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A Father's Affair

Karel Glastra van Loon · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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The Shipping News

Annie Proulx · 337 pages

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, The Shipping News is a celebration of Annie Proulx's genius for storytelling and her vigorous contribution to the art of the novel. Quoyle, a third-rate newspaper hack, with a "head shaped like a crenshaw, no neck, reddish hair...features as bunched as kissed fingertips," is wrenched violently out of his workaday life when his two-timing

Single FatherWidowed ProtagonistDeath of a SpouseFamily Secrets
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The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Gabrielle Zevin · 279 pages

A.J. Fikry's life is not what he expected it to be. His wife has died, his bookstore is failing, and his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. He is isolating himself from all the people of Alice Island and from Amelia, the Knightley Press sales rep who refuses to be deterred by A.J.'s bad attitude. And then a mysterious package appears at the bookstore that gives A.J

Single FatherWidowed ProtagonistDeath of a SpouseBittersweet
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Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Helen Simonson · 394 pages

You are about to travel to Edgecombe St. Mary, a small village in the English countryside filled with rolling hills, thatched cottages, and a cast of characters both hilariously original and as familiar as the members of your own family. Among them is Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired), the unlikely hero of Helen Simonson's wondrous debut. Wry, courtly, opinionated, and completely endearing, Major P

Widowed ProtagonistFather and SonDeath of a SpouseBittersweet
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Last Night in Twisted River

John Irving

In 1954, in the cookhouse of a logging and sawmill settlement in northern New Hampshire, an anxious twelve-year-old boy mistakes the local constable's girlfriend for a bear. Both the twelve-year-old and his father become fugitives, forced to run from Coos County--to Boston, to southern Vermont, to Toronto--pursued by the implacable constable. Their lone protector is a fiercely libertarian logger,

Single FatherFather and SonFamily SecretsLiterary Fiction
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A Bend in the Road

Nicholas Sparks · 352 pages

Miles Ryan's life seemed to end the day his wife was killed in a hit-and-run accident two years ago. As deputy sheriff of New Bern, North Carolina, he not only grieves for her and worries about their young son Jonah but longs to bring the unknown driver to justice. Then Miles meets Sarah Andrews, Jonah's second-grade teacher. A young woman recovering from a difficult divorce. Sarah moved to New Be

Single FatherWidowed ProtagonistDeath of a SpouseBittersweet
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Two Rivers

T. Greenwood · 373 pages

"In Two Rivers, Vermont, Harper Montgomery is living a life overshadowed by grief and guilt. Since the death of his wife, Betsy, twelve years earlier, Harper has narrowed his world to working at the local railroad and raising his daughter, Shelly, the best way he knows how. Still wracked with sorrow over the loss of his life-long love and plagued by his role in a brutal, long-ago crime, he wants o

Widowed ProtagonistDeath of a SpouseFamily SecretsBittersweet
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The Descendants

Kaui Hart Hemmings · 300 pages

Narrated in a fearless voice full of bold hilarity and set against the lush, panoramic backdrop of Hawaii, The Descendants is a stunning debut novel about an unconventional family forced to come together and re-create its own legacy...A descendant of one of Hawaii's largest landowners, Matthew King finds his luck has changed. His two daughters - Scottie, a feisty ten-year-old, and Alex, a teenage

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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Mark Haddon · 240 pages

This is Christopher's murder mystery story. There are no lies in this story because Christopher can't tell lies. Christopher does not like strangers or the colours yellow or brown or being touched. On the other hand, he knows all the countries in the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7507. When Christohper decides to find out who killed the neighbour's dog, his mystery st

Single FatherFather and SonFamily SecretsCharacter-Driven
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This Must Be the Place

Kate Racculia · 367 pages

Death of a SpouseWidowed ProtagonistFamily SecretsBittersweet
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Kramer vs. Kramer

Avery Corman · 248 pages

Single FatherFather and SonBittersweetCharacter-Driven
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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

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Bright's Passage

Josh Ritter · 208 pages

World War I veteran Henry Bright grieves over the death of his young wife while he struggles to care for their new infant and travels a fire-stricken landscape accompanied by a guardian angel and a cantankerous goat.

