The best books about family secrets

From Meg Cabot, the Number One New York Times bestselling author of the Princess Diaries series, comes the very first New Adult instalment, featuring the now grown-up Princess Mia!
Royal Wedding follows Princess Mia and her Prince Charming as they plan their fairy tale wedding - but a few poisoned apples could turn this happily-ever-after into a royal nightmare.
For Princess Mia, the past five years since college graduation have been a whirlwind of activity, what with living in New York City, running her new teen community centre, being madly in love, and attending royal engagements. And speaking of engagements,… show more.

'Cristina Alger's debut novel offers a fresh and modern glimpse into New York's high society. I was hooked from page one' Lauren Weisberger, author of The Devil Wears Prada

From the author of The Banker's Wife and Girls Like Us comes an explosive drama about family, greed and high society scandal.

The Darlings of New York are untouchable. But no one is safe from a scandal this big.

When Carter Darling's business partner commits suicide, it triggers a huge financial investigation.

The allegations are serious. The danger of it exposing their private lives is equally threatening.

In times of crisis,… show more.

A terrifying new gothic horror novel about two sisters and a haunted house that never sleeps, perfect for fans of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

They say there's a door in Wakefield that never opens...

Sam Wakefield's ancestral home, a decaying mansion built on the edge of a swamp, isn't a place for children. Its labyrinthine halls, built by her mad ancestors, are filled with echoes of the past: ghosts and memories knotted together as one. In the presence of phantoms, it's all Sam can do to disentangle past from present in her daily life.

But… show more.

From the #1 bestselling author of The Night She Disappeared, The Family Upstairs and Then She Was Gone

AN UNFORGETTABLE STORY ABOUT A FAMILY WITH A TERRIBLE SECRET

When a tragedy breaks a family apart, what can bring it back together?

The Birds seem to be the perfect family: mother, father, four children, a picture-book cottage in the country.

But one Easter weekend, something happens - something so unexpected, so devastating, that no one can bring themselves to talk about it.

The family shatters, seemingly for good.

Until, years later, they are forced to return to the house they grew… show more.

"A breezy yet affecting read filled with struggle and hope."—People
A Good Day LA Pick

Among fake Instagram pages, long-buried family secrets, and the horrors of middle school, one suburban mom searches to find herself.
 
Alice Sullivan feels like she’s finally found her groove in middle age, but it only takes one moment for her perfectly curated life to unravel. On the same day she learns her daughter is struggling in second grade, a call from her son’s school accusing him of bullying throws Alice into a tailspin.  

When it comes to light that the incident is part of a… show more.

BONUS: This edition contains excerpts from Monica McInerney's Lola's Secret, At Home with the Templetons, Family Baggage, The Alphabet Sisters, Greetings from Somewhere Else, and Upside Down Inside Out.

From internationally bestselling author Monica McInerney comes a captivating and charming new novel of family secrets, the loyalty of sisters, and the power of redemption.

As a child, Maggie Faraday grew up in a lively, unconventional household with her young mother, four very different aunts, and eccentric grandfather. With her mother often away, her aunts took turns looking after her–until, just weeks before Maggie’s sixth birthday, a shocking event changed everything.… show more.

For Alberta Scaglione, her golden years are turning out much more differently than she expected—and much more deadly . . .
 
Alberta Scaglione’ s spinster aunt had some secrets—like the fortune she squirreled away and a secret lake house in Tranquility, New Jersey. More surprising: she’s left it all to Alberta. Alberta, a widow, is no spring chicken and she’s gotten used to disappointment. So having a beautiful view, surrounded by hydrangeas, honeysuckle, and her cat, Lola, sounds blissful after years of yelling and bickering and cooking countless lasagnas.
 
But Tranquility isn’t as peaceful as it sounds. There’s a body… show more.

"The buzz...is real. I've read it and was blown away. It's a true nerve-shredder that keeps its mind-blowing secrets to the very end." ―Stephen King

Winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Horror Novel!
A World Fantasy Award Finalist!
An Indie Next Pick! A LibraryReads Top 10 Pick!
A Library Journal Editors' Pick! STARRED reviews from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly!
Named one of the "50 Best Horror Books of All Time" by Esquire!

"Brilliant....[a] deeply frightening deconstruction of the illusion of the self." ―The New York Times

Catriona Ward's The Last House on Needless Street is a shocking… show more.

'So deliciously South London.' - Yomi Adegoke, author of SLAY IN YOUR LANE

'A sweeping, rich tale that explores family, secrets, loss, love and redemption within the context of a tessellation of cultures - written with a beautiful texture, Benson pulls you in to a deftly-woven story with tautly-written sentences, and before you know it you find yourself in too deep to get out, too deep to want to get out, wanting to know more.'
- Bolu Babalola, author of LOVE IN COLOUR

'Jendella Benson has drawn such a compelling world that Hope and Glory, the book and the characters… show more.

Welcome to a world where nothing is quite as it seems . . .

Dive head first into the world of Lundinor in this magical adventure story for anyone with a Hogwarts-shaped hole in their life.

