By Liz Nugent

Oliver Ryan, a successful and charismatic writer of children's books, commits a shocking act of violence on his wife and literary partner, Alice, an attack that leaves her in a coma and causes their baffled friends and family to investigate what happened.

By Neil Abramson
Recommended By Arlene Silverman, Library Clerk

“After veterinarian Helena Colden dies of breast cancer, she is unable to move on and narrates the emotional deterioration and struggle of her attorney husband David as he becomes involved in a court case to save the life of a chimpanzee (From the Publisher).”

By Ellen Feldman

A Cold War-era marriage is tested by allegiances, betrayals, and a wife's discovery about her beloved and trusted husband's covert ties to the CIA.

By Susan Henderson
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services

Tillie Harris is forced to face painful memories when her husband is away on business and she finds herself with sudden labor pains and must turn to her estranged father for help.

By David Nicholls
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

A mild-mannered scientist with a hidden sense of humor struggles to repair his marriage and his relationship with his teen son during a month-long European tour.

By Meg Mitchell Moore
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian

While staying at her parents’ house in Maine, Louisa must unravel a family mystery, while newly arrived Kristie cannot keep her various lives from colliding forever, and as these two women cross paths, they will ask themselves what they are owed and what they owe others.

By Amy Tan
Recommended By Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian

“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 (From the Publisher).”

By Adriana Trigiani
Series Valentine Trilogy
Recommended By Ann Competello, Library Clerk

“Very Valentine is a sumptuous treat, a journey of dreams fulfilled, a celebration of love and loss filled with Trigiani's trademark heart and humor (From the Publisher).”

By Elinor Lipman
Recommended By Jean Buchholtz, Library Clerk, Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk, Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk

Two newly-single sisters, one a divorceé, the other a widow, become roommates with a handsome, gay cupcake-baker as they try to return to the dating world of lower Manhattan.

By Peter Pezzelli
Recommended By Lisa C., Library Clerk

“In his acclaimed novels of Italian-American life, Pezzelli explores themes of friendship, hope, and second chances. With Villa Mirabella, he invites readers into the lives of an unforgettable family - and into the warmth of one very special bed and breakfast... (From the Publisher).”

By Anne Tyler
Recommended By Adrienne Rein, Library Clerk
With Sonia Grgas, Health Reference Librarian

Tuesday, February 14, 2017. 7:30 PM.

A modern retelling of The Taming of the Shrew follows the experiences of a preschool teacher who alienates others by speaking her mind, and who manages her family's home before she is expected by her eccentric father to marry his assistant to prevent the young man's deportation.

By Lynn Steger Strong
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian

Reaching out to a friend after years of building a family and earning a PhD culminate in bankruptcy, Elizabeth discovers that her friend is enduring violent retaliation for wanting a life on her own terms.

By Lynda Cohen Loigman
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian

Reunited after an estrangement at the beginning of World War II, two Brooklyn sisters, one an officer's wife, the other a widow and factory laborer, are shattered by the revelations of a mysterious figure from the past.

By Henry James

Catherine Sloper, heiress to a fortune, attracts the attention of a good-looking but penniless young man, Morris Townsend, but her father is convinced that his motives are merely mercenary. He will not consent to the marriage, regardless of the cost to his daughter.

By Christopher Paul Curtis
Grade(s): 5+

The ordinary interactions and everyday routines of the Watsons, an African American family living in Flint, Michigan, are drastically changed after they go to visit Grandma in Alabama in the summer of 1963.

By Roopa Farooki

“Orphaned in early adulthood, the three Murphy siblings struggle with challenges related to the eldest's autism and the resentment and heightened responsibilities of the younger two, a situation that threatens to tear them apart (From the Publisher).”

By Matthew Thomas
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian, Pam Martin, Assistant Library Director

“Raised by her Irish immigrant parents in a 1940s Queens apartment where alcohol and company combine in mercurial ways, Eileen marries an unambitious scientist with whom she endures an increasingly psychologically dark family life (From the Publisher).”