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En man som heter Ove

Fredrik Backman · 346 pages

Widowed ProtagonistDeath of a SpouseBittersweetCharacter-Driven
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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

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The Art of Racing in the Rain

Garth Stein · 321 pages

Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has educated himself by watching television extensively, and by listening very closely to the words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver.Through Denny, Enzo has gained tremendous insight into the human condition, and he sees that life, like racing,

Single FatherDeath of a SpouseBittersweetCharacter-Driven
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These Silent Woods

Kimi Cunningham Grant · 288 pages

A father and daughter living in the remote Appalachian mountains must reckon with the ghosts of their past in Kimi Cunningham Grant's These Silent Woods, a mesmerizing novel of suspense. No electricity, no family, no connection to the outside world. For eight years, Cooper and his young daughter, Finch, have lived in isolation in a remote cabin in the northern Appalachian woods. And that's exactly

Single FatherFamily SecretsBittersweetCharacter-Driven
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When He Was Wicked

Julia Quinn · 448 pages

In every life there is a turning point. A moment so tremendous, so sharp and breathtaking, that one knows one’s life will never be the same. For Michael Stirling, London’s most infamous rake, that moment came the first time he laid eyes on Francesca Bridgerton. After a lifetime of chasing women, of smiling slyly as they chased him, of allowing himself to be caught but never permitting his he

Widowed ProtagonistDeath of a SpouseInfertilityBittersweet
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Sing You Home

Jodi Picoult · 466 pages

A stillborn baby ends Max and Zoe's marriage. Max leaves Zoe and turns to drinking. Zoe falls in love with a female school counselor, Vanessa. Max finds help for his drinking problem through his brother's church. Vanessa and Zoe get married. Vanessa offers to carry one of Zoe and Max's fertilized embryos. Zoe goes to Max to get permission to release the embryos to her but Max's new found religious

InfertilityDeath of a SpouseBittersweetCharacter-Driven
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Peace Like a River

Leif Enger · 313 pages

"Raised on tales of cowboys and pirates, eleven-year-old Reuben Land has little doubt that miracles happen all around us, and that it's up to us to "make of it what we will." Reuben was born with no air in his lungs, and it was only when his father, Jeremiah, picked him up and commanded him to breathe that his lungs filled. Reuben struggles with debilitating asthma from then on, making him a boy

Single FatherFather and SonBittersweetCharacter-Driven
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I Married You for Happiness

Lily Tuck · 193 pages

The tale unfolds over a single night as Nina sits at the bedside of her husband, Philip, whose sudden and unexpected death is the reason for her lonely vigil. Still too shocked to grieve, she lets herself remember the defining moments of their long union, beginning with their meeting in Paris. She is an artist, he a highly accomplished mathematician--a collision of two different worlds that merged

Widowed ProtagonistDeath of a SpouseBittersweetLiterary Fiction
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Cutting for Stone

Abraham Verghese · 670 pages

Cutting for Stone (2009) is a novel written by Ethiopian-born Indian-American medical doctor and author Abraham Verghese. It is a saga of twin brothers, orphaned by their mother's death at their births and forsaken by their father. The book includes both a deep description of medical procedures and an exploration of the human side of medical practices. When first published, the novel was on The

Father and SonFamily SecretsBittersweetCharacter-Driven
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No Second Chance

Harlan Coben · 400 pages

When the first bullet hit my chest, I thought of my daughter.' Dr Marc Seidman is living in a classic American suburb in New Jersey with his new wife, Monica, and their baby daughter, Tara, when the shocking attack occurs. Marc is left barely clinging to life. When he wakes up at the hospital, he learns that Monica is dead - and that their daughter Tara is missing from her crib. For two weeks ther

Single FatherDeath of a SpouseWidowed ProtagonistFamily Secrets
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A Single Man

Christopher Isherwood · 158 pages

Classic fiction. The best prose writer in English' Gore Vidal Celebrated as a masterpiece from its first publication, A Single Man is the story of George Falconer, an English professor in suburban California left heartbroken after the death of his lover Jim. With devastating clarity and humour, Christopher Isherwood shows George's determination to carry on, evoking the unexpected pleasures of life

Widowed ProtagonistDeath of a SpouseBittersweetLiterary Fiction
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A Virtuous Woman

Kaye Gibbons · 176 pages

Widowed ProtagonistDeath of a SpouseBittersweetCharacter-Driven
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