18 books like Esperanza
Sanctuary
"Kate Orme is a young woman whose illusions of marital bliss are shattered when she comes face to face with the dark secret harbored by her fiance, the wealthy and deceptively ebullient Denis. Kate decides to go ahead and marry Denis, however, as a selfless gesture to protect any children he may conceive from inheriting their father's moral weakness.
The couple does have a child, Dick, and in a…
Shares: Mothers and sons, Widows, Domestic fiction
Perfect Match
What does it mean to be a good mother?
How far would you go in the name of love -- and justice?
Perfect Match
In the course of her everyday work, career-driven assistant district attorney Nina Frost prosecutes child molesters and works determinedly to ensure that a legal system with too many loopholes keeps these criminals behind bars. But when her own five-year-old son, Nathaniel, is…
Shares: Mother-son relationship, Mothers and sons, Domestic fiction
Boneshaker
In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska's ice.
Thus was Dr. Blue's Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born. But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry,…
Shares: Mother-son relationship, Mothers and sons
Jim the boy
A fatherless ten-year-old boy comes of age in a Depression-era, southern farming community in this charming and humorous debut novel.A New York Times Notable Book of the Year"Rich and satisfying . . . A novel that perfectly captures the innocence and confusion and wonder of childhood." —Chicago TribuneHailed as one of those rare works with the power to enchant readers of all ages, this luminous…
Shares: Mothers and sons, Widows, Domestic fiction
Sweet forever
A riverboat explosion offers a welcome escape. A notorious riverboat gambler killed Rosaleen Archer's husband and Has taken her captive, forcing her to do unspeakable things. Convinced God hates her, Rosaleen looks to luck for help as she attempts to escape when the riverboat explodes. She awakens in the arms of a stranger who carries her from the riverbank to a new life and a fresh start,…
Shares: Widows, Romance
Naissances
A powerful novel of three couples who face decisions about having children, which will test them as lovers, partners and friends.Diana Goode and Andrew Douglas are a California couple who seem to have it all, and after their wedding, Diana teases that she will make a baby on their honeymoon. But long afterwards, she is still not pregnant. As they wait out each month with anticipation, only to be…
Shares: Translations from English, Domestic fiction
Orley Farm
When Joseph Mason of Groby Park, Yorkshire, died, he left his estate to his family. A codicil to his will, however, left Orley Farm (near London) to his much younger second wife and infant son. The will and the codicil were in her handwriting, and there were three witnesses, one of whom was no longer alive. A bitterly fought court case confirmed the codicil.
Twenty years pass. Lady Mason lives…
Shares: Mothers and sons, Domestic fiction
Madam, Will You Talk?
Widow Charity Selborne had been greatly looking forward to her driving holiday through France with her old friend Louise - long, leisurely days under the hot sun, enjoying the beauty of the parched Provencal landscape. But when Charity arrived at a plush resort in the picturesque French resort town of Avignon, she had no way of knowing that she was to become the principal player in the last act…
Shares: Widows, Romance
Ruth (volume II)
Ruth Volume 2 By Elizabeth Gaskell A sensitive portrayal of relationships within small towns and an exploration of seduction and illegitimacy within a small Dissenting community where tolerance and rigid morality clash.
Shares: Mothers and sons, Domestic fiction
A Baxter family Christmas
"A Howard Book. Howard Books has a great book for every reader"--
Shares: Bereavement, Romance
A Widow for One Year
“One night when she was four and sleeping in the bottom bunk of her bunk bed, Ruth Cole woke to the sound of lovemaking—it was coming from her parents’ bedroom.”
This sentence opens John Irving’s ninth novel, A Widow for One Year, a story of a family marked by tragedy. Ruth Cole is a complex, often self-contradictory character—a “difficult” woman. By no means is she conventionally “nice,” but…
Shares: Widows, Domestic fiction, Romance
Carolina Moon
Tory Bodeen grew up in South Carolina, in a small run-down house, where her father ruled with an iron fist and a leather belt--and where her dreams and talents had no room to flourish. But she had Hope, who lived in the big house just a short skip away and whose friendship allowed Tory to be something she wasn't allowed to be at home: a child.
After young Hope's brutal murder, unsolved to this…
Shares: Bereavement, Romance
Finding home
One stubborn boy is getting the better of Scott Walsh. The very busy project manager keeps finding the kid on his dangerous construction site. One warning to the boy's parents should take care of it. But when Scott meets widowed mother Cindy Peterson, she's already carrying so much on her narrow shoulders. He wants to help Cindy and her boy, but didn't he vow never to get involved with a family…
Shares: Widows, Romance
The Essex Serpent
"Costa Book Award Finalist and the Waterstones (UK) Book of the Year 2016." "I loved this book. At once numinous, intimate and wise, The Essex Serpent is a marvelous novel about the workings of life, love and belief, about science and religion, secrets, mysteries, and the complicated and unexpected shifts of the human heart--and it contains some of the most beautiful evocations of place and…
Shares: Widows, Romance
The doctor's blessing
A Very Special Delivery
As a nurse-midwife in Amish country, Amber Bradley helps expectant mothers have their babies safely at home. But when Hope Springs' new doctor arrives, he insists all maternity patients deliver at a hospital. Amber is determined to show Dr. Phillip White that the Amish have a different way of life, one he needs to respect if he expects any patients at all. But even as he…
Shares: Physicians, Romance
The Mad Wife
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERFrom bestselling author Meagan Church comes a haunting exploration of identity, motherhood, and the suffocating grip of societal expectations that will leave you questioning the lives we build—and the lies we live.They called it hysteria. She called it survival.Lulu Mayfield has spent the last five years molding herself into the perfect 1950s housewife.…
Shares: Romance
The Frozen River: A GMA Book Club Pick
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • GMA BOOK CLUB PICK • AN NPR BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the New York Times bestselling author of I Was Anastasia and Code Name Hélène comes a gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into American history."Fans of…
Shares: Romance
The Lion Women of Tehran
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERFrom nationally bestselling author Marjan Kamali, this perfect book club read is “evocative...and a powerful portrait of friendship, feminism, and political activism” (People) set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran. In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move…
Shares: Romance