A Family Matter
A Read with Jenna Pick: A Novel
-
-
3.6 • 20 Ratings
-
-
- $12.99
Publisher Description
A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY • A Most Anticipated Book of 2025: USA TODAY, Goodreads, and Today.com
A young wife following her heart. A husband with the law on his side. Their daughter, caught in the middle. Forty years later, a family secret changes everything in this “perfect” (Elin Hilderbrand) debut novel.
1982. Dawn is a young mother, still adjusting to life with her husband, when Hazel lights up her world like a torch in the dark. Theirs is the kind of connection that’s impossible to resist, and suddenly life is more complicated, and more joyful, than Dawn ever expected. But she has responsibilities and commitments. She has a daughter.
2022. Heron has just received news from his doctor that turns everything upside down. He’s an older man, stuck in the habits of a quiet existence. Telling Maggie, his only child—the person around whom his life has revolved—seems impossible. Heron can’t tell her about his diagnosis, just as he can’t reveal all the other secrets he’s been keeping from her for so many years.
A Family Matter is a heartbreaking and hopeful exploration of love and loss, intimacy and injustice, custody and care, and whether it is possible to heal from the wounds of the past in the changed world of today.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The complexities of family life and time are put under the spotlight in this debut novel about love, loss, and lesbian history. Heron receives a terminal cancer diagnosis but stoically decides to continue with his life, including delaying telling his adult daughter, Maggie. Told in dual timelines, the story jumps back to the 1980s, when Heron’s ex-wife, Dawn, realizes she’s in love with Hazel, a woman she met at a jumble sale. In the present, Maggie attempts to navigate middle age, feeling that there must be more to life, while also trying to care for her father. Author Claire Lynch’s writing is sparsely poetic, with words and phrases that are given time to breathe and sink in. Despite being a relatively short read, the delicate and messy threads between Heron, Maggie, and Dawn that have become so tangled over the years are gently unpicked. Fans of Jodi Picoult’s emotional Small Great Things or Charlie Porter’s quietly beautiful Nova Scotia House will adore this affecting look into the lives of three people.
Customer Reviews
A perfect book.
Plot moved easily. Characters easily seen.