake her complacency and utterly transform her. Returning to the place of his youth sparks unexpected memories—recollections that will lead Camille, her father, and her daughter, Julie, who has accompanied them, back to the dark, terrifying days of the Second World War, where they will uncover their family’s surprising history.While Provence offers answers about her family’s past, it also holds the key to Camille’s future. Along the way, Camille meets a handsome American historian who stirs a passion deep within her she thought she’d never experience again.

Staunch


Eleanor Wood - 2020
    How did she get here?Truthfully, it could be for any one of the below reasons, if not all combined:• Stepmum dying/Stepdad leaving – family falling apart, subsequent psychotic break; both parents now on third marriage• Breaking up with J after 12 years – breaking up a whole life, a whole fucking universe – for reasons that may have been… misguided?• New boyfriend moving in immediately, me insisting ‘it’s not a rebound!’ even after everyone has stopped listening, being cited in his messy divorce, him being sectioned, then breaking up with me• Going into therapy after dating a potentially violent, certainly threatening, narcissist (the most pertinent point of which should be noted: I did not break up with him – he ghosted me)How to address this situation? Take a trip to India with your octogenarian nan and two great aunts of course. The perfect, if somewhat unusual, distraction from Eleanor’s ongoing crisis.But the trip offers so much more than Eleanor could ever have hoped for.Through the vivid and worldly older women in her life, she learns what it means to be staunch in the face of true adversity.

Millicent Glenn's Last Wish


Tori Whitaker - 2020
    As she nears her ninety-first birthday, her daughter Jane, with whom she’s weathered a shaky relationship, suddenly moves back home. Then Millie’s granddaughter shares the thrilling surprise that she’s pregnant. But for Millie, the news stirs heartbreaking memories of a past she’s kept hidden for too long. Maybe it’s time she shared something, too. Millie’s last wish? For Jane to forgive her.Sixty years ago Millie was living a dream. She had a husband she adored, a job of her own, a precious baby girl, and another child on the way. They were the perfect family. All it took was one irreversible moment to shatter everything, reshaping Millie’s life and the lives of generations to come.As Millie’s old wounds are exposed, so are the secrets she’s kept for so long. Finally revealing them to her daughter might be the greatest risk a mother could take in the name of love.

2142 Green Hollow Rd


Katie Winters - 2020
    One they'll never break. One stronger than the winds off the Nantucket Sound and deeper than the great Atlantic Ocean.There had always been six of them. Until suddenly, the Nantucket Sound waters took one of their own. Michelle drowned at the age of seventeen.Everything changed after that.Now, Michelle's twin, Jennifer, along with Olivia, Amelia, Camila, and Mila, make up The Sisters of Edgartown. Through divorce, trauma, abandonment, childbirth, sickness, and even death, they've been there for one another through and through.But as they enter their forties, new problems arise. Their hearts find new bruises, new aches.And just as they were there for one another at age four, they find strength and confidence within their Sisterhood.Nothing will ever break them—ever.Dive into this new women's fiction series here in Martha's Vineyard - a backdrop of white sand and crystal blue waters that follow the stories of The Sisters of Edgartown, the town just southeast of Oak Bluffs. It's a heartwarming journey of friendship, loss, and love, one that will make you fall in love with the Sisters of Edgartown and want the next book.