Books like 'Mina's Matchbox'
Readers who enjoyed Mina's Matchbox by Yōko Ogawa also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical japan urban east-asia historical-fiction asia literary-fiction coming-of-age season-summer family
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Roaring Liberty by Jean Grainger
Rated: 4.56 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsNew York City, 1922Harp Devereaux is torn. Part of her desperately wants to return to Ireland to finish what she and her family and friends started, and to witness the departure of the British forces from Ireland after eight hundred long years. But the other part finds life in America during the Roaring Twenties too exciting to trade for the sleepy streets of County Cork... -
![Silva Rerum II by Kristina Sabaliauskaitė]()
Silva Rerum II by Kristina Sabaliauskaitė
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsRomāna darbība notiek no 1707. līdz 1710.gadam. Karš, mēris, bads, nesamērīga greznība un nāvīgs izsalkums, zviedru un krievu karavīri, jūdu ārsti, holandiešu kāršu spēlmaņi, turku konkubīnes, franču dāmas, spītīgi žemaiši un ironiski viļņieši, bezvārda mūks, kurš apglabājis vairāk nekā divdesmit tūkstošus mēra upuru, un, protams, vēl viena bajāru Norvaišu dzimtas paaudze... -
![Sarah and Solomon: Only A Stone Should Be Alone by Roberta Kagan]()
Sarah and Solomon: Only A Stone Should Be Alone by Roberta Kagan
Rated: 4.60 of 5 stars · 10 ratings“…Fathers and Give me your children!” – Chaim RumkowskiIt is September 1942, and the already battered occupants of the Lodz Ghetto have just been dealt another horrendous blow from Hitler’s iron fist. They must surrender their sick, elderly, and children for ‘deportation... -
![My Name is Anton by Catherine Ryan Hyde]()
My Name is Anton by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNew York Times bestselling author Catherine Ryan Hyde returns with a hopeful novel of sacrifice, two lost souls, and enduring love.It’s 1965, and life has taken a turn for eighteen-year-old Anton Addison-Rice. Nearly a year after his brother died in a tragic accident, Anton is still wounded—physically and emotionally...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family historical-fiction literary-fiction adult audiobook book fiction -
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![The Letter by Michelle Vernal]()
The Letter by Michelle Vernal
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWORDS HAVE THE POWER TO HEAL, REUNITE AND TO HURT... Isabel opened her bag and pulled the letter out, glancing at the address one last time before she slid it through the slot, hearing it land with a plunk. It was gone. She’d done it, and now she’d have to wait to see what happened next... -
![Northern Borders: A Novel by Howard Frank Mosher]()
Northern Borders: A Novel by Howard Frank Mosher
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA New York Times Notable A novel about growing up in a remote corner of Vermont, from the author Richard Russo calls “one of our very best writers... -
![Erin's Child by Sheelagh Kelly]()
Erin's Child by Sheelagh Kelly
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFamily ties have united the Feeneys through famine and poverty, but can they withstand success? It is 1875 and the Feeneys have left the squalor of York’s slums behind them. Yet all is not well. Patrick remains a man of simple tastes, increasingly out of touch with Thomasin’s ambition to expand her business empire still further across Yorkshire... -
![A Family’s Heartbreak by Kitty Neale]()
A Family’s Heartbreak by Kitty Neale
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAll they ever wanted was somewhere to call home… Beaten When Jenny’s mother abandons her and her younger siblings, Jenny is left at the mercy of her abusive father Henry. And when Henry beats his eldest daughter so badly that she ends up in the hospital, it seems like there’s nowhere left for them all to go...Categorized as:
historical-fiction family urban literary-fiction romance historical audiobook fiction -
![The Granny by Brendan O'Carroll]()
The Granny by Brendan O'Carroll
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe New York Times Book Review praised Brendan O'Carroll's first novel, The Mammy, as "Cheerful...as unpretentious and satisfying as a home-cooked meal...with a delicious dessert of an ending... -
![The Chisellers by Brendan O'Carroll]()
The Chisellers by Brendan O'Carroll
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe Mrs. Browne trilogy became an instant bestselling success in author Brendan O'Carroll's native Ireland. Similarly, when Plume introduced The Mammy (the first book in the series, May 1999) in the United States, it was greeted with overwhelming enthusiasm from American readers. Fans of Agnes Browne craving further hilarious and heartwarming adventures will be delighted with The Chisellers...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family historical-fiction literary-fiction adult audiobook book comedy -
