The Wednesday Daughters
Publisher Ballantine, July 16, 2013
Meg Clayton’s eagerly awaited new novel is a compassionate, wise, and enthralling story of mothers and daughters, the best friends who become family, and the secrets and dreams passed down through generations.
It is early evening when Hope Tantry arrives at the small cottage in England’s pastoral Lake District where her mother, Ally, spent the last years of her life. Ally—one of a close-knit group of women who called themselves “The Wednesday Sisters”—had used the cottage as a writer’s retreat while working on her unpublished biography of Beatrix Potter. Yet Hope knows little about her mother’s time there. Traveling with Hope are her friends Julie and Anna Page—first introduced as little girls in The Wednesday Sisters, now grown women grappling with issues of a different era—who offer to help Hope sort through her mother’s personal effects. What Hope discovers is a tangled family history steeped in Lake District lore.
Tucked away in a hidden drawer, Hope finds a stack of Ally’s old notebooks, all written in a mysterious code. As she, Julie, and Anna Page try to decipher Ally’s writings—the reason for their encryption, their possible connection to the Potter manuscript—they are forced to confront their own personal struggles: Hope’s doubts about her marriage, Julie’s grief over losing her twin sister, Anna Page’s fear of commitment in relationships. And as the real reason for Ally’s stay in England comes to light, Hope, Julie, and Anna Page reach a new understanding about the enduring bonds of family, the unwavering strength of love, and the inescapable pull of the past.
See the trailer for THE WEDNESDAY DAUGHTERS here…
“The Wednesday Daughters was a bewitching escape of a novel. The characters became my beloved companions. I never wanted it to end.”
— Elin Hilderbrand, author of Beautiful Day
“With delicate, precise strokes, Meg Waite Clayton illustrates and explores the intricate effect of the secrets we keep, even from those we love, in THE WEDNESDAY DAUGHTERS. This is the perfect novel for every mother, daughter and sister to read, savor, and discuss over a pot of tea.”
— Melanie Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author of The Aviator’s Wife
“Captivating, wise and exquisitely crafted, The Wednesday Daughters is part mystery, part love story, and part tribute to the works of Beatrix Potter and the lore of England’s Lake District.”
— Cathy Buchanan, author of The Day the Falls Stood Still and The Painted Girls
