May Recommendations Roundup
May brings a lot of new books celebrating mothers, daughters, and even grandmothers! Here are some recent releases - plus shows and podcasts - worth checking out!
Every daughter has her own distinctive voice, her inimitable style, and her secrets.
Laurie is an artist, a collector of experiences. She travels the world with a worn beige duffel bag. Every mother has her own distinctive voice, her inimitable style, and her secrets. “Dr. Liz,” Laurie’s mother, is an elegant perfectionist who travels the world with a matched set of suitcases. A mother and daughter on vacation in Paris unpack a lifetime of secrets and hopes—with a giant Pattersonian (as in James Patterson) twist at the end! You can read more and get your copy here.
Teenage sisters Eve and Vera never imagined their summer vacation would be spent in the Arctic, tagging along on their mother’s scientific expedition. But there’s a lot about their lives lately that hasn’t been going as planned, and truth be told, their single mother might not be so happy either. Now in Siberia with a bunch of serious biologists, Eve and Vera are just bored enough to cause trouble. Fooling around in the permafrost, they accidentally discover a perfectly preserved, four-thousand-year-old baby mammoth, and things finally start to get interesting. The discovery sets off a surprising chain of events, leading mother and daughters to go rogue, pinging from the slopes of Siberia to the shores of Iceland to an exotic animal farm in Italy, and resulting in the birth of a creature that could change the world—or at least this family. The Last Animal takes readers on a wild, entertaining, and refreshingly different kind of journey, one that explores the possibilities and perils of the human imagination on a changing planet, what it’s like to be a woman in a field dominated by men, and how a wondrous discovery can best be enjoyed with family. Even teenagers. You can read more and get your copy here.
With lots of intergenerational Thelma and Louise vibes, this next book was inspired by the author’s grandmother…
Twenty-one-year-old Tanner Quimby needs a place to live. Preferably one where she can continue sitting around in sweatpants and playing video games nineteen hours a day. Since she has no credit or money to speak of, her options are limited, so when an opportunity to work as a live-in caregiver for an elderly woman falls into her lap, she takes it. One slip on the rug. That’s all it took for Louise Wilt’s daughter to demand that Louise have a full-time nanny living with her. Never mind that she can still walk fine, finish her daily crossword puzzle, and pour the two fingers of vodka she drinks every afternoon. Bottom line: Louise wants a caretaker even less than Tanner wants to be one. The two start off their living arrangement happily ignoring each other until Tanner starts to notice things—weird things. Like, why does Louise keep her garden shed locked up tighter than a prison? And why is the local news fixated on the suspect of one of the biggest jewelry heists in American history who looks eerily like Louise? And why does Louise suddenly appear in her room, with a packed bag at 1 a.m. insisting that they leave town immediately? Thus begins the story of a not-to-be-underestimated elderly woman and an aimless young woman who—if they can outrun the mistakes of their past—might just have the greatest adventure of their lives. You can read more and get your copy here.
In Chinese, the closest expression to oh my god is wo de ma ya. It’s an interjection, a polite expletive, something to say when you’re out of words. Translated literally, it means oh my mother—the instinctual first person you think of when you’re on the cusp of losing it, or putting it all together. In each essay of this hilarious, heartfelt, and pitch-perfectly honest memoir, journalist Connie Wang explores her complicated relationship to her stubborn and charismatic mother, Qing Li, through the “oh my god” moments in their travels together. From attending a Magic Mike strip show in Vegas to experimenting with edibles in Amsterdam to flip-flopping through Versailles, this iconic mother-daughter duo venture into the world to find their place in it, and sometimes rail against it—as well as against each other. You can read more and get your copy here.
Mary Higgins Clark is one of my all-time favorite authors. I am so glad to see her estate continue this author collaboration and especially excited to see a sequel to one of her earlier novels.
Of the fifty-six bestsellers the “Queen of Suspense” Mary Higgins Clark published in her lifetime, Where Are the Children? was her biggest, selling millions of copies and forever transforming the genre of suspense fiction. In that story, a young California mother named Nancy Harmon was convicted of murdering her two children. Though released on a technicality, she was abandoned by her husband and became such a pariah in the media that she was forced to move across the country to Cape Cod, change her identity and appearance, and start a new life. Years later her two children from a second marriage, Mike and Melissa, would go missing, and Nancy yet again became the prime suspect—but this time, Nancy was able to confront the secrets buried in her past and rescue her kids from a dangerous predator. Now, more than four decades since readers first met Nancy and her children, comes the thrilling sequel to the groundbreaking book that set the stage for future generations of psychological suspense novels. A lawyer turned successful podcaster, Melissa has recently married a man whose first wife died tragically, leaving him and their young daughter, Riley, behind. While Melissa and her brother, Mike, help their mom, Nancy, relocate from Cape Cod to the equally idyllic Hamptons, Melissa’s new stepdaughter goes missing. Drawing on the experience of their own abduction, Melissa and Mike race to find Riley to save her from the trauma they still struggle with—or worse. You can read more and get your copy here.
This one, while not specifically about mothers, is about families and relationships. It comes out on Tuesday.
What if your two favorite people hated each other with a passion? The wife has it all. A big house in a nice neighborhood, a ride-or-die snarky best friend, Temi, with whom to laugh about facile men, and a devoted husband who loves her above all else—even his distaste for Temi. On a seemingly normal day, Temi comes over to spend a lazy afternoon with the wife: drinking wine, eating snacks, and laughing caustically about the husband's shortcomings. But when the husband comes home and a series of confessions are made, the wife's two confidantes are suddenly forced to jockey for their positions, throwing everyone's integrity into question—and their long-drawn-out territorial dance, carefully constructed over years, into utter chaos. Told in three taut, mesmerizing parts—the wife, the husband, the best friend—over the course of one day, The Three of Us is a subversively comical, wildly astute, and painfully compulsive triptych of domestic life that explores cultural truths, what it means to defy them, and the fine line between compromise and betrayal when it comes to ourselves and the people we're meant to love. You can read more and get your copy here.
This next book was gifted to me by the author. You know I love a good reinvention book! Can’t wait to dive in!
In our forties, fifties, and beyond, we're wrestling with new questions. Is this it? Did I do what I wanted to do in my life? Who am I now that my kids have moved out? Will my sagging skin eventually hang all the way down to my feet? We feel a little like the world has nudged us aside for the younger crowd. Blending lots of humor, honesty, stories, and insights, Dawn will walk you through redefining the mighty second half of life. It's time to rediscover your passions, pursue your dreams—and know your actions can cause not just a ripple effect but a magnificent tidal wave. You can read more and get your copy here.
The Last Thing He Told Me, now out on Apple TV, is getting lots mixed reviews but I’m really enjoying it! It’s based on the book by Laura Dave and is an action thriller with a stepmom/stepdaughter arc. You can watch the trailer here.
I was sharing with someone last week that I organize my podcasts into two platforms – one on apple for my “personal growth/bookish/workish” podcasts and the other on outcast for my “funny/pop culture/Murdaugh murder/Office Ladies” podcasts. One of my favorite listens on that second platform is The Popcast with Knox and Jamie and this week’s episode about “The Nos of Motherhood” is hilarious. You can check it out here.
The Badass Women’s Book Club Summer Reading List is coming our next week! Make you’re subscribed below to get it directly in your inbox!