![Swansea Summer by Catrin Collier]()
Swansea Summer by Catrin Collier
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsNewly promoted DI Matt Pryor is disappointed when his first case seems to be a simple death from natural causes - that is, until the post-mortem shows something quite unexpected ... The elderly man who died on a Cardiff train was murdered - poisoned - by one of the other passengers... -
![Refuge by Dot Jackson]()
Refuge by Dot Jackson
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratings“An intensely readable novel of the complexity of family ties . . . Dot Jackson is a true Southern voice, a master storyteller and an Appalachian treasure” (Dori Sanders, author of Clover and Her Own Place )... -
![The Outside Boy by Jeanine Cummins]()
The Outside Boy by Jeanine Cummins
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIreland, 1959: Young Christy Hurley is a Pavee gypsy, traveling with his father and extended family from town to town, carrying all their worldly possessions in their wagons. Christy carries with him a burden of guilt as well, haunted by the story of his mother's death in childbirth. The peripatetic life is the only one Christy has ever known, but when his grandfather dies, everything changes...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family historical-fiction literary-fiction audiobook book drama fiction -
![The Traveller's Daughter by Michelle Vernal]()
The Traveller's Daughter by Michelle Vernal
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsROSA’S PAST IS HER PANDORA’S BOX, AND THE LID IS ABOUT TO BE LIFTED … ‘If you lie down with dogs you’ll rise with fleas’ – Irish Proverb Rosa Sorenson’s conversation was often peppered with sayings from her homeland. It was these conversational clangers that gave her daughter Kitty the only clue as to a childhood her mother refused to speak of...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book female-mc fiction -
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![The Bogside Boys by Eoin Dempsey]()
The Bogside Boys by Eoin Dempsey
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFrom the Amazon Top Ten Overall Bestselling author of Finding RebeccaThe war will force him to choose between his community, his family, or the woman he loves. The city of Derry, Northern Ireland, 1972The Bogside is an area in open revolt, cordoned off from the rest of the city of Derry, patrolled by masked IRA men atop burnt out barricades...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction literary-fiction adult book fiction historical violent-conflict -
![Call of the Kiwi by Sarah Lark, D.W. Lovett]()
Call of the Kiwi by Sarah Lark, D.W. Lovett
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn the exhilarating conclusion to the internationally bestselling In the Land of the Long White Cloud trilogy, the spirited Warden and McKenzie clan continues its trials—and triumphs—in New Zealand and beyond...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family historical-fiction literary-fiction audiobook book drama fiction -
![Earl, Honey by D.S. Getson, Denise Getson]()
Earl, Honey by D.S. Getson, Denise Getson
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsEARL HAHN is slow, the last one to catch on to things. Since the day his father hit him in the head with a two-by-four of loblolly pine, he’s struggled with a “thickness in his brain.” It takes him longer to make the connections others arrive at easily. When his father is prosecuted for the crime of incest, it feels like deliverance for Earl, his mother Lizzie Belle and the entire Hahn family... -
![Where the Rivers Merge by Mary Alice Monroe]()
Where the Rivers Merge by Mary Alice Monroe
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratings"This is book club fiction at its finest!" —Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author From New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe comes her highly anticipated Where the Rivers Merge, the first of two epic and triumphant novels celebrating one intrepid woman's life across multiple generations in the American South...Categorized as:
historical-fiction coming-of-age family literary-fiction season-summer fiction audiobook historical -
![Born in a Treacherous time by Jacqui Murray]()
Born in a Treacherous time by Jacqui Murray
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBorn in the harsh world of East Africa 1.8 million years ago, where hunger, death, and predation are a normal part of daily life, Lucy and her band of early humans struggle to survive. It is a time in history when they are relentlessly annihilated by predators, nature, their own people, and the next iteration of man. To make it worse, Lucy’s band hates her... -
![The Secret Years: An emotional drama of love and survival by Judith Lennox]()
The Secret Years: An emotional drama of love and survival by Judith Lennox
