Books like The empty cradle by Rosie Goodwin

James Joyce’s Dubliners is a landmark collection of fifteen short stories set in late‑19th‑century Dublin, capturing ordinary lives and suppressed dreams while exploring themes of lost innocence, paralysis, and the moral fabric of Irish society.

A novel about Emma Woodhouse, a young woman's struggles with matchmaking, misplaced pride, and the dangers of meddling in others' lives in 18th-century England.

Thomas Hardy follows former hunchback Michael Henchard, a merchant turned town mayor, as his pride, regret, and past sins collide in the close‑knit community of Casterbridge.

A novel about a man who gives his daughter with Down syndrome to a nurse, sparking controversy and gaining widespread attention in the media.

Molly Gibson grows up as the only child of a widowed doctor in a provincial English town during the 1830s, navigating the social expectations and responsibilities of women in her class.

In the industrial 1840s, Mary Barton, daughter of a trade‑unionist, must choose between her working‑class lover Jem Wilson and the mill‑owner’s son Henry Carson, a decision that exposes the era’s stark class divisions.

The Antiquary follows an antiquarian who, though not the central hero, serves as commentator amid a tale of family secrets, buried treasures and hopeless love.

In a strict Mennonite community, a 16‑year‑old girl rebels against tradition as she faces her family's collapse.

A 19th-century mystery about Thomas De Quincey and his determination to clear his name after being accused of a series of violent murders identical to a case that terrorized London forty-three years earlier.

A spirited, complex woman inherits a fortune in the close‑knit Potteries of early 20th‑century England, challenging the repressive norms of her industrial town.

In Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire saga, Dr. Thorne’s orphaned niece Mary faces social exile, while her sweetheart Frank, constrained by family duty, pursues another bride. The story ends with family fortunes and affections reevaluated.

The true story of a friendship spanning religious divisions and four decades of Israeli-Palestinian conflict.In the summer of 1967, not long after the Six Day War, three young Palestinian men ventured into the town of Ramla in Israel. They were cousins, on a pilgrimage to see their childhood homes, from which they and their families had been driven out nearly twenty years earlier. One cousin had the door slammed in his face, one found that his old house had been converted into a school. But the third, Bashir, was met at the door by a young woman named Dalia, who invited him in... This poignant encounter is the starting point for the story of two families – one Arab, one Jewish – which spans the fraught modern history of the region. In the lemon tree his father planted in the backyard of his childhood home, Bashir sees a symbol of occupation; Dalia, who arrived in 1948 as an infant with her family, as a fugitive from Bulgaria, sees hope for a people devastated by the Holocaust. Both are inevitably swept up in the fates of their people and the stories of their lives form a microcosm of more than half a century of Israeli-Palestinian history.What began as a simple meeting between two young people grew into a dialogue lasting four decades. The Lemon Tree offers a much needed human perspective on this seemingly intractable conflict and reminds us not only of all that is at stake, but also of all that is possible.

Diana Walsh recounts the days leading up to the abduction of her newborn infant, a true‑crime account based on court records and media reports, set just before Christmas in 2008.

An only daughter raised by a harsh father finds hope and companionship in Sunday school teaching, and eventually in a widower and his three sons, as they discover unexpected common ground and the possibility of new family bonds.