Mothers and Daughters: From the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a captivating family drama

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Some women pray for their daughters to marry good husbands. I pray that my girls will find girlfriends half as loyal and true as the Ya-Yas.” This list of books about mother-daughter relationships is sponsored by The Cactus by Sarah Haywood. Since the sudden death of her husband, Naomi has steadily rebuilt the life they shared in the village of Tilsham by the sea.

Mothers and Daughters The 18 Best Novels about Bonds Between Mothers and Daughters

If it weren't for me, she wouldn't have to take jobs like this. She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar. I felt my guilt like a brand.... I had seen girls clamor for new clothes and complain about what their mothers made for dinner. I was always mortified. Didn't they know they were tying their mothers to the ground? Weren't chains ashamed of their prisoners?” Although the relationship between the three women is at the heart of the story, other relationships are bought under the spotlight including marital problems, the issues facing blended families, control and abuse and deciding how much of your real self that you let others see. Mothers and Daughters follows Mum Naomi, her two grown up daughters Martha and Willow, and their partners. Martha and Willow are completely different from each other. Will their differences separate them or can they come together when they need each other most? Divide Me By Zero is one of the best evocations of the experience of losing a mother to illness that we’ve read in quite a long time. The protagonist is frequently told that she behaves like a child, despite being a middle-aged mother of her own daughter. There are many twists and turns that take us from Russia to Queens and then to the suburbs of New York City. But the beating heart is the devotion that this mother-daughter pair share – and the duty of such a daughter when her mother’s time has come.Fight Night is set in Toronto, where a preternaturally wise and precocious 9-year old girl, Swiv, is parenting her pregnant mother and her loveably outgoing and outspoken grandmother. The novel is written in the form of an extended letter to Swiv’s father, who has gone missing with no word of goodbye. The three women, and “Gord,” the unborn child, are left to fend for themselves. Which they do with wit, anger, good humor and plain old stubbornness. Erica James’ twenty-fourth novel is a wonderfully compelling family drama that touches upon some serious and fairly dark issues. Her characterisation is excellent, the setting is beautiful and the slow reveals are delicately and sensitively handled. Naomi’s husband Colin passed away suddenly two years ago and life has moved on well for Naomi she has settled into life on her own in her beautiful home by the sea and has her daughters and friends and is very happy. While this is an unsparing look at the tolls of age, sexism, religious repression and life on the economic edge, it’s also a clarion call for women of all ages to “learn to fight.” Despite having lost her other daughter and her husband, the family matriarch remains resolute and engaged. She repeatedly advises her daughter and granddaughter that there is a flame in each of us. And it’s our duty to feed it and keep it from going out – no matter what the world may throw our way. This is the story of how one young woman faces the world without a mother who was absent too much even when she was alive. And how a writer perseveres and finds her voice despite the weight of student loans, no health insurance, narcissistic lovers and daily toil as a restaurant waitress in a wealthy town. The imagery is beautiful, and the details have the raw clank of truth.

Mothers and Daughters by Erica James | Goodreads

Mothers and Daughters is another excellent read from the pen of Erica James. I was so involved, I was talking to the characters, telling them what they should or shouldn’t do! I wasn’t too fussed on Martha to start with, but she grew on me – Willow was a delight, although she let herself be walked over. And Naomi was pretty much perfect – secrets and all! Mothers and Daughters is a novel I highly recommend. Whilst the three women share a very close relationship, there are things that are kept hidden, especially by Naomi. Her daughters would like her to sell up and move to London to be near them. Naomi hasn’t told them about Ellis; a long-lost friend who has recently moved in next door and is fast becoming much more than just a friend. With an insatiable appetite for other people's business, Erica James will readily strike up conversation with strangers in the hope of unearthing a useful gem for her writing. She finds it the best way to write authentic characters for her novels, although her two grown-up sons claim they will never recover from a childhood spent in a perpetual state of embarrassment at their mother's compulsion. I did not the stories of Michal, Saul's daughter. How she was used as a token, to be torn between kings-her father, and her husband. A daughter is a mother's gender partner, her closest ally in the family confederacy, an extension of her self. And mothers are their daughters' role model, their biological and emotional road map, the arbiter of all their relationships.”I’ve been reading Erica James novels for over 20 years – hers were the first adult books I ever read, and her books are always fun and enjoyable.

Mothers and Daughters by Evan Hunter | Goodreads Mothers and Daughters by Evan Hunter | Goodreads

I really loved this book. I know all of these stories from the Bible and having Shannon Bream bring these stories to me with a fresh eye and more detail was indeed a blessing to my heart. I have passed it along to my mother because I am sure it will bless her, too. This morning we were spreading the Christmas cheer at the HQ offices and giving away copies of @SarahMorgan_'s #TheChristmasBookClub! 🎄☕⭐ Her eldest daughter, Martha, is sensible and determined – just like her father was – and very much in control of where her life is going. If she could just get pregnant with her husband, life would be perfect. The protagonist has lost her mother to suicide and is engulfed in grief. At the heart of the story is her female friend, another motherless daughter (although for a different reason). Of course there are men in the mix – but the fundamental issue that drives the story is this: what does it mean to be a mother? And how does one survive without one? I'm blessed and I couldn't be more grateful. Do you want to know why? Because I'm a mother, but that's only half of it. I'm blessed because, when I need to, I can still just be a daughter. I get the feeling that there is nothing more precious than to have both of these roles, simultaneously.”

Naomi’s life has revolved around her family. Since her husbands death and her daughters embarking on their own relationships Naomi is at a crossroads where she is finding herself on her own for the first time in years. Martha is hoping Naomi will move closer to her especially as she is planning on having a baby. She tries to enlist Willows help who is not so sure and feels her mum should stay in their family home. This is a captivating and amazing story about relationships and life, and what mothers will do to protect their children; I enjoyed it from beginning all the way up to the end and found it difficult to put down. What a beautiful setting, a magnificent Anchor House on the seaside of a small English village called Tilsham. Naomi and her daughters Martha and Willow are introduced; this is a powerful and dramatic storyline that is splendidly presented. Naomi meets her new neighbour, Ellis, who is actually an old acquaintance, and thinks that now is the time to move past the death of her husband, Colin, and have Ellis by her side. Martha, on the other hand, has other ideas and wants her mother to sell her house and move closer to the daughters, which disrupts the natural flow of family life with them... Had I known that this book wouldn't be just about Mothers and Daughters I probably would've been able to enjoy it a bit more.