Shows how a simple hospital visit becomes a portal to the most tender relationship of all--the one between mother and daughter. Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn't spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy's childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every...

"For more than a decade, Jenna Metcalf has never stopped thinking about her mother, Alice, who mysteriously disappeared in the wake of a tragic accident. Refusing to believe that she would be abandoned as a young child, Jenna searches for her mother regularly online and pores over the pages of Alice's old journals. A scientist who studied grief among elephants, Alice wrote mostly of her research among the animals she loved, yet Jenna hopes the entries...

Catherine Sterling thinks she knows her mother. Ruth Sterling is quiet, hardworking, and lives for her daughter. All her life, it's been just the two of them against the world. But now, Catherine is ready to spread her wings, move from home, and begin anew career. And Ruth Sterling will do anything to prevent that from happening. Ruth Sterling thinks she knows her daughter. Catherine would never rebel, would never question anything about her mother's...

Struggling to come to terms with a grave medical diagnosis, Heather Nelson is determined to forgo traditional medicine--to her father's chagrin--in hopes of finding answers and healing in Amish country. But first, she offers to drive her Amish friend, Grace Byler, to Ohio in order to find Grace's mother. Will mother and daughter, and one seriously ill graduate student, find the answers they long for? Or will "the telling" cause them all further pain?...

Recalling the past at her daughters' request, Lara tells the story of a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance, which causes her daughters to examine their own lives and reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Meredith and Nina are as different as sisters can be. When their father falls ill, they find themselves together, standing with their cold, disapproving mother, Anya. As children their only connection was the Russian fairy tale Anya often told the girls at night. On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise: the fairy tale will be told one last time--and all the way to the end.

Emma can?t sleep. It?s been like this since her big 4-0 started getting closer. Her mother stopped sleeping just before her own fortieth birthday. She went mad and did the unthinkable because of it. Is that what?s happening to Emma? Why can't she sleep?

"You can't escape what's in your blood... All Rob wanted was a normal life. She almost got it, too: a husband, two kids, a nice house in the suburbs. Far from her childhood home, Sundial, hidden deep in the wild Mojave Desert. But beneath the veneer, Robis terrified for her oldest daughter, Callie, who collects tiny bones and whispers to imaginary friends. Rob sees a darkness in Callie, one that reminds her too much of the family she left behind....

Inheriting her mother's San Francisco bookshop in the wake of a tragedy, Natalie bonds with her ailing grandfather and hires a contractor to perform repairs before unexpected discoveries connect her to the community and family secrets.

"Holding Pattern is a novel about immigration and belonging, mother-daughter relationships, and the many ways we can learn to hold each other. At 28, Kathleen Cheng returns home to live with her single mother, Marissa, an immigrant from China. Her mother, to Katheen's surprise, is in love, and Kathleen helps her mother plan her wedding to a tech entrepreneur. Kathleen takes a job working for an unusual start-up, and as mother and daughter peel back...