by Elif Şafak
First published 2012
Ella's mother, Shirin, is a mystery. Widowed young, she rarely speaks of her childhood in Turkey. But when Ella inherits her mother's old notebook, she's drawn into Shirin's world - a world of love, loss, and family secrets. As Ella uncovers her mother's past, she must confront the tangled threads of her own life. Can she reconcile the woman she thought she knew with the woman revealed in the pages before her?
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-secrets, found-family
Setting: Turkey
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
262 pages · Kindle Edition · Viking