Bookmark the Blog


THE OPHELIA GIRLS

One of our recommended books is The Ophelia Girls by Jane Healey

A mother’s secret past and her daughter’s present collide in this richly atmospheric novel from the acclaimed author of The Animals at Lockwood Manor.

In the summer of 1973, Ruth and her four friends were obsessed with pre-Raphaelite paintings—and a little bit obsessed with each other. Drawn to the cold depths of the river by Ruth’s house, the girls pretend to be the drowning Ophelia, with increasingly elaborate tableaus. But by the end of that fateful summer, real tragedy finds them along the banks.

Twenty-four years later, Ruth returns to the suffocating, once grand house she grew up in,

read more

NIGHTBITCH

One of our recommended books is Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

In this blazingly smart and voracious debut, an artist turned stay-at-home mom becomes convinced she’s turning into a dog.

An ambitious mother puts her art career on hold to stay home with her newborn son. Two years later, she steps into the bathroom for a break from her toddler’s demands, only to discover a dense patch of hair on the back of her neck and unusually sharp canines. Her husband, who travels for work, casually dismisses her fears from faraway hotel rooms.

As the mother’s symptoms intensify, she struggles to keep her alter-canine-identity secret. Seeking a cure at the library,

read more

THE NEW WILDERNESS

One of our recommended books is The New Wilderness by Diane Cook

Margaret Atwood meets Miranda July in this wildly imaginative debut novel of a mother’s battle to save her daughter in a world ravaged by climate change; A prescient and suspenseful book from the author of the acclaimed story collection, Man V. Nature

Bea’s five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away, consumed by the smog and pollution of the overdeveloped metropolis that most of the population now calls home. If they stay in the city, Agnes will die. There is only one alternative: the Wilderness State, the last swath of untouched, protected land, where people have always been forbidden.

read more

ALL THE CHILDREN ARE HOME

One of our recommended books is All the Children Are Home by Patry Francis

A sweeping saga in the vein of Ask Again, Yes following a foster family through almost a decade of dazzling triumph and wrenching heartbreak—from the author of The Orphans at Race Point.

Set in the late 1950s through 1960s in a small town in Massachusetts, All the Children Are Home follows the Moscatelli family—Dahlia and Louie, foster parents, and their long-term foster children Jimmy, Zaidie, and Jon—and the irrevocable changes in their lives when a six-year-old indigenous girl, Agnes,  comes to live with them.

When Dahlia decided to become a foster mother,

read more

OF WOMEN AND SALT

One of our recommended books is Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia

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 were born

In present-day Miami, Jeanette is battling addiction. Daughter of Carmen, a Cuban immigrant, she is determined to learn more about her family history from her reticent mother and makes the snap decision to take in the daughter of a neighbor detained by ICE. Carmen, still wrestling with the trauma of displacement, must process her difficult relationship with her own mother while trying to raise a wayward Jeanette.

read more

ACTRESS

One of our recommended books is Actress by Anne Enright

Katherine O’Dell is an Irish theater legend. Every moment of her life is a performance, with her daughter, Norah, standing in the wings. With age, alcohol, and dimming stardom, however, Katherine’s grip on reality grows fitful. Fueled by a proud and long-simmering rage, she commits a bizarre crime.

As Norah’s role gradually changes to Katherine’s protector, caregiver, and finally legacy-keeper, she revisits her mother’s life of fiercely kept secrets; and Norah confronts in turn the secrets of her own sexual and emotional coming-of-age. With virtuosic storytelling, Actress weaves together two generations of women with difficult sexual histories,

read more