This heartwarming YA novel explores three generations of women, and the secrets that burden them and twist their relationship with their daughters over the years.

First there’s Mary beginning in the 1940s where her flirtations with a handsome, chrming circu performer leads to an unplanned pregnancy. She gives birth to her daughter-

Caroline who has been raised by her aunt as the family considered Mary to be too flighty and irresponsible and practically banned her from seeing Caroline. There, Caroline absorbed that messaging and also considers her mother an irresponsible, neglectful mother and overcorrects in the parenting of her daughter-

Katie who is dealing with her own drama as she realizes she is gay, and kisses her best friend. Who quickly turns on her as well as all their friends. Not to mention, her mother is still reeling from her divorce and is being extra-smothering in her mothering to Katie and her autistic brother. Katie wants some space and is soon intrigued by meeting the grandmother she never met, Mary, who declining mental falculties pique Katie’s interest as she learns more about the family’s past.

Downham does an excellent job bouncing between voices, even including the aunt through passages in a diary that Katie finds, depicting very distinct voices that share in new love and in heartache. However, Caroline is a bit lost in the shuffle as she doesn’t have many chapters unto herself. Rather it is majorly voiced between Katie and Mary with Caroline being the bridge between the two. The big emphasis is on family as well as generational mistakes that influence the others over the years and how it unintentionally causes pain in its execution. It also has a fair representation of mental illness, coming out and neurodivergence done with heart.

I highly recommend this for any mother-daughter reading groups since its bonds of motherhood is the heart of the story.