More than any other relationship, the bond between mothers and daughters shapes a woman’s identity and her relationship skills. These relationships are constantly evolving and can be intense and emotional, secure and supportive or characterized by conflict and tension – but always significant and influential. Reading about the lives and struggles of moms and daughters is almost always relatable and exploring this relationship through literature can help us better understand and strengthen our own relationships with our mothers.
These 35 captivating books explore that complex relationship between daughters and all types of mothers – birthmothers, adoptive mothers, stepmothers and surrogate mothers. There are a couple of recent memoirs but the majority of my picks are fiction and include literary and contemporary fiction, historical fiction, mysteries and books with some romance.
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1. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Setting: Concord, Massachusetts
This classic novel set in New England during the Civil War is a coming-of-age story about the four March sisters but it’s also about the enduring bond beetween Marmee and her four daughters. Originally published in 1868, Little Women has been a favourite of mine since I was a young girl and was thrilled to share it with my daughters as well.
2. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
Setting: Northern Michigan
Set in July 2020 on a farm in Northern Michigan, this is the story of a mother who is happy to have her three adult daughters home during the pandemic shutdown. To pass the time while picking cherries, she tells her daughters the story of the summer she dated a now-famous actor while they were both at Tom Lake in a summer theatre production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. A beautifully-written meditation on family, love and marriage as well as maternal love and the relationship between a mother and her adult daughters as they come to see their mother as a person with a past separate from them.
3. Kin by Tayari Jones
Setting: The American South
Kin is a character-driven historical novel about two motherless black girls – one abandoned and one orphaned – growing up in the Jim Crow South. Prevalent themes include friendship, sisterhood, found family and the way in which the absence of their mothers shaped the lives of the two girls at the centre of the story. This is a beautifully-written and captivating story that will stay with me for a long time.
4. Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Setting: Nigeria
Several generations of women of the Falodun family in Nigeria have been living under the shadow of a family curse from the time that their ancestor had an affair with a married man whose wife cursed her and all her female descendants. Moving back and forth across timelines (with the stories of the ancestors interspersed), Cursed Daughters is the story of three women and their attempts to defeat the curse by finding and holding on to love. An intriguing book for readers of literary fiction – very well-written and an enjoyable read with unforgettable characters!
5. Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography and named one of the New York Times Book Review‘s Top 10 Books of the Year in 2025, this deeply moving memoir by the Booker Prize-winning author of The God of Small Things (one of my favourite books of all time) is the story of a complex and often difficult mother-daughter relationship written after the death of her mother.
6. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Setting: San Francisco, China
Structured as a set of 16 interconnected stories told from the point-of-view of both mothers and daughters, The Joy Luck Club is about four women who suffered great hardship in China before immigrating to San Francisco in the 1940s where they meet and form a mahjong club. At the book’s opening, one of the four women has died and her daughter is asked to join the other three at their mahjong meet-ups.
Published in 1989, this beautiful novel that explores the immigrant experience as a whole as well as the complex relationships between the Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-born daughters has sold millions of copies and remains popular with individual readers as well as book clubs.
7. One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle
Setting: Amalfi Coast, Italy
A 30 year-old woman devastated by her mother’s recent death travels alone to Positano, Italy on the trip they were supposed to take together and while there magically runs into and befriends the younger version of her mother who had spent time in Positano thirty years earlier. In doing so, she comes to terms with her grief and develops a better understanding of who her mother actually was. This is an enjoyable story about the powerful bond between a mother and daughter with a wonderful sense of place. If you’re looking for a mom-daughter book with some magical realism and an escape to the Amalfi Coast then this book is for you!
8. The Night Travelers by Armando Lucas Correa
Setting: Berlin, Havana
A beautifully-written, deeply moving multigenerational historical fiction novel spanning the lives of four courageous women against a backdrop of war and revolution from 1931-2015. The story begins in Germany during the rise of fascism, moving to Havana, Cuba through the Cuban Revolution and then to New York City and back to Germany. Through the four main characters (mother, daughter, grand-daughter and great-grand-daughter), the author explores love, war, loss, betrayal and the sacrifices that mothers will endure to protect their daughters. As a mother, imagining the pain that the characters endured to save their daughters is heartbreaking and unforgettable.
9. Our Italian Summer by Jennifer Probst
Setting: Italy
This story about three generations of Ferrari women spending four weeks exploring Italy has a bit of romance but mostly it’s about the relationship between the three women and how it changes over the course of their travels. Sophia convinces her career-obsessed daughter, Francesca, and her granddaughter, Allegra, to join her on this epic adventure because she wants them to heal their relationship and realize the importance of family. The narrative switches between the three of them in alternate chapters which I quite enjoyed.
