Book picks similar to
My Sister's Child by Caroline Finnerty


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Point Hope


Kristen James - 2013
    Now they both feel hurt and unwanted. Their marriage is on its last legs when their family is faced with two deaths and an orphan. They're already raising two young children and Trey's teenage brother, Alex.After an IED brought his Navy career to an end, Trey became an EMT in his hometown of Coos Bay, Oregon. He struggles with PTSD, which affects his ability to do his job and connect with his family. His wife seems to be living life without him.Rosette is the mother hen and friend to all. She can't figure out what happened to her marriage, or to Trey--the man she once so desperately loved. It feels like she'll lose everything along with him. Meanwhile, he's enclosed in his own world without her.Trey and Rosette make a shaky agreement: to play "family"for now so they can take care of Trey's recently orphaned niece. But can faking it ever be enough?It's make-it or break-it time. If they split apart, who will raise Hope?

19 Myths About Cheating


Randy Susan Meyers - 2018
    Aren’t troubles with men a woman’s daily bread? Worse yet, I was sleeping with the trouble and he wasn’t my husband—a secret as undeserved as cruel. Adam’s marriage crimes were cold but not savage, and certainly not worthy of infidelity.”Isabelle needs one good reason to shave her legs with joy. Her husband broods over cholesterol, white flour, and his dental patients; her nervous eight-year-old son worries about everything, and her teen-aged daughter thinks Isabelle is an embarrassment.Isabelle begins her affair for many reasons—her husband treats her as an employee, her daughter turns more sour each day, and she feels she’s holding onto pretty by her teeth. But the lust isn’t worth the guilt, and when her daughter strikes up an unexpected friendship with the daughter of her lover, Isabelle’s two worlds approach a devastating collision."Randy Susan Meyers brings her razor-sharp humor, wit, insight, pathos and empathy to 19 MYTHS ABOUT CHEATING as she brings a marriage to life, and to the brink of death with deftness and sensitivity. Meyers writes with sass and smarts in this heart-wrenching and funny novella that every woman will read with a mixture of recognition, terror, and delight. I found myself saying, yes, yes, marriage is just like this, over and over.  No character is every black or white, no decision is ever right or wrongShe has us rooting for everyone even when we don't agree with them, and hoping that this time, love will triumph over adversity and that the book will last just a few pages longer." —NYT Bestseller, M.J. Rose

The Shop on Main


Kay Correll - 2014
    As she scrambles to maintain her fragile financial security and independence, she fears she may lose more than just The Shop on Main and her home.Nothing is working out like Bella planned--she finds out the man she is falling for, Owen Campbell, is the businessman at the center of all her problems.Owen has secretly longed to belong--somewhere--anywhere--his whole life. When he decides to give his long-lost brother, Jake, back his birthright, he unknowingly thwarts his briefly held hope of a place where he can put down roots and a family he longs for.Nothing is working out like Owen planned--neither Bella nor Jake wants anything to do with him.How can a man who is used to being in control and a woman determined to make it all on her own find a way to happiness?The Shop on Main is Book One of the Comfort Crossing series. Bella and her best friends, Jenny and Becky Lee, navigate the heartaches and triumphs of love and life in the small southern town of Comfort Crossing, Mississippi.

The Gingerbread House


Kate Beaufoy - 2017
    But beware! For in the fairy-tale, that s where the witch lives...Away from the city, with no distractions, the Gingerbread House seems like the perfect place to start work on a novel. That's what former advertising copywriter Tess thinks when she goes there to live with Eleanor, her aged mother-in-law. But Eleanor is suffering from dementia, and caring for her proves tougher than Tess could ever have imagined: feeling increasingly isolated, her only comfort is wine o'clock and weekend visits from her husband. Meanwhile her teenage daughter Katia is helpless to intercede; in the end she can only watch as things fall apart and a tragedy even closer to home surfaces.The Gingerbread House is a deeply moving novel: a compassionate and occasionally wickedly funny tale of a family's agonising struggle with dementia.

The House by the Cypress Trees


Elena Mikalsen - 2019
    Not a perfect trip.Daniel Stafford wants to visit his family in Tuscany—after his girlfriend dumps him for their Italian driver, he botches a work presentation in Rome, and an assertive American falls in front of his car.When their two disastrous lives collide, they end up sleeping on the side of the road. Falling in love with Italy—and each other—is the least of their concerns.

Felicity at the Cross Hotel


Helena Fairfax - 2017
    A few weeks hiking and swimming should restore her.But then the hotel’s new owner, Patrick Cross, takes Felicity for the replacement barmaid, and things don’t turn out quite to plan. With a grumpy chef, a waiter with love troubles, and the old Tudor building in need of renovation, Felicity’s quiet break soon turns into a working holiday.But Patrick’s dreams lie beyond the mountains, and Felicity’s loyalties lie with her family, and anyway, holidays can’t last forever...can they?

Her Sister's Shoes


Ashley Farley - 2015
    When an ATV accident leaves her teenage son in a wheelchair, she loses her carefully constructed self-control.In the after-gloom of her dreaded fiftieth birthday and the discovery of her husband’s infidelity, Jackie realizes she must reconnect with her former self to find the happiness she needs to move forward.Faith lacks the courage to stand up to her abusive husband. She turns to her sisters for help, placing all their lives at risk.In the midst of their individual challenges, the Sweeney sisters must cope with their mother’s mental decline. Is Lovie in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, or is her odd behavior normal for a woman her age? No one, including Lovie, understands her obsession with a rusty key she wears around her neck.For fans of Elin Hildebrand, Her Sister’s Shoes is a contemporary women’s novel that explores and proves the healing power of family.

