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The Forgotten Garden

Kate Morton · back to the book

What’s in it

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24 books with the same feel

Include books by the same author
❤️

The Missing Sister

Lucinda Riley · 805 pages

Dual TimelineAdoptionFamily SecretsSecret Past
❤️

Bleak House

Charles Dickens · 815 pages

As the interminable case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce grinds its way through the Court of Chancery, it draws together a disparate group of people: Ada and Richard Clare, whose inheritance is gradually being devoured by legal costs; Esther Summerson, a ward of court, whose parentage is a source of deepening mystery; the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn; the determined sleuth Inspector Bucket; and even Jo, t

OrphansSecret PastFamily SecretsSlow-Paced
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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.

Dual TimelineFamily SecretsSecret PastIdentity Formation
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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

AdoptionOrphansDual TimelineSecret Past
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Looking for Jane

Heather Marshall · 400 pages

Dual TimelineAdoptionSecret PastFamily Secrets
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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 TimelineSecret PastSlow-PacedFamily Secrets
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The Face on the Milk Carton

Caroline B. Cooney · 188 pages

After recognizing the photo of the little girl listed as missing on the milk carton, 15-year-old Janie Johnson’s life is forever changed as she struggles to balance loyalty with doing what is right.

AdoptionSecret PastFamily SecretsIdentity Formation
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Where We Belong

Emily Giffin · 384 pages

Her carefully constructed life thrown into turmoil by the appearance of an eighteen-year-old girl with ties to her past, New York television producer Marian Caldwell is swept up in a maelstrom of personal discovery that changes both of their perceptions about family.

Secret PastFamily SecretsIdentity FormationAdoption
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The Pilot's Wife

Anita Shreve · 304 pages

Until now, Kathryn Lyons's life has been peaceful if unextraordinary: a satisfying job teaching high school in the New England mill town of her childhood; a picture-perfect home by the ocean; a precocious, independent-minded fifteen-year-old daughter; and a happy marriage whose occasional dull passages she attributes to the unavoidable deadening of time. As a pilot's wife, Kathryn has learned to

Secret PastFamily SecretsSlow-PacedMother and Daughter
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The Language of Flowers

Vanessa Diffenbaugh · 322 pages

Victoria Jones spent her childhood moving from foster home to foster home. She believes she is damaged beyond hope and trusts nobody, connecting with the world through message-laden bouquets. Her messages are never understood until one day a man in a flower stall responds in kind.

OrphansDual TimelineAdoptionFamily Secrets
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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

Family SecretsDual TimelineSlow-PacedMother and Daughter
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The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Kim Edwards · 408 pages

Kim Edwards's stunning family drama evokes the spirit of Sue Miller and Alice Sebold, articulating every mother's silent fear: what would happen if you lost your child and she grew up without you? In 1964, when a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins, he immediately recognizes that one of them has Down Syndrome and makes a split-second decision that will haunt all their lives fo

Family SecretsSecret PastSlow-PacedAdoption
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The Chaperone

Laura Moriarty · 419 pages

"A novel about the friendship between an adolescent, pre-movie-star Louise Brooks, and the 36-year-old woman who chaperones her to New York City for a summer, in 1922, and how it changes both their lives"--

OrphansAdoptionSecret PastFamily Secrets
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Vanishing Acts

Jodi Picoult · 418 pages

Delia Hopkins has led a charmed life. Raised in rural New Hampshire by her widowed father, Andrew, she now has a young daughter, a handsome fiance, and her own search-and-rescue bloodhound, which she uses to find missing persons. But as Delia plans her wedding, she is plagued by flashbacks of a life she can't recall. And then a policeman knocks on her door, revealing a secret that changes the worl

Secret PastFamily SecretsMother and DaughterMultiple POV
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Black Cake

Charmaine Wilkerson · 385 pages

Dual TimelineFamily SecretsSecret PastHidden Identity
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The Blind Assassin

Margaret Atwood · 638 pages

More than fifty years on, Iris Chase is remembering Laura's mysterious death. And so begins an extraordinary and compelling story of two sisters and their secrets. Set against a panoramic backdrop of twentieth-century history, The Blind Assassin is an epic tale of memory, intrigue and betrayal...

Secret PastFamily SecretsDual TimelineSlow-Paced
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The Witch's Kind

Louisa Morgan · 440 pages

AdoptionSecret PastFamily SecretsSlow-Paced
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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 SecretsSecret PastCharacter-Driven
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The Woman in the Green Dress

Tea Cooper · 336 pages

Dual TimelineFamily SecretsSecret PastSlow-Paced
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The Light Between Oceans

M.L. Stedman · 345 pages

"A novel set on a remote Australian island, where a childless couple live quietly running a lighthouse, until a boat carrying a baby washes ashore"--

AdoptionSlow-PacedSecret PastFamily Secrets
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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

Dual TimelineOrphansAdoptionFamily Secrets
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The Thirteenth Tale

Diane Setterfield · 424 pages

Sometimes, when you open the door to the past, what you confront is your destiny. Reclusive author Vida Winter, famous for her collection of twelve enchanting stories, has spent the past six decades penning a series of alternate lives for herself. Now old and ailing, she is ready to reveal the truth about her extraordinary existence and the violent and tragic past she has kept secret for so long.

Dual TimelineSecret PastFamily SecretsSlow-Paced
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The Perfume Collector

Kathleen Tessaro · 456 pages

Newlywed Grace Monroe doesn't fit anyone's expectations of a successful 1950s London socialite, least of all her own. When she receives an unexpected inheritance from a complete stranger, Madame Eva d'Orsey, Grace is drawn to uncover the identity of her mysterious benefactor. Weaving through the decades, from 1920s New York to Monte Carlo, Paris, and London, the story Grace uncovers is that of an

Dual TimelineSecret PastSlow-PacedCharacter-Driven
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All the Broken Places

John Boyne · 400 pages

Dual TimelineSecret PastHidden IdentityMother and Daughter
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