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA moving story about life in the East Anglian Fens after the First World War, evoking the emotions of the men who came through their ordeals and the women who survived the trauma of separation.During the golden summer of 1914, four young people played in the gardens of Drakesden Abbey... -
![A Whisper To The Living by Ruth Hamilton]()
A Whisper To The Living by Ruth Hamilton
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAnnie Byrne was born during one of the worst winters Lancashire ever remembered. When the doctor finally got through the nine-foot drifts of snow, mother and daughter were in a pretty bad way, but both the new-born Annie and her exhausted mother - a spinner in the cotton mill - were fighters, tough and determined not to let the world knock them down... -
![Saddle The Wind by Jess Foley]()
Saddle The Wind by Jess Foley
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLet much loved author Jess Foley sweep you away with this beautifully breathtaking saga of one woman's search for love and fulfilment. Fans of Catherine Cookson, Dilly Court and Katie Flynn will absolutely love this... -
![Cairo Circles by Doma Mahmoud]()
Cairo Circles by Doma Mahmoud
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWriting instructor at American University in Cairo and NYU MFA graduate Doma Mahmoud's THE DISBELIEVERS, set between Cairo and New York, exploring the stories of three families from different social classes, whose lives are closely intertwined throughout, meditating on the boundaries of free will and questions about class, hedonism, faith, and violence, to Olivia Taylor Smith at Unnamed Press... -
![Firefly by India Millar]()
Firefly by India Millar
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThere are some who believe that the honor of a samurai is reserved for men. But they are wrong.Keiko was born the daughter of a samurai. But as a mere younger sister, her future was to run errands for her lovely elder sister and obey her father. Until the day her brother thought it would be amusing to teach Keiko the way of an onna-bugeisha—a warrior woman of the samurai... -
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![The Lost Sister of Fifth Avenue by Ella Carey]()
The Lost Sister of Fifth Avenue by Ella Carey
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNew York, 1938: Martha pulled the door of her Fifth Avenue apartment closed, her heart thumping, re-reading the telegram she’d been dreading. Her beloved sister Charlotte needed her help. She was alone in Paris, and the threat of Nazi invasion grew ever stronger. The time had come for Martha to make the bravest decision of her life. She needed to bring Charlotte home...Categorized as:
historical-fiction urban family literary-fiction ww2 female-mc friendship historical -
![Homeseeking by Karissa Chen]()
Homeseeking by Karissa Chen
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAlternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593712993.An epic and intimate tale of one couple across sixty years as world events pull them together and apart, illuminating the Chinese diaspora and exploring what it means to find home far from your homeland.A single choice can define an entire life...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction family coming-of-age romance fiction historical audiobook -
![An Apartment Called Freedom by Ghazi A. Algosaibi]()
An Apartment Called Freedom by Ghazi A. Algosaibi
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFirst published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company... -
![Where The Winds Dwell by Böðvar Guðmundsson, Bovar Gumundsson]()
Where The Winds Dwell by Böðvar Guðmundsson, Bovar Gumundsson
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWritten as a letter from a father to a daughter, Where the Winds Dwell is compassionate and real. Guðmundsson brings together past and present in this tragic story of the historic journey to Nýja Ísland, the world's largest Icelandic community outside of Iceland... -
![The Edge of Nowhere by C.H. Armstrong]()
The Edge of Nowhere by C.H. Armstrong
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe year is 1992 and Victoria Hastings Harrison Greene—reviled matriarch of a sprawling family—is dying. After surviving the Oklahoma Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, Victoria refuses to leave this earth before revealing the secrets she’s carried for decades.Once the child of a loving family during peaceful times, a shocking death shattered her life... -
![Nelly Kelly: An uplifting tale of grit and determination in the most desperate of circumstances by Lena Kennedy]()
Nelly Kelly: An uplifting tale of grit and determination in the most desperate of circumstances by Lena Kennedy
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn the turmoil and confusion of London's East End between the wars, young Nelly Kelly soon learns that life may never match her expectations. Forced to keep house for her autocratic, charming father, Nelly toils in a sweatshop to keep her family fed and clothed. But when life is hard, Nelly has friendship, dancing and her early dreams to cling to... -