Our Italian Summer is an excellent choice for anyone who wants to satisfy their wanderlust by reading about beautiful places. Over the course of their four weeks in Italy, Sophia, Francesca and Allegra spend three weeks on a small group tour visiting places like Rome, Capri, Naples, Venice, Florence and Pompeii before renting a villa in Tuscany for their final week – you’ll be planning your own Italian adventure by the time you turn the final page!
10. The Paris Daughter by Kristin Harmel
Setting: Paris and New York
This moving historical novel is the story of two young mothers who become close friends a few years before the war while both are pregnant. When one later becomes a target of the Nazis occupying Paris, she has to make the heartbreaking decision to leave her young daughter behind with her friend while she flees to the south. Upon returning to Paris at the end of the war, she discovers that her friend’s bookshop/home had been destroyed in a bombing and she has vanished without a trace.
A heartrending yet ultimately uplifting story about the selfless decisions made by mothers in wartime set against the backdrop of the Allied bombing of the German-controlled Renault factory in the Paris suburbs. There are two women who are the focus of the story but there is a third mother, a Jewish customer of the bookshop, who also makes the unthinkable decision to send her children away hoping her choice will save their lives. A beautifully-written story that brings the historical time period to life!
11. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Setting: Small town in Louisiana
Published in 1996, this bestselling book which was later adapted for film is the story of a mother and daughter who have had a tumultuous relationship for many years. The daughter is a playwright in New York who gives an interview which casts her mother in a poor light causing a severe rift in their relationship. Her mother’s lifelong group of friends, known as the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, try to help by sending her a scrapbook of memories to help her better understand her mother. It’s a touching story of a mother and daughter coming to understand one another, healing their strained relationship and learning to forgive.
12. The Story She Left Behind by Patti Callahan Henry
Setting: South Carolina, London, Lake District of England
Based on a real-life mystery, this is the story of an author who disappeared from her home off the coast of South Carolina in 1927 leaving behind her heartbroken husband and 8 year-old daughter as well as the sequel to her bestselling fantasy novel written in a language she invented. Twenty-five years later, her daughter, who is now a divorced mom to her own 8 year-old daughter, is contacted by a man in England who claims to have found work belonging to her mother among his father’s papers and she travels there with her daughter to learn more.
This is a lovely, well-written story about mothers and daughters, the magic of books, family secrets, forgiveness and new beginnings set in a very atmospheric London and Lake District. The mystery of what happened to the author and her daughter’s search to find answers is the central narrative, however, there is also a sweet romance subplot. I also loved the Lake District setting in this novel and the Beatrix Potter connection!
13. My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
Setting: New York City
Lucy Barton is slowly recovering in a New York City hospital from what should have been a simple operation and her mother to whom she hasn’t spoken in years comes to visit her. Elizabeth Strout’s beautifully-written exploration of a mother-daughter relationship was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2016 and named a Best Book of the Year by the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post and many additional outlets. This one is for fans of character-driven literary novels.
14. We’ll Always Have Paris by Jennifer Coburn
In this memoir, Jennifer Coburn tells the story of several mother-daughter summer trips to Europe beginning in 2005. Jennifer lost her father to cancer as a teenager and is consumed by the fear that she will also die prematurely and wants to ensure that she leaves her young daughter with wonderful memories. We’ll Always Have Paris is a thoroughly enjoyable read for both those who love travel and those who enjoy a good mother/daughter story.
15. The Secret Love Letters of Olivia Moretti by Jennifer Probst
Setting: The Amalfi Coast, Italy
A lovely story about three somewhat estranged sisters who travel to Italy’s Amalfi Coast to figure out who their late mother really was when they discover love letters she has saved along with the deed for a house in Positano.
The narrative alternates point-of-view between the three sisters in the present and their mother Olivia who tells the story of her summers in Positano and the great love of her life. The time in Italy helps the three women to feel closer to their mother, reinforces the bonds of sisterly love, and prompts each to consider what steps they need to take to feel happier in their own lives. A warmhearted read about love, loss, and families with a captivating setting!
16. Love Forms by Claire Adam
Setting: Trinidad, Venezuela and London
Longlisted for the Booker Prize and named an NPR Best Book of the Year, this is the moving story of a 58 year-old divorced woman with two grown sons who can’t stop thinking about the daughter that she gave up for adoption as a teenager in Trinidad. More than 40 years later, she yearns to reconnect with her lost daughter and traces her steps from Trinidad to Venezuela to London, England in an attempt to find her.
17. Amazing Grace Adams by Fran Littlewood
Setting: London, England
Grace is perimenopausal, unemployed, going through a divorce and banned from her daughter’s 16th birthday party but is on her way to pick up an expensive cake to deliver. When she gets stuck on a blistering hot day in gridlocked traffic, Grace snaps and abandons her car heading out on foot to pick up the cake and walk across London to get to her daughter on her birthday.
