Bookshop on Lilac Island by Linda Hughes

Family secrets. Hidden treasures. Healing hearts - past and present.

When Florence Withers and her husband inherit a long-forgotten building on Mackinac Island, they discover a sealed-off bookshop - and a trove of diaries that date back to the Gilded Age. The journals tell stories too scandalous to believe: a woman committed to an asylum in 1905, her sister stealing both her husband and her child, and a lifetime of silence buried under polite society.

As Florence begins searching for the descendants of the women in those pages, long-buried truths shake the island's history - and stir up secrets of her own. Especially when her estranged mother-in-law unexpectedly arrives, dragging emotional baggage Florence thought had been packed away for good.

Heartfelt and layered, this Real-world Women's Fiction novel blends past and present, mystery and emotion, in a story of women's strength, second chances, and the healing power of truth.