SOLVED. Sisters in Australia/ mother died [s]

[LaNaya]

book was about Sisters (I think 3) living in Australia. Mother was always running around- father was the better parent. I think there was something about the mothers diary or something that she had left. Follows girls through their lives... one moves to I think Ireland and they have holidays there...? Sorry- been so long... Thank you!

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

When did you read it? Was it YA, middle grade, or adult? Remember anything about the cover?

[LaNaya]

Read about 5 years ago. Adult fiction... nothing remembered about the cover.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Set in the present, the past? Approximately what year?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Maybe Coldwater?

Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Wolf live with their father, Captain Wolf, a prison warden, on the barren island of Coldwater, off the coast of Australia. Surrounded only by convicts and prison guards, the young women rely on each other and their writing for fulfillment, and hope of leaving the island. When Finn O’Connell, a handsome Irish man whose crimes were of desperation rather than avarice or malice, arrives on the island, Captain Wolf decides to try to reform him. But when Emily falls passionately in love with Finn, she sets off a chain of events that will divide the family forever.

[LaNaya]

No, but, wow, are you good! That sounds like it meets the requirements, though!

[LaNaya]

I don't remember when it was set.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Was it dark and atmospheric, or more light-hearted and romancey?

[LaNaya]

I feel like an idiot that I don't remember more... was not romantic or especially dark. I think the daughter of one of the girls finally opens what the mom left behind and finds one of the girls is not really the fathers... they decide not to tell anyone, instead burning it.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Windflowers?
Novels of family secrets are often overwrought, but McKinley’s novel of Australia is rarely over the top. Instead her characters are restrained and controlled. This is due, in part, to the fact that the story is told in a long series of flashbacks by Ellie Freeman and her aunt Aurelia, and partly to the fact that the family secret isn’t revealed until the novel’s conclusion. But all that pales in comparison to McKinley’s passion for the land, which dominates both the characters and the reader with its great heat and vastness, and McKinley’s descriptions of the exhausting labor necessary to survive as a rancher. Ellie’s saga begins in 1936 and continues through World War II on to 1970. In between flashbacks, the reader dwells with Ellie’s two daughters. Claire, the most affected by the family secret, has left home for Sydney as a result of a family breach, and Leanne has secret plans of her own.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Loving Daughters?
Wyndham, a small, rural community south of Sydney, in the days following World War I. The two young Herbert sisters, who keep house for their widowed father and bachelor brothers, are as different as can be. Enid, the elder, is a capable manager, running the household and garden with great efficiency, while her sister, Una, is more frivolous and rather dreamy. When the Rev. Colin Edwards arrives from England in 1919 to serve as Wyndham's pastor, both sisters are ready for love, which leads to tensions between the women and within the Herbert family unit.

[LaNaya]

No, They all sound like good books, but none of these is it. However, the heavenly bodies brilliantly blinding light cannot compare to your kind and generous nature. You have been generous with your time and talent, and I appreciate your sharing your talent with me.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

This sounds like it:
The Faraday Girls

With the arrival of baby Maggie, the Faraday household increases to six girls and one hapless father, yet there is a seventh Faraday woman whose absence is a keenly felt burden. That Tessa Faraday died too young, leaving her husband to raise their five daughters, was unbearable enough, but when teenage Clementine, the youngest, announces she's pregnant and that she intends to raise the baby with her sisters' help, Tessa's absence becomes overwhelming. Though they have been locked away since her death, Tessa's private diaries prove to be an irresistible lure to Sadie, who betrays the family trust by reading them in hopes that their mother, who had achieved iconic status in death, would reveal the secrets of perfect motherhood. What Sadie discovers, however, ends up shattering the family. Decades later, it falls to Maggie to put the Faraday clan back together again. Crossing the globe, from Australia to Manhattan to Dublin, McInerney's bewitching multigenerational saga lavishly and lovingly explores the resiliency and fragility of family bonds.

[LaNaya]

OH MY GOSH THAT'T IT!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!! You are the master. I really appreciate all the work you've done to help me. Could you do me another favor, I'm practically a luddite and don't know how to change from UNSOLVED bookshelf to FOUND. If it's not too much trouble, could you move this over? I don't want to clog up the system.
Wow, I don't remember so many daughters- thought there were only three. Thanks again!

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

You're welcome.

A mod can move the book for you - only the mod or the querier can edit that.

[LaNaya]

Ah, thanks.