Told in alternating timelines, this is a family drama with a main character dealing with very relatable stress of going through perimenopause while parenting a teenage girl during the age of social media. I was expecting a light, amusing read about a mom who has just had enough but as the story progresses and we learn what has happened over the past 17 years it became much more serious than I had anticipated. Ultimately though this is a feel-good story of redemption and the healing of a broken family.
18. With Love from London by Sarah Jio
Setting: London, England
A Seattle librarian/bookstagrammer learns that she has inherited a flat and bookstore in London from her estranged mother and travels to London to decide whether she will sell the bookstore or try to keep it. Once there she learns that she has been left a scavenger hunt of sorts that will better acquaint her with her mother’s favourite books, her life in England and her reasons for leaving her daughter behind.
This sentimental dual timeline story was a very enjoyable read for me – I love books and I love London so it was hard to miss! There is some romance in With Love from London but it’s more a touching story of the unbreakable bonds of love between mother and daughter and a love letter to books and reading.
19. Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
Setting: Washington State and Leningrad
This novel by bestselling author Kristin Hannah asks the question – can a woman ever really know herself if she doesn’t know her mother? When their beloved father falls ill, two sisters find themselves reunited with their cold, disapproving mother. On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise that their mother will tell her Russian fairy tale one last time all the way through to the end. Alternating between past and present, the two sisters finally learn their mother’s harrowing story about life in war-torn Leningrad and a terrible and terrifying secret that will shake the foundation of their family.
20. White Oleander by Janet Fitch
Setting: Los Angeles, California
One of Oprah’s early book club picks, White Oleander is the unforgettable coming-of-age story of one young woman living in a series of foster homes in Los Angeles after her mother is imprisoned for murder.
21. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Setting: South Carolina
When Lily’s Black “stand-in mother” insults three racists, she and Lily escape to Tiburon, South Carolina where they are taken in by an eccentric trio of Black beekeeping sisters who teach her about bees, honey and the Black Madonna. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees is a coming-of-age story about a girl healing from the loss of her mother and finding family with a group of women who fulfill the role of surrogate mothers in her life.
22. The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett
Setting: Rural Kentucky
Celebrated author Ann Patchett’s beautifully-written debut novel published in 1992 is the story of a pregnant but not unwed woman who comes to stay at St. Elizabeth’s, a home for unwed mothers in rural Kentucky. She plans to give up her child but changes her mind after her daughter is born and they stay at St. Elizabeth’s.
23. Banyan Moon by Thao Thai
Setting: Coastal Florida and Vietnam
This riveting mother-daughter tale about three generations of Vietnamese-American women was a Read with Jenna pick when it was published in 2023. After the death of her beloved grandmother, a young woman returns home to Florida to face her estranged mother. After learning that they have inherited the crumbling manor called the Banyan House, the two women must try to rebuild their relationship without the one person who held them together. A parallel storyline follows the grandmother as a teenager during the Vietnam War and then immigrating to the U.S. in search of a better life for her children.
24. The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok
Setting: New York City
A critically acclaimed family drama about two unforgettable women facing impossible choices. Jasmine Yang flees from a controlling husband in her rural Chinese village and arrives in New York City without money or support on a desperate search for the daughter who was taken from her at birth. Meanwhile, publishing executive Rebecca Whitney seems to have it all – wealth, a high-powered career, a beautiful home, a handsome husband and an adopted Chinese daughter she adores. The Leftover Woman is a suspenseful story that explores identity and belonging, motherhood and family.
25. Hold My Girl by Charlene Carr
Setting: Halifax, Nova Scotia
Katherine finally has it all after giving birth to her IVF miracle child but she is starting to have doubts about whey her daughter’s pale skin doesn’t quite match her own complexion. Tess underwent IVF at the same clinic but her daughter was stillborn and now she is consumed by grief. Both women’s lives are upended shortly before Katherine’s daughter’s first birthday when they receive a call from the fertility clinic telling them that their eggs were switched.
Selected by Amazon Editors as a Best Books of the Year 2023, Hold My Girl is an emotional story that explores themes of racial identity, loss and betrayal and what makes a mother.
26. Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout
Setting: A fictional small town in Maine
Isabelle and her 16 year-old daughter, Amy live in a small gossip-ridden mill town and have the strained relationship that is typical of many mothers and teenage daughters. When Amy gets involved in a sexual relationship with her teacher, however, it results in a rift with her mother which forces Isabelle to confront her own shameful secret.
Published in 1998, this debut novel from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout about a teenager’s alienation from from her distant mother and her mother’s rage at the discovery of her daughter’s secrets was a national bestseller and winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It was later adapted for television by Oprah’s production company.
