What’s in it
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorWater for Elephants
Sara Gruen · 352 pages
As a young man, Jacob Jankowski was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. It was the early part of the great Depression, and for Jacob, now ninety, the circus world he remembers was both his salvation and a living hell. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It was there
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
Rebecca Wells · 383 pages
The antics of a group of women in a small town where they were expected to raise babies, not Cain. The story is recounted by a mother to a daughter, the daughter thinking she is so much better because she got out of that town and is now a theater producer. The moral: mothers too were once rebels.
The Museum of Extraordinary Things
Alice Hoffman · 384 pages
Coney Island, 1911: Coralie Sardie is the daughter of a self-proclaimed scientist and professor who acts as the impresario of The Museum of Extraordinary Things, a boardwalk freak show offering amazement and entertainment to the masses. An extraordinary swimmer, Coralie appears as the Mermaid alongside performers like the Wolfman, the Butterfly Girl, and a 100 year old turtle, in her father's "mus
Geek Love
Katherine Dunn · 355 pages
Here is the unforgettable story of the Binewskis, a circus-geek family whose matriarch and patriarch have bred their own exhibit of human oddities (with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes). Their offspring include Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan . . . Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins . . . albino hunchback O
The Valley of Amazement
Amy Tan · 589 pages
Violet Minturn, a half-Chinese/half-American courtesan who deals in seduction and illusion in Shanghai, struggles to find her place in the world, while her mother, Lucia, tries to make sense of the choices she has made and the men who have shaped her.
The Book of Speculation
Erika Swyler · 376 pages
"Simon Watson, a young librarian on the verge of losing his job, lives alone on the Long Island Sound in his family home--a house, perched on the edge of a bluff, that is slowly crumbling toward the sea. His parents are long dead, his mother having drowned in the water his house overlooks. His younger sister, Enola, works for a traveling carnival reading tarot cards, and seldom calls. On a day in
Orphan Train
Christina Baker Kline · 400 pages
Close to aging out of the foster care system, Molly Ayer takes a position helping an elderly woman named Vivian and discovers that they are more alike than different as she helps Vivian solve a mystery from her past. When 17-year-old Molly Ayer is sent to perform community service at elderly Vivian Daly's home in order to avoid juvenile hall, she discovers the two are very much alike, despite the
The Forgotten Garden
Kate Morton · 648 pages
The 19th Wife
David Ebershoff · 528 pages
Faith, I tell them, is a mystery, elusive to many, and never easy to explain.Sweeping and lyrical, spellbinding and unforgettable, David Ebershoff's The 19th Wife combines epic historical fiction with a modern murder mystery to create a brilliant novel of literary suspense. It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mo
Before We Were Yours
Lisa Wingate · 424 pages
In this poignant novel, inspired by a true story, two families, generations apart, are forever changed by a heartbreaking injustice. Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family's Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge until strangers arrive
The Roanoke Girls
Amy Engel · 290 pages
Returning to her family's Kansas estate in the hopes of discovering the fate of her missing cousin, Lane reconnects with a young man from her past and is confronted by dark family secrets that prompted her to flee years earlier.
Winter Garden
Kristin Hannah · 448 pages
Can a woman ever really know herself if she doesn’t know her mother? From the author of the smash-hit bestseller Firefly Lane and True Colors comes a powerful, heartbreaking novel that illuminates the intricate mother-daughter bond and explores the enduring links between the present and the past. Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her chil
Identical
Ellen Hopkins · 624 pages
Do twins begin in the womb? Or in a better place? Kaeleigh and Raeanne are identical down to the dimple. As daughters of a district-court judge father and a politician mother, they are an all-American family—on the surface. Behind the facade each sister has her own dark secret, and that's where their differences begin. For Kaeleigh, she's the misplaced focus of Daddy's love, intended for a
Sisters One, Two, Three
Nancy Star · 342 pages
When a comment overheard by her teenage daughter forces Ginger to reveal a long-held family secret, she resolves to return to Martha's Vineyard and discover what really happened on that calamitous day and hopefully come to terms with it.
The God of the Woods
Liz Moore · 496 pages
When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disa
Nothing Holds Back the Night
Delphine de Vigan · 346 pages
Only a teenager when Delphine was born, Lucile raised two daughters largely alone. She was a former child model from a Bohemian family, younger and more glamorous than the other mothers: always in lipstick, wayward and wonderful. But as Delphine grew up, Lucile's occasional sadness gave way to overwhelming despair and delusion. She became convinced she was telepathic and in control of the Paris me
The Return
Victoria Hislop · 437 pages
From the internationally bestselling author of The Island comes a dazzling new novel of family betrayals, forbidden love, and historical turmoil.Sonia knows nothing of Granada's shocking past, but ordering a simple cup of coffee in a quiet cafe will lead her into the extraordinary tale of a family's fight to survive the horror of the Spanish Civil War.Seventy years earlier, in the Ramirez family's
The Photographer's Wife
Nick Alexander · 440 pages
Barbara - a child of the Blitz - has devoted her life to raising a family. She has protected her children from many of the harsh realities of life and kept more than a few secrets about her marriage to famous photographer Tony Marsden. But with such an incomplete picture of the past, her children have struggled to understand who their parents really are, and in turn, she sometimes worries, to buil
Everything I Never Told You
Celeste Ng · 300 pages
"Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet. So begins the story of this exquisite debut novel, about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee; their middle daughter, a girl who inherited her mother's bright blue eyes and her father's jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unabl
The judge's wife
Ann O'Loughlin · 312 pages
The Orchid House
Lucinda Riley · 449 pages
"For fans of The House at Riverton and Rebecca--a debut spanning from the 1930s to the present day, from a magnificent estate in war-torn England to Thailand, this sweeping novel tells the tale of a concert pianist, Julia, and the prominent Crawford family whose shocking secrets are revealed, leading to devastating consequences for generations to come. As a child Julia Forrester spent many idyllic
The Amber Keeper
Freda Lightfoot · 369 pages
"Set against the backdrop of revolutionary Russia, The Amber Keeper is a sweeping tale of jealousy and revenge, reconciliation and forgiveness. English Lake District, 1960s: A young Abbie Myers returns home after learning of her mother's death. Estranged from her turbulent family for many years, Abbie is heartbroken to hear that they blame her for the tragedy. Determined to uncover her mother's pa