![The Last Carolina Girl by Meagan Church]()
The Last Carolina Girl by Meagan Church
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA searing book club novel for fans of Where the Crawdad's Sing and The Girls in the Stilt House following one girl fighting for her family, her body, and her right to create a future all her ownSome folks will do anything to control the wild spirit of a Carolina girl...For fourteen-year-old Leah Payne, life in her beloved coastal Carolina town is as simple as it is free...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family historical-fiction literary-fiction adult audiobook book female-mc -
![Leah's Journey by Gloria Goldreich]()
Leah's Journey by Gloria Goldreich
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWinner of the National Jewish Book Award of 1979, this classic novel of love and war is now available in paperback! Violence shattered her golden world, and Leah's journey began... It swept her from the burning villages of old Russia to the tenements of New York, from the glittering showrooms of Paris to the settlements of war-torn Israel... -
![Maggie's Market by Dee Williams]()
Maggie's Market by Dee Williams
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIt's 1935 and Maggie Ross loves her life amongst the stallholders in Kelvin Market where her husband Tony has a bric-a-brac stall and where she lives, with her young family, above Mr Goldman's bespoke tailors. But when one fine Spring day her husband disappears into thin air her world collapses... -
![Tales of Protection by Erik Fosnes Hansen]()
Tales of Protection by Erik Fosnes Hansen
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAn eccentric scientist lies dead in his coffin reflecting on the past and his last experiment--collecting random incidents from human history and finding the underlying pattern that connects them... -
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![The Camerons by Robert Crichton]()
The Camerons by Robert Crichton
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA Scottish girl living in the coal-mining town of Pitmungo, sets out on her sixteenth birthday to find a husband who will help her achieve social... -
![Misteriosa Buenos Aires by Manuel Mujica Lainez]()
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![Letter From Peking by Pearl S. Buck]()
Letter From Peking by Pearl S. Buck
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThis novel from the Nobel Prize-winning author of "The Good Earth" and "Dragon Seed" tells the story of an American-Chinese family separated by the communist revolution in China, as they struggle to overcome difficulties and the prejudices a family of mixed blood must face...Categorized as:
historical-fiction family literary-fiction urban romance fiction classics historical -
![Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst]()
Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFrom the internationally acclaimed winner of the Booker Prize, a piercing novel that envisions modern England through the lens of one man’s acutely observed and often unnerving experience, as he struggles with class and race, art and sexuality, love and violence...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction coming-of-age family fiction lgbtq audiobook historical -
![Rough Justice by Gilda O'Neill]()
Rough Justice by Gilda O'Neill
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe Flanagans, Tanners and Lovells all live on the top floor of a crumbling Victorian tenement in the heart of London’s East End. It’s 1936 and Britain is in the grip of the Depression.Nell Flanagan is a decent, hardworking woman, married to Stephen, a tough, heavy-drinking brute of a man, who works as a casual in the docks — when there’s work available... -
![Take Nothing With You by Patrick Gale]()
Take Nothing With You by Patrick Gale
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom the bestselling author of A PLACE CALLED WINTER comes a new novel of boyhood, coming of age, and the confusions of desire and reality. For all readers of Ian McEwan's ATONEMENT or L P Hartley's THE GO-BETWEEN.1970s Western-Super-Mare and ten-year-old oddball Eustace, an only child, has life transformed by his mother's quixotic decision to sign him up for cello lessons...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family historical-fiction literary-fiction audiobook bildungsroman book fiction -
![The Hungry Road by Marita Conlon-McKenna]()
The Hungry Road by Marita Conlon-McKenna
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn its brilliant recreation of the Great Irish Famine, the children's historical novel Under the Hawthorn Tree is beloved by millions and is considered a classic. Now, the Number One Irish bestseller and award-winning author is turning her hand to the definitive adult novel of those hard times, with The Hungry Road...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family historical-fiction literary-fiction adult audiobook book female-author -