By Tracey Lange
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian

Returning to the east coast to recover from a drunk driving accident she caused, 29–year–old Sunday Brennan must protect her family from a man from her past who brings her family’s pub business to the brink of financial ruin.

By Georgia Hunter
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk, Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services

A novel based on the true story of a Jewish-Polish family recounts how the Kurcs are scattered throughout the world by the horrors of World War II and fight hardships to survive, reach safety, and find each other.

By Joyce Carol Oates

The Mulvaneys, at first a close and very lucky family, drift apart over the years, until the youngest son, Judd, discovers the secret of their downfall and sets out to help reunite the family.

By Marlen Suyapa Bodden

Given as a wedding gift the slave half-sister with whom she grew up, Sarah is subsequently rejected by her suspicious husband and returned to her parents' home, setting in motion a series of events that destabilize the once-powerful family and test the powerful bonds between its women.

By Mary Kay Andrews
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager

Served with papers that her much-loved island home on idyllic Belle Isle is being foreclosed and that her husband has abandoned her, Riley turns for help to her friends, who she discovers are harboring their own secrets.

By Heather Gudenkauf
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services, Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk

“It happens quietly one August morning. As dawn's shimmering light drenches the humid Iowa air, two families awaken to find their little girls have gone missing in the night (From the Publisher).”

By Anita Shreve

A photographer who has come to a small island off the coast of New Hampshire to shoot a photo-essay about a double murder that took place there over a century ago, notices parallels between her own life and the lives of the murder victims.

By Eleanor Brown
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

“Unwillingly brought together to care for their ailing mother, three sisters who were named after famous Shakespearean characters discover that everything they have been avoiding may prove more worthwhile than expected (From the Publisher).”

By Liane Moriarty
Recommended By Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian, Rosalia White, Library Clerk

“Suffering an accident that causes her to forget the last ten years of her life, Alice is astonished to discover that she is thirty-nine years old, a mother of three children, and in the midst of an acrimonious divorce from a man she dearly loves (From the Publisher).”

By Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Recommended By Lisa C., Library Clerk

 “In this massively entertaining romp, redemption is always possible, and even a fake Hollywood couple trapped in a pretend marriage might find true love (From Publishers Weekly).”

By Zinzi Clemmons
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian

Raised in America, the multiracial daughter of a mother from Johannesburg struggles with her mother's terminal cancer and her own need to find love and a place to belong, quests shaped by losses, changes in her sense of identity, and unexpected motherhood.

By Barbara O'Neal

When she discovers that her sister Josie, long thought dead, is alive, Kit, an ER doctor in Santa Cruz, beings a journey with the memories of her past to unearth the long–buried secrets and face the devastating truth that has kept them apart far too long.

By Emily Giffin
Recommended By Ann Competello, Library Clerk

“Her carefully constructed life thrown into turmoil by the appearance of an 18-year-old girl with ties to her past, New York City television producer Marian Caldwell is swept up in a maelstrom of personal discovery that changes both of their perceptions about family (From the Publisher).”

By Maria Semple
Recommended By Jessikah Chautin, Community Engagement Specialist, Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services, Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian, Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian, Jessikah Chautin, Community Engagement Specialist, Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services, Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian, Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian
With Stacey Mencher, Readers' Services Librarian

Monday, March 20, 2020. 2 PM.

2013 Alex Award Winner

When her notorious, hilarious, volatile, talented, troubled, and agoraphobic mother goes missing, teenage Bee begins a trip that takes her to the ends of the earth to find her.

By Laura Moriarty
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Engrossed in a new relationship to the point that her studies begin to suffer, college junior Veronica is devastated when a plea for help goes unheeded, but a surprising request from her mother teaches her about family, love, and independence.

