Mamabird

A bighearted Southern debut set in 1969, when four sisters from Savannah are sent off to a boarding school in the Berkshires after a tragedy, and must navigate a new world of love and loss—and the secret from their mother’s campus days that holds the key to an enduring family mystery

“A gorgeous novel about sisterhood, family secrets, and the mysterious ways we learn to love the life that is ours. These sisters will steal your heart—and you won’t want it back. Truly unforgettable.”
—Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling author of Heart of the Wild

“A bighearted, supremely tender story of family and longing. Mamabird is the kind of novel you want to hold close to your chest.”
—John Green, New York Times bestselling author of Hollywood, Ending

Savannah, Georgia, in 1969 is a city as beautiful as it is broken. Just outside of town, the four Caldwell sisters live on Isle of Hope in a home that aches and echoes with their mother’s absence. Until their father suddenly sends them north to her alma mater, an all-girls boarding school in the Berkshires.

On campus, the Caldwells learn to navigate a new world, one where their accents sound funny and the social order feels opaque. But as they forge their own paths in the place where their mother once thrived, through love and friendship and loss, each sister is also carrying a secret that threatens to upend all their lives.

When a revelation from their mother’s student days unravels a hidden family story during alumni weekend, the sisters’ private dramas reach a breaking point. With the truth now told, the Caldwells will have to lean on each other like never before to reclaim their future—and embrace who their mother always knew they could be.

Told with wisdom and wit and so much heart, Mamabird is a timeless celebration of the biggest, most enduring kind of love.