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Book Club: 10 novels with family drama at their hearts
Secrets, scandals, and unbreakable bonds – these 10 novels prove family drama makes the most irresistible stories.
By Allison Tait
Ah, families – they make us, they break us, they book-end us, they up-end us. And they make for great literary fodder, as this collection of novels shows.
If you love your fiction with a hefty dose of family emotion, closeness and, let’s face it, secrets, you’ll find your next read here.
A Far-Flung Life by M. L. Stedman
The story of the MacBrides begins in Western Australia, 1958, on the remote sheep station that has been in the family for generations, when patriarch Phil MacBride swerves to avoid a kangaroo, shattering the lives of his entire family. Stedman, author of ‘The Light Between Oceans’, explores the lives of a handful of isolated souls and their secrets, in a tale of family and belonging.
Family Drama by Rebecca Fallon
In what has been described as ‘ a magnificent debut’, Fallon shares the story of a woman torn between two lives – one as the wife of a professor in the UK, one as a soap opera star in the USA. When she dies suddenly, her husband decides which of those two versions is remembered. But, ten years later, her teenaged twin daughters begin to uncover their mother’s secrets. It asks the question ‘what happens when you’re not there to tell your side of the story?’
This Is Where We Say Goodbye by Howard McKenzie-Murray
Shortlisted for the 2024 Hungerford Award for unpublished manuscripts, McKenzie-Murray’s debut novel is compressed into one 24-hour period as 21-year-old Maud awaits her brother’s funeral. With a strong focus on character and voice, this quirky coming-of-age novel captures the turbulence of early adulthood, the messiness of family ties, and how we manage to go on when everything in us wants to stop. Publishing 28 April.
The Missing Mother by Mali Cornish
If you like your family drama with a side helping of domestic thriller, keep an eye out for Cornish’s new novel, arriving May 2026. The story centres on Elspeth who returns to Geelong from New York when her mother Simone vanishes. The story unfolds via Elspeth’s first-person narration, as well as through Simone’s letters, across a dual timeline from 1986 to 2025. With lots of secrets, lots of suspects, and Elspeth’s detachment from her family, this will keep you guessing.
The Duke’s Secret by Sue Williams
In her latest historical novel, Williams tells the story of Ava Washington, a modern-day journalist who sets out to verify a family legend. Based on fragments preserved in Williams’s own family lore, her great, great, great grandmother Mary Ann Marshall bore an illegitimate daughter fathered by the Duke of Wellington. Having done extensive historical research, Williams uses the fictional form to reconstruct Mary Ann’s world, Ava’s research and the military campaigns that propelled the Duke to fame.
Together We Fall Apart by Sophie Matthiesson
Shortlisted for the Readings New Australian Fiction Prize 2025, this debut novel offers a moving portrate of a dysfunctional family. Clare has been living in London for seven years with her partner Miriam and her young son. But when Clare returns to Melbourne to visit her ill father, she lands in the middle of a family crisis: her brother Max’s long term drug addiction. As Clare tries to help Max into rehab, is her family in London paying the price?
Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash
Life has been disastrous for the three Flynn sisters ever since their parents opened up their marriage… This novel follows the sisters’ spiralling personal disasters, their descent into criminal conspiracy when the youngest (Harper) becomes convinced that someone – or something – is monitoring the town’s citizens, and how far they’ll go for each other.
The Drowning by Fiona Lowe
Talented crime author Fiona Lowe is back with a tale of what happens when a family dispute turns deadly – or does it? When four siblings and a cousin inherit a beach house, the legacy threatens to tear the family apart.
Worth the wait
Land by Maggie O’Farrell
You’ll have to wait until June, but a new novel from Hamnet author Maggie O’Farrell is always worth the wait! Described as ‘an epic portrait of a family navigating the legacy of Ireland’s Great Hunger’, the novel begins in the year 1865 and explores the idea that, when it comes to both land and history, nothing ever goes away.
Whistler by Ann Patchett
Also arriving in June is the new novel from the internationally bestselling, prize-winning author Ann Patchett. It explores the relationship between Daphne and Eddie, her former stepfather. Married to her mother for a short time when Daphne was nine, she hasn’t seen Eddie for many years – not since the fateful event that changed the direction of both their lives. But when they meet again many years later, they must consider not just their past, but what their relationship looks like now and in the future.
Allison Tait is a bestselling author, dedicated reader and co-founder of the Your Own Next Read and Your Kids Next Read Facebook groups. Find her on Instagram.
All book images sourced from Amazon, used with permission. Citro may receive a small commission at no cost to you when you make a purchase using the links in this article.
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