The Empty Nesters


Carolyn Brown - 2019
    But none of the women are prepared when their daughters decide to enlist in the army together. Facing an empty nest won’t be easy. Especially for Carmen. With emotions already high, she suffers an even greater blow: divorce papers. Diana understands the fury and tears. She’s been there.With nothing to lose and no one at home, the girlfriends impulsively accept an unexpected offer from their elderly neighbor. The recently widowed Tootsie has an RV, a handsome nephew at the wheel, and an aim for tiny Scrap, Texas, to embrace memories of her late husband. Still grieving, she can use the company as a balm for her broken heart. So can the empty nesters.Embarking on a journey of hope, romance, and healing, Diana, Carmen, and Joanie are at a turning point in their lives. And with the open road ahead of them, it’s just the beginning.

If You Must Know


Jamie Beck - 2020
    Amanda follows the rules—at the school where she works; in her community; and as a picture-perfect daughter, wife, and mother-to-be. Erin follows her heart—in love and otherwise—living a bohemian lifestyle on a shoestring budget and honoring her late father’s memory with a passion for music and her fledgling bath-products business.The sisters are content leading separate but happy lives in their hometown of Potomac Point until everything is upended by lies that force them to confront unsettling truths about their family, themselves, and each other. For sisters as different as these two, building trust doesn’t come easily—especially with one secret still between them—but it may be the only way to save their family.

Souls Set Free


Kimmie Easley - 2012
    Actually, she’s not loving at all. Unable to move on from a tormented childhood of abuse she’s now at risk of losing her own family. Hopeless, she goes to bed every night secretly longing to not wake up the next morning. That all changes the day her mother is murdered while living on the streets. Emma must now face all of the pain she has spent years trying to numb with pills and alcohol when she is forced to travel back to her hometown to identify her mother’s body. If only it were that easy…Will reliving the abuse all over again help Emma forgive her mother or send her spiraling back into a world she fought so hard to survive?

Garden of Lies


Eileen Goudge - 1989
    Rachel, in the lap of Manhattan luxury, an ice princess determined to be a great doctor. Rose, in the New York slums, yielding to passion too young, and fleeing heartbreak to become a star lawyer. When they both fall in love with the same fascinating man, they are brought face to face with the truth about each other and themselves.

Three Girls and a Baby


Rachel Schurig - 2011
    Finished with college, she should have been planning her wedding. After all, Ginny and Josh were made for each other—everyone said so. Except the love of her life didn't agree. Now Ginny is back in her hometown, unwillingly single, and stuck in a dead-end job. When she discovers she's pregnant, Ginny is convinced her life is ending. Instead of planning a future with Josh, she's learning the truth about morning sickness, juggling bills, and seeing just how far designer jeans can stretch.Her life-plan never included dating again (not even with her too-hot new boss), or being a single mother at 23. Now, with the help of her best friends, Annie and Jen, Ginny must try to re-imagine—and rebuild—a life she never wanted.

Wife 22


Melanie Gideon - 2008
    . . and finding herself again . . . in the middle of her life.Maybe it was those extra five pounds I’d gained. Maybe it was because I was about to turn the same age my mother was when I lost her. Maybe it was because after almost twenty years of marriage my husband and I seemed to be running out of things to say to each other.   But when the anonymous online study called “Marriage in the 21st Century” showed up in my inbox, I had no idea how profoundly it would change my life. It wasn’t long before I was assigned both a pseudonym (Wife 22) and a caseworker (Researcher 101).   And, just like that, I found myself answering questions.   7. Sometimes I tell him he’s snoring when he’s not snoring so he’ll sleep in the guest room and I can have the bed all to myself. 61. Chet Baker on the tape player. He was cutting peppers for the salad. I looked at those hands and thought, I am going to have this man’s children. 67. To not want what you don’t have. What you can’t have. What you shouldn’t have. 32. That if we weren’t careful, it was possible to forget one another.   Before the study, my life was an endless blur of school lunches and doctor’s appointments, family dinners, budgets, and trying to discern the fastest-moving line at the grocery store. I was Alice Buckle: spouse of William and mother to Zoe and Peter, drama teacher and Facebook chatter, downloader of memories and Googler of solutions.   But these days, I’m also Wife 22. And somehow, my anonymous correspondence with Researcher 101 has taken an unexpectedly personal turn. Soon, I’ll have to make a decision—one that will affect my family, my marriage, my whole life. But at the moment, I’m too busy answering questions.   As it turns out, confession can be a very powerful aphrodisiac.

Pam of Babylon


Suzanne Jenkins - 2011
    Pam and his two lovers discover secrets and lies, and each other. The first book in the series. Book #10 available for preorder.

The Way Life Should Be


Christina Baker Kline - 2007
    She is single in New York City, stuck in a job she doesn’t want and a life that seems to have, somehow, just happened.  She inherited a flair for Italian cooking from her grandmother, but she never seems to have the time for it—these days, her oven holds only sweaters. Tacked to her office bulletin board is a photo from a magazine of a tidy cottage on the coast of Maine—a charming reminder of a life that could be hers, if she could only muster the courage to go after it.On a hope and a chance, Angela decides to pack it all up and move to Maine, finding the nudge she needs in the dating profile of a handsome sailor who loves dogs and Italian food.  But her new home isn’t quite matching up with the fantasy. Far from everything familiar, Angela begins to rebuild her life from the ground up. Working at a local coffeehouse, she begins to discover the pleasures and secrets of her new small-town community and, in the process, realizes there’s really no such thing as the way life should be.