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Books Mom Will Love 2024

Mother's Day

Books Mom Will Love 2024

Mother’s Day is a time to recognize the woman who raised and nurtured us. To celebrate, we're giving you the opportunity to win books for yourself or the special lady in your life in our 19th annual "Books Mom Will Love" contest. From now through Monday, May 13th at noon ET, readers can enter to win one of our five prize packages, which includes 11 great titles that we think moms will love.

This year's prize books are:

  • ALL THE GLIMMERING STARS by Mark Sullivan
  • DEAR MOM AND DAD: A Letter About Family, Memory, and the America We Once Knew, by Patti Davis
  • EVE: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, by Cat Bohannon
  • THE FAMILIAR by Leigh Bardugo
  • THE FELLOWSHIP OF PUZZLEMAKERS by Samuel Burr
  • THE FROZEN RIVER by Ariel Lawhon
  • LIKE MOTHER, LIKE DAUGHTER by Kimberly McCreight
  • A SHORT WALK THROUGH A WIDE WORLD by Douglas Westerbeke
  • SUMMERS AT THE SAINT by Mary Kay Andrews
  • WELCOME TO THE HYUNAM-DONG BOOKSHOP written by Hwang Bo-reum, translated by Shanna Tan
  • THE WIVES: A Memoir, by Simone Gorrindo

To enter, please fill out this form by Monday, May 13th at noon ET.

All the Glimmering Stars by Mark Sullivan - Historical Fiction


Anthony Opoka and Florence Okori are coming of age in Uganda in the 1990s. Outstanding students, they believe in being good humans before they are kidnapped and forced into the fanatical Lord’s Resistance Army. In a legion of young recruits, no one gets closer than Anthony to powerful messianic warlord Joseph Kony and his darkest secrets. To stay sane as he spirals through chaos, Anthony clings to his childhood lessons about being a good human. Florence’s upbringing grounds her, too, helping her keep her dreams alive even as she’s pulled deeper into the insanity of Kony’s war. At the lowest points of their lives, Anthony and Florence meet by chance, fall in love and begin to dream of surviving their captivity. They devote their lives to helping their fellow child soldiers escape bondage and return to their families and redemption by following the stars.

Dear Mom and Dad: A Letter About Family, Memory, and the America We Once Knew by Patti Davis - Memoir


Eager to retell the narrative of her own family and her coming of age, Patti Davis casts aside misperceptions that defined her in the past. DEAR MOM AND DAD reveals young Patti as a sensitive child, who was not able to be the public person her family demanded. Just as she re-examines her own role in an increasingly dysfunctional family drama, Davis casts an empathetic yet honest eye on her parents --- her father, the eternal lifeguard, who saved 77 people, yet failed to create a coherent AIDS policy, and her mother, who never escaped her own tortured youth. Even as she unravels her mother’s highly edited persona, and her father’s loving but distant personality, Davis remains steadfast in her artistic expression, as she melds irony, comedy and tragedy with dreamlike memories of an ever-present past.

Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon - Science & Technology/History


How did the female body drive 200 million years of human evolution? Why do women live longer than men? Why are women more likely to get Alzheimer’s? Why do girls score better at every academic subject than boys until puberty, when suddenly their scores plummet? Is sexism useful for evolution? And why, seriously why, do women have to sweat through our sheets every night when we hit menopause? These questions are producing some truly exciting science --- and in EVE, with boundless curiosity and sharp wit, Cat Bohannon covers the past 200 million years to explain the specific science behind the development of the female sex. This book is not only a sweeping revision of human history, it’s an urgent and necessary corrective for a world that has focused primarily on the male body for far too long.

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo - Historical Fantasy


In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers that the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to improve the family's social position. What begins as simple amusement for the nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain's king. The king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England's heretic queen --- and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain his favor. As Luzia's notoriety grows, so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisition's wrath.

The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers by Samuel Burr - Fiction

Clayton Stumper might be in his 20s, but he dresses like your grandpa and fusses like your aunt. Abandoned at birth on the steps of the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers, he was raised by a group of eccentric enigmatologists and now finds himself among the last survivors of a fading institution. When the esteemed crossword compiler and main maternal presence in Clayton’s life, Pippa Allsbrook, passes away, she bestows her final puzzle on him: a promise to reveal the mystery of his parentage and prepare him for life beyond the walls of the commune. So begins Clay’s quest to uncover the secrets surrounding his birth, secrets that will change Clay --- and the Fellowship --- forever.

