A few weeks ago a colleague emailed me asking if I had any recommendations for her book club of books with positive mother-daughter relationships, since they “kept picking books with terrible mothers”. The caveat is they wanted classics or historical fiction, neither of which are my go-to genres, so I didn’t have a lot to offer!

Along with my lack of recommendations, I offered my unhelpful opinion that the mother-daughter relationship is so often written as complex and fraught because, well, that’s often what happens in real life. And also, sometimes tricky relationships are just a lot more entertaining to read about!

On a more helpful note, as we head into Mother’s Day weekend I have some of my favorite books about mothers to share with you ~ titles focusing more on mother characters in general than strictly a mother-daughter relationship.