When their grandmother Sylvie is rushed to hospital, Ivy Sparrow and her annoying big brother Seb cannot imagine what adventure lies in store. Returning to Sylvie's house, they find it has been ransacked by unknown intruders - before a mysterious feather scratches an ominous message onto the kitchen wall. A very strange policeman turns up on the scene, determined to apprehend them . .… show more.

Peter Godwin, an award-winning writer, is on assignment in Zululand when he is summoned by his mother to Zimbabwe, his birthplace. His father is seriously ill; she fears he is dying. Godwin finds his country, once a post-colonial success story, descending into a vortex of violence and racial hatred.

His father recovers, but over the next few years Godwin travels regularly between his family life in Manhattan and the increasing chaos of Zimbabwe, with its rampant inflation and land seizures making famine a very real prospect. It is against this backdrop that Godwin discovers a fifty-year-old family secret, one which… show more.

By the "master of thinly veiled secrets often kept by women who rage underneath their delicate exteriors" (Kirkus Reviews), Beware the Woman is Megan Abbott at the height of her game.

Honey, I just want you to have everything you ever wanted. That’s what Jacy’s mom always told her. And Jacy felt like she finally did. Newly married and with a baby on the way, Jacy and her new husband, Jed, embark on their first road trip together to visit his father, Dr. Ash, in Michigan’s far-flung Upper Peninsula. The moment they arrive at the cottage snug within the lush… show more.

Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction 2011! 'Having sifted through everything I have heard about the tiger and his wife, I can tell you that this much is fact: in April of 1941, without declaration or warning, the German bombs started falling over the city and did not stop for three days. The tiger did not know that they were bombs...' A tiger escapes from the local zoo, padding through the ruined streets and onwards, to a ridge above the Balkan village of Galina. His nocturnal visits hold the villagers in a terrified thrall. But for one boy, the… show more.

'A young woman's battle for acceptance in a male-dominated world; her misadventures in love; and her torturous journey to track down her real parents in Germany' Mail on Sunday Best New Fiction

'What had seemed to be a Hidden Figures-style female-genius-in-a-male-world narrative turns into a thrilling back-to-my-roots mystery' Daily Telegraph

From childhood, Katherine knows she is different, and that her parents are not who they seem to be. But as she grows up and becomes a mathematician, she faces the most human of problems - who is she? What is the cost of love, and what is the cost of… show more.

The #1 New York Times bestseller!

"Witty, wise, and tender. It's a marvel." -Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train and A Slow Fire Burning

"To say I love this book is an understatement. It's a deep psychological mystery about the power of motherhood, the intensity of teenage love, and the danger of perfection. It moved me to tears." -Reese Witherspoon

From the bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You and Our Missing Hearts comes a riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their… show more.

Shortlisted for the 2021 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize and longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger 2021.

City of Vengeance is an explosive debut novel in an historical thriller series by D. V. Bishop, set in Renaissance Florence.

'An impressive and immersive debut set in a beautifully realized sixteenth-century Florence' - Antonia Hodgson

'A first-class historical thriller . . . Bishop's spirited and richly detailed story is a tour-de-force' - David Baldacci

Florence. Winter, 1536. A prominent Jewish moneylender is murdered in his home, a death with wide implications in a city powered by immense wealth.

Cesare Aldo, a former… show more.

At forty-five, Hannah Smith is at a crossroads. That's her spin on it. The reality is she's divorced, jobless, and moving back to her family home in Iowa to keep an eye on her mother, who's slipping into dementia. Her return stirs up the same unnerving sense of disconnect Hannah has felt since childhood-always the odd girl out, the loner outshone by her two older sisters. Hannah knew the feelings of hurt would come back. But she never expected fear. Because when her mother looks into her eyes and whispers, "You're not my daughter," Hannah is beginning to believe it's… show more.

Michael Kingman has been an outsider for as long as he remembers. The court which executed his father also exiled him and his family. They branded him a traitor, and the nobles who had been his friends turned their backs, prepared to let the legendary Kingman family die on Hollow's city streets.

Only they survived.

And it should come as no surprise to Hollow Court, or the King, that they've been searching for the truth ever since.
History is written by the winners, truth buried beneath lies until it's Forgotten. Justice seems impossible in a city where the price of… show more.

From number one New York Times bestselling author Sarah Dessen comes a big-hearted novel about a girl who reconnects with a part of her family she hasn't seen since she was a little girl - and falls in love, all over the course of a magical summer.

Emma Saylor doesn't remember a lot about her mother, who died when she was ten. But she does remember the stories her mom told her about the big lake that went on forever.

Now it's just Emma and her dad, and life is good, if a little predictable . . . until Emma… show more.

Not all secrets are what they seem.

When Bridget spots an elegantly dressed woman leaving her husband’s office late one night, she fears the worst. Her marriage is already strained but things are about to take an even more shocking turn when her family is suddenly torn apart by a horrific crime they all become entangled in.

Her trust is shattered, her husband is on the run, and her son is hiding a dark secret. Bridget’s life has become a dangerous lie and the clock is ticking as the police close in on a killer. But who can she trust… show more.