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon - Historical Mystery


Maine, 1789: The Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice. Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine the cause of death. As the local midwife and healer, Martha is good at keeping secrets. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, every murder and debacle that unfolds in the town of Hallowell. In that diary she also documented the details of an alleged rape that occurred four months earlier. Now, one of the men accused of that heinous attack has been found dead in the ice. While Martha is certain she knows what happened the night of the assault, she suspects that the two crimes are linked. Over the course of one long, hard winter, Martha’s diary lands at the center of the scandal and threatens to tear both her family and her community apart.

Like Mother, Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight - Domestic Thriller


When Cleo, a student at NYU, arrives late for dinner at her childhood home in Brooklyn, she finds food burning in the oven and no sign of her mother, Kat. Then Cleo discovers her mom’s bloody shoe under the sofa. Something terrible has happened. But what? Kat is the essence of Park Slope perfection: a happily married, successful corporate lawyer. Or so Cleo thinks. Kat has been lying. She’s not just a lawyer; she’s her firm’s fixer. And in the days leading up to her disappearance, Kat has become aware of multiple threats: demands for money from her unfaithful soon-to-be ex-husband; evidence that Cleo has slipped back into a relationship that’s far riskier than she understands; and menacing anonymous messages from her past --- all of which she’s kept hidden from Cleo.

A Short Walk Through a Wide World by Douglas Westerbeke - Historical Fiction/Magical Realism

Paris, 1885: Aubry Tourvel, a spoiled and stubborn nine-year-old girl, comes across a wooden puzzle ball on her walk home from school. She tosses it over the fence, only to find it in her backpack that evening. Days later, at the family dinner table, she starts to bleed to death. When medical treatment only makes her worse, she flees to the outskirts of the city, where she realizes that it is this very act of movement that keeps her alive. So begins her lifelong journey on the run from her condition, which won’t allow her to stay anywhere for longer than a few days or return to a place where she’s already been. But the longer Aubry wanders and the more desperate she is to share her life with others, the clearer it becomes that the world she travels through may not be quite the same as everyone else’s.

Summers at the Saint by Mary Kay Andrews - Fiction

Traci Eddings was one of those outsiders whose family wasn’t rich enough or connected enough to vacation at St. Cecelia. But she could work there. One fateful summer she did, and she married the boss’s son. Now, she’s the widowed owner of the hotel, determined to see it return to its glory days, even as staff shortages and financial troubles threaten to ruin it. Plus, her greedy and unscrupulous brother-in-law wants to make sure she fails. Enlisting a motley crew of recently hired summer help --- including the daughter of her estranged best friend --- Traci has one summer season to turn it around. But new information about a long-ago drowning at the hotel threatens to come to light, and the tragic death of one of their own brings Traci to the brink of despair.

Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop written by Hwang Bo-reum, translated by Shanna Tan - Fiction

Yeongju is burned out. She did everything she was supposed to: go to school, marry a decent man, get a respectable job. Then it all fell apart. In a leap of faith, Yeongju abandons her old life, quits her high-flying career, and follows her dream. She opens a bookshop. In a quaint neighborhood in Seoul, surrounded by books, Yeongju and her customers take refuge. From the lonely barista to the unhappily married coffee roaster --- and the writer who sees something special in Yeongju --- they all have disappointments in their past. The Hyunam-dong Bookshop becomes the place where they all learn how to truly live.

The Wives by Tarryn Fisher - Psychological Thriller


Imagine that your husband has two other wives. You’ve never met the other wives, and none of you know each other. One day, you find a scrap of paper in his pocket --- an appointment reminder for a woman named Hannah, and you just know it’s another of the wives. You thought you were fine with your arrangement, but you can’t help yourself: you track her down, and, under false pretenses, you strike up a friendship. Hannah has no idea who you really are. Then Hannah starts showing up to your coffee dates with telltale bruises, and you realize she’s being abused by her husband. Who, of course, is also your husband. But you’ve never known him to be violent. Who exactly is your husband, and how far would you be willing to go to find out? And who is his mysterious third wife?