By Barbara Delinsky
Recommended By Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk

“Molly has always lived in her sister’s shadow and her feelings for her sister have run the gamut. But when her sister, a world-class runner, suffers a heart attack and does not regain consciousness, Molly must make the tough decisions in a role that will destroy some of her most cherished beliefs about the sister she thought she knew (From the Publisher).”

By Randy Susan Meyers
Recommended By Susan L., Library Page

Putting her complete trust in her husband as he builds a financial empire, Phoebe is shattered when she discovers that her husband's successes are tied to an elaborate Ponzi scheme, a situation that forces her to make a terrible choice.

By Melanie Gideon
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services

Baring her soul in an anonymous survey for a marital happiness study, Alice catalogues her stale marriage, unsatisfying job and unfavorable prospects and begins to question virtually every aspect of her life.

By Jennifer Donnelly

In 1914, with World War I approaching, polar explorer Seamus Finnegan tries to forget Willa, a passionate mountain climber, as he marries a beautiful young woman back home in England.

By Diksha Basu
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

Moving to a wealthy community after the lucrative sale of their website, Mr. And Mrs. Jha, formerly of East Delhi, struggle with cultural changes while their son, studying in America, pursues romance and wonders how his parents' new status will affect his life choices.

By Kristen Hannah
Recommended By Marie McLaughlin, Head of Circulation

A family drama ignited by the death of a loving father whose two daughters have grown apart from each other and from their acid-tongued, Russian-born mother.

By Ken Follett
Series Century Trilogy
Recommended By Betty Petreshock, Reference Librarian, John Shea, Library Page

Continues the stories of five interrelated families who struggle with social, political, and economic turmoil in the mid-twentieth century, during which they witness the rise of Nazi Germany, the Spanish Civil War, and the horrors of World War II.

By Anne Rice
Series Lives of the Mayfair Witches

Rowan Mayfair, a neurosurgeon with special powers and the descendant of a dynasty of witches, is drawn to Michael Curry, gifted with strange powers after a near-fatal accident, as they seek to unlock the secret of their talents.

By Etah Rum
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian, Jackie, Head of Readers' Services, Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian, Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions, Donna Burger, Readers' Services Librarian
With Lisa Hollander, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, May 12, 2020. 7:30 PM.

Three generations of Palestinian-American women in contemporary Brooklyn are torn by individual desire, educational ambitions, a devastating tragedy, and the strict mores of traditional Arab culture.

By Barbara Delinsky
Recommended By Marie McLaughlin, Head of Circulation

“The lives of three couples are thrown into turmoil when their beautiful and much younger neighbor, who has been widowed for a year, announces that she is pregnant, forcing the wives to reevaluate their marriages and relationships (From the Publisher).”

By Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey

A novel written in letters from Bess Steer Garner spanning from the beginning of the 20th century to the 1940’s.

Became the TV mini-series: A Woman of Independent Means.

By Barbara Taylor Bradford
Series Harte Family Saga

Emma Harte rises from impoverished, pregnant servant to the heights of wealth and power as she parlays a small shop into the world's finest department store, outwitting her enemies, seeking revenge on her betrayers, and realizing her greatest dreams.

By Barbara Delinsky
Recommended By Susan L., Library Page

“Delinsky has another winner: a woman's story of a marriage gone sour, seasoned with betrayal, disloyalty, unhappiness, and greed (Library Journal Review).”

By Thrity Umrigar
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions
With Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, October 8, 2013. 7:30 PM.

Follows four friends who met as university students in Bombay in the late 1970s as they struggle to reconnect and reunite at the deathbed of one of their group.

By Joshua Henkin

Gathering at their Berkshires summer home to mourn the loss of youngest sibling and journalist adventurer Leo, who was killed while on assignment in Iraq, the Frankels endure shared grief and private challenges that shape their views about family.

By Jean Hanff Korelitz
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

A successful New York City oncologist with the perfect family she always wanted has her life turned upside down after her husband goes missing and a chain of horrible revelations sends her reeling.