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27. Life on the Refrigerator Door by Alice Kuipers
Setting: Not specified but probably somewhere in North America
I read this deeply touching novel about a mother and her teenage daughter for book club years ago. Told entirely through notes left on the refrigerator door, it’s the story of 15 year-old Claire and her single mom who are rarely in the same room together because their lives are so busy. Claire and her mom, however, are running out of time – they just don’t know it yet.
28. Lady Tremaine by Rachel Hochhauser
Setting: A medieval kingdom
A Reese’s Book Club pick and one of the buzziest books from spring 2026, Lady Tremaine is a story about a mother’s love for her daughters and a reimagining of the classic Cinderella story told from the perspective of her evil stepmother.
29. The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
Setting: Sausalito, California and Austin, Texas
The Last Thing He Told Me is a well-written page-turner about a woman and her 16 year-old step-daughter whose lives are shattered by the disappearance of their husband/father. Realizing that her husband wasn’t who he said he was, she and her stepdaughter have to work together to discover the truth about his past while figuring out what the future will look like for the two of them.
This is a quick, easy read that I raced through to find out how it would end but I wouldn’t consider it a typical thriller as it’s as much about the developing relationship between Hannah and Bailey as it is about the mystery they are trying to solve.
30. The Beach House by Mary Alice Monroe
Setting: South Carolina
Mary Alice Monroe explores the enduring bond between mothers and daughters in this story of a woman who left her Southern roots far behind for a successful career in Chicago and returns twenty years later at her mother’s request to the South Carolina Low Country where she spent childhood summers. As she works at repairing the family beach house and renewing old acquaintances, she also reconnects with her mother and learns important lessons about love, family and forgiveness. This is the first in a seven book series so if you enjoy it then there are several more to read next!
31. Mother-Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon
Setting: Coastal town in California
This New York Times Bestseller and Reese’s Book Club pick is a murder mystery featuring a grandmother, a mother and a teenage daughter as amateur sleuths. High-powered businesswoman Lana Rubicon built a real-estate empire in L.A. but now she’s stuck convalescing in a sleepy coastal town 300 miles north of the city with her adult daughter, Beth, and her teenage granddaughter, Jack. When Jack stumbles upon a small town murder and becomes a suspect in the homicide investigation, Lana is determined to find the true murderer, protect her family, and prove she still has power. A great mystery but also a story about mother and daughter dynamics!
32. Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
Setting: San Francisco and India
A deeply touching story about two women living very different lives on opposite sides of the world and the child that binds them together. Somer is a recently married physician in San Francisco with a perfect life until she discovers that she won’t be able to have children. At the same time in a small village in India, Kavita makes the heartbreaking choice to save her daughter’s life by giving her away. The dual narrative follows both families over many years until Asha who was adopted from an orphanage in Mumbai returns to India to learn more about the country where she was born.
33. Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Setting: Seattle and Antarctica
Published in 2012, this popular epistolary novel follows 15 year-old Bee who is trying to find her agoraphobic mother, Bernadette, who disappeared before a family trip to Antarctica. On the New York Times Bestseller List for a year, shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2013 and adapted for film, Where’d You Go, Bernadette is very funny yet also a touching exploration of motherhood.
34. The Daughter’s Tale by Armando Lucas Correa
Setting: Berlin, South of France, New York City
In Berlin in 1939, Amanda Sternberg is forced to flee with her daughters toward the South of France after their family bookshop is burned by Nazis and her husband taken to a concentration camp. Along the way, a refugee ship bound for Cuba offers a chance for escape and Amanda makes an impossible choice that will haunt her for the rest of her life. In New York City in 2015, eighty-year-old Elise Duval is contacted by a woman who has letters written in German by Elise’s mother during the war unlocking a floodgate of memories and an opportunity for closure.
Based on true events, this beautifully-written dual timeline historical fiction novel takes readers on an unforgettable journey from Nazi-occupied Berlin to modern day New York City while exploring themes relating to a mother’s love, survival and redemption.
35. The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford
Setting: Many locations in the U.S. as well as England and China
Dorothy Moy, Washington’s former Poet Laureate, suffers dissociative episodes and mental health struggles which she channels into her art. But when her five year-old daughter starts to remember things from the lives of their ancestors, Dorothy seeks out experimental treatment designed to mitigate inherited trauma which allows her to connect with past generations of her family in China, England and in the U.S.
A bestseller published in 2022, The Many Daughters of Afong Moy is a sweeping novel that explores trauma across generations of Chinese women from the 1830s to 2045. It was a Read with Jenna pick and instant New York Times Bestseller described by Jenna Bush Hager as “one of the most beautiful books of motherhood and what we pass on to those that come after us.”
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