![More Than I Love My Life by David Grossman, Jessica Cohen]()
More Than I Love My Life by David Grossman, Jessica Cohen
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom the internationally best-selling author--and revered moral voice--a remarkable novel of suffering, love, and healing, the story of three generations of women and a secret that needs to be told.More Than I Love My Life is the story of three strong women: Vera, age ninety; her daughter, Nina; and her granddaughter, Gili, who at thirty-nine is a filmmaker and a wary consumer of affection... -
![Random Passage by Bernice Morgan, Marie McCarthy]()
Random Passage by Bernice Morgan, Marie McCarthy
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe chill Atlantic lies between Lavinia Andrews and the home she loves after a shattering incident topples her family fortunes. Shocked, she can barely comprehend that Cape Random is home from now on - this tiny Newfoundland settlement perched on rock between dense forest and the ocean... -
![Whistling Woman by C.C. Tillery]()
Whistling Woman by C.C. Tillery
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn the waning years of the 19th century, Bessie Daniels grows up in the small town of Hot Springs in western North Carolina. Secure in the love of her father, yet troubled with her mother's desire that she be a proper Southern belle, Bessie is determined to forge her own way in life. Or, as her Cherokee great- grandmother, Elisi, puts it, to be a whistling woman...Categorized as:
coming-of-age historical-fiction literary-fiction adult book fiction historical rural -
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![River of Earth by James Still]()
River of Earth by James Still
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFirst published in 1940, James Still's masterful novel has become a classic. It is the story, seen through the eyes of a boy, of three years in the life of his family and their kin. He sees his parents pulled between the meager farm with its sense of independence and the mining camp with its uncertain promise of material prosperity...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family historical-fiction literary-fiction book classics fiction historical -
![Kal by Judy Nunn]()
Kal by Judy Nunn
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsKalgoorlie. It grew out of the red dust of the desert over the world's richest vein of gold. Like the gold it guarded, Kalgoorlie was a magnet to anyone with a sense of adventure, anyone who could dream. People were drawn there from all over the world, settling to start afresh or to seek their fortunes. They called it Kal; it was a place where dreams came true or were lost forever in the dust... -
![The City and the House: A Novel by Natalia Ginzburg]()
The City and the House: A Novel by Natalia Ginzburg
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe city is Rome, the hub of Italian life and culture. The house is Le Margherite, a home where the sprawling cast of The City and the House is welcome. At the center of this lush epistolary novel is Lucrezia, mother of five and lover of many. Among her lovers—and perhaps the father of one of her children—is Giuseppe... -
![The Children's Hour by Marcia Willett]()
The Children's Hour by Marcia Willett
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn their comfortable old family home overlooking the sea, two sisters, Nest and Mina, live in solitude with memories of a once-idyllic childhood, and of the enchanted "children's hour" when their mother would regale them with tales of fantasy and delight. But the make-believe world of the story spinner didn't protect them from the reality of a shocking family tragedy best forgotten... -
![No Names to Be Given by Julia Brewer Daily]()
No Names to Be Given by Julia Brewer Daily
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsToday’s young women will not understand how our families made us feel shame so intensely; we surrendered our first-born children to strangers. - Faith Reynolds, No Names to Be GivenThe widely anticipated debut novel by Julia Brewer Daily is a glimpse into the lives of women forced by society to gift their newborns to strangers... -
![Zeal by Morgan Jerkins]()
Zeal by Morgan Jerkins
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe New York Times bestselling author of This Will Be My Undoing and Caul Baby returns with an epic, multi-generational novel that illuminates the legacy of slavery and the power of romantic love.Harlem, 2019. Ardelia and Oliver are hosting their engagement party. As the guests get ready to leave, he hands her a love letter on a yellowing, crumbling piece of paper . . .Natchez, 1865...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction season-summer family romance fiction historical audiobook
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