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The Hand That First Held Mine

Maggie O'Farrell · back to the book

What’s in it

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24 books with the same feel

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Secrets of a Charmed Life

Susan Meissner · 480 pages

"When Oxford student Kendra Van Zant interviews 93-year-old artist Isabel MacFarland about her experience as a survivor of the London Blitz, Isabel is ready to share secrets she has kept for decades--beginning with who she really is"--

Dual TimelineArtist ProtagonistFamily SecretsLondon
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The Shell Seekers

Rosamunde Pilcher · 582 pages

The Shell Seekers is a novel of connection: of one family, and of the passions and heartbreak that have held them together for three generations. The Shell Seekers is filled with real people--mothers and daughters, husband and lovers--inspired with real values. The Shell Seekers centers on Penelope Keeling--a woman you'll always remember in world you'll never forget. The Shell Seekers is a magical

Dual TimelineArtist ProtagonistFamily SecretsWomen's Fiction
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The Pearl Sister

Lucinda Riley · 510 pages

"From the breathtaking beaches of Thailand to the barely tamed wilds of colonial Australia, The Pearl Sister is the next captivating story in New York Times bestselling author Lucinda Riley's epic series about two women searching for a place to call home. CeCe D'Apliese has always felt like an outcast. But following the death of her father--the reclusive billionaire affectionately called Pa Salt b

Dual TimelineArtist ProtagonistFamily SecretsWomen's Fiction
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Astonish Me

Maggie Shipstead · 356 pages

From the author of the widely acclaimed debut novel *Seating Arrangements,* winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Price for First Fiction: a gorgeously written, fiercely compelling glimpse into the demanding world of professional ballet and its magnetic hold over two generations. *Astonish Me* is the irresistible story of Joan, a young American dancer who helps a Sovie

Artist ProtagonistDual TimelineFamily SecretsLyrical Prose
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I'll Give You the Sun

Jandy Nelson · 400 pages

A brilliant, luminous story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal for fans of John Green, David Levithan, and Rainbow Rowell Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three y

Artist ProtagonistDual TimelineFamily SecretsLyrical Prose
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The Forgotten Garden

Kate Morton · 648 pages

Dual TimelineFamily SecretsWomen's FictionLyrical Prose
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Dual TimelineArtist ProtagonistLondonFamily Secrets
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Wildflower Hill

Kimberley Freeman · 460 pages

Emma Blaxland-Hunter, a prima ballerina from London, must re-evaluate her life after doctors declare her knee unfit for dancing. At the behest of her mother, Emma returns home to Sydney, where she discovers her affluent and loving grandmother, Beattie Blaxland, has left her an inheritance: Wildflower Hill, an old sheep farm in Tasmania. When Emma settles in temporarily to clean out Wildflower Hill

Dual TimelineFamily SecretsWomen's FictionEmotional
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Malas

Marcela Fuentes · 375 pages

Dual TimelineFamily SecretsLyrical ProseLiterary Fiction
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The Echo of Old Books

Barbara Davis

A novel about the magical lure of books and summoning the courage to rewrite our stories by the Amazon Charts bestselling author of The Keeper of Happy Endings and The Last of the Moon Girls. Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer's affinity for books extends beyond the intoxicating scent of old paper, ink, and leather. She can feel the echoes of the books' previous owners--an emotional fingerprint only sh

Dual TimelineFamily SecretsWomen's FictionEmotional
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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

Dual TimelineFamily SecretsWomen's FictionEmotional
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All the Broken Places

John Boyne · 400 pages

Dual TimelineFamily SecretsLondonEmotional
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White Oleander

Janet Fitch · 390 pages

Everywhere hailed as a novel of rare beauty and power, White Oleander tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes-each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned-becomes a redeeming and surprising journey of self-discovery.

Artist ProtagonistLyrical ProseEmotionalLiterary Fiction
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The House Girl

Tara Conklin · 372 pages

A novel of love, family, and justice follows Lina Sparrow, an ambitious first-year associate in a Manhattan law firm, as she searches for the "perfect plaintiff" to lead a historic class-action lawsuit worth trillions of dollars in reparations for descendants of American slaves.

Artist ProtagonistDual TimelineFamily SecretsEmotional
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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

V.E. Schwab · 448 pages

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The Beach Trees

Karen White · 403 pages

From the time she was twelve, Julie Holt knew what a random tragedy can do to a family. At that tender age, her little sister disappeared-never to be found. It was a loss that slowly eroded the family bonds she once relied on. As an adult with a prestigious job in the arts, Julie meets a struggling artist who reminds her so much of her sister, she can't help feeling protective. It is a friendship

Dual TimelineArtist ProtagonistFamily SecretsWomen's Fiction
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Everything Is Illuminated

Jonathan Safran Foer · 288 pages

A young man arrives in the Ukraine, clutching in his hand a tattered photograph. He is searching for the woman who fifty years ago saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Unfortunately, however, he is aided in his quest by Alex, a translator with an uncanny ability to mangle English into new forms; a 'blind' old man haunted by memories of the war; and an undersexed guide dog named Sammy Davis, Jr, J

Dual TimelineFamily SecretsLyrical ProseEmotional
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The Lost Bookshop

Evie Woods

The Keeper of Stories meets The Lost Apothecary in this evocative and charming novel full of mystery and secrets. ‘The thing about books,’ she said ‘is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever dream of.’ On a quiet street in Dublin, a lost bookshop is waiting to be found… For too long, Opaline, Martha and Henry have been the side characters in their own lives.

Dual TimelineWomen's FictionFamily SecretsEmotional
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Those Who Save Us

Jenna Blum · 496 pages

For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer has refused to talk about her life in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was only three when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldier and went to live with him in Minnesota. Trudy's sole evidence of the past is an old photograph: a family portrait showing Anna, Trudy, and a Nazi officer, the Obersturmfuhrer of Buchenwald. Driven by

Dual TimelineFamily SecretsWomen's FictionEmotional
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The Last Painting of Sara de Vos

Dominic Smith · 344 pages

Dual TimelineArtist ProtagonistLyrical ProseLiterary Fiction
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Fates and Furies

Lauren Groff · 400 pages

Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. Lauren Groff presents the story of one such marriage over the course of twenty-four years. At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the env

Family SecretsArtist ProtagonistLyrical ProseEmotional
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Girl with a Pearl Earring

Tracy Chevalier · 248 pages

This book "centres on Vermeer's prosperous household in Delft in the 1660s. The appointment of the quiet, perceptive heroine of the novel, the servant Griet, gradually throws the household into turmoil as Vermeer and Griet become increasingly intimate, an increasingly tense situation that culminates in her working for Vermeer as his assistant, and ultimately sitting for him as a model. Chevalier d

Artist ProtagonistLyrical ProseEmotionalWomen's Fiction
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Angle of Repose

Wallace Stegner · 569 pages

Wallace Stegner's Pultizer Prize-winning novel is a story of discovery—personal, historical, and geographical. Confined to a wheelchair, retired historian Lyman Ward sets out to write his grandparents' remarkable story, chronicling their days spent carving civilization into the surface of America's western frontier. But his research reveals even more about his own life than he's willing to admit.

Dual TimelineArtist ProtagonistLyrical ProseFamily Secrets
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Elle s'appelait Sarah

Tatiana de Rosnay · 409 pages

Dual TimelineFamily SecretsWomen's FictionEmotional

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