A Family Matter builds slowly but to an ending that shows life has changed in the last few decades but with incredible pain and devastation for some who had lives different than the traditional norms. Best for those who enjoy family drama and a building, intertwined story.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the opportunity to read this ARC.

This is a family drama novel that is told in duel times. I found it quite interesting and saddened by how people were treated. You will have to pick the book up to see what broke this family apart and what happened to them.

this is a spare book in both writing and page count and it left me wanting MORE. i came to love these characters, or at least care about them, even as they were hurting each other and making life-changing mistakes and giving up and seeming unfeeling while feeling so much.
the two stories it tells, separated by 40 years, carry that as their through-line. that, and a sobering reminder that things, especially cruelties, that feel very far from us, in time and in distance and in thought, can be troublingly close.
i thought it was excellent.

What an exquisite debut novel! It’s slow burn literary fiction at its finest. The character development in this dual timeline novel is outstanding and the writing is beautiful.

Heartbreaking and at the same time somewhat hopeful, this story shows how far we’ve come in the past 40 years. My heart hurts for Maggie, Dawn, Hazel and Heron for all they’ve been through.

I highly recommend this fairly short novel to anyone that enjoys beautifully written literary fiction. You can read it in an afternoon, but don’t. Take your time and savor this stunning debut novel.

I look forward to reading more from Claire Lynch in the future. I hope, for all our sakes, she has a long career as an author.

Very different read but interesting! We haven't come very far in our beliefs, really wonder sometime how we became so set in our ways?

📜Quick Summary: When we first meet Dawn in 1982, she’s a young mother, married to Heron. Adjusting to this new life was difficult for her and when she meets Hazel, sparks fly. It’s nothing like the relationship with her husband. These feelings have to be hidden…forced behind closed doors, because they are not allowed in the UK. When we meet Maggie, their grown up daughter dealing with her own family problems, we learn that she only has a relationship with her father Heron. Her mother… simply didn’t exist to her. When he receives a terminal diagnosis, he has to decide if he will share what truly happened in the past.

❣️Initial Feels: I feel for little Maggie and cannot imagine what it would have felt like for her to be taken away from her mother.

👀Trigger Warnings: terminal cancer diagnosis, queerphobia

📖Read if you want: family drama, heavy character development, nonlinear timeline, different point of views

🙋🏼‍♀️Moving Character: At different points throughout this short novel, each character touched me in a different way. Maggie, a mom to two and a woman struggling with facing the truth about her past, really pulled the heart strings on me. I cannot imagine dealing with all the lost time with your mom, knowing she was right there and you never had the chance to have a relationship with her.

🗨️Thoughtful Words: “You will be so many people in your lifetime that you’ll look back one day and not even recognize some of the people you have been.”

💡Final Sentiments: This is a debut novel from Lynch and her writing definitely shows promise! Even though this novel sits at a mere 240 pages, the slow burn felt slow, slower than maybe it should at times. I loved her style of writing and how the story unfolded. The ending did seem abrupt and I almost thought I lost some pages on my kindle. I think I just wanted more for these characters after all it took to get to the point they were at. I understand the ending, but I just wished for a little more! Don’t forget to read the Author’s Note, which shows the research and timeline of how lesbian mothers, like Dawn, were treated in the UK during this time frame. She discussed how many of the mother’s did lose custody of their children for fear of them being raised the same way.

🌟Overall Rating: 4.5 stars

🔉Special thanks to Claire Lynch, Scribner Books, and NetGalley for this arc of A Family Matter.

📘Grab yourself a copy on June 3, 2025!

This is written in dual timelines, 1982 and 2002. In 1982, Dawn is a wife and new mother who finds herself falling in love with a woman. In 1982, this is still somewhat frowned upon, but she’s sure her husband will understand. He doesn’t.

In 2002, Heron, Dawn’s ex-husband, is diagnosed with a terminal illness. He struggles to find a way to tell their daughter that he is dying. He has kept too many secrets from her and he must find a way to tell her.

This character-driven, well-written novel is sad, compelling and utterly exquisite. It is short enough to read in one day but I chose to take my time with it and enjoy every single word.

Thank you, NetGalley and Scribner for the eARC.

If you love books that are heavy in character analysis and family drama, grab this one when it hits shelves June 3rd. This is a book about secrets, about protecting, about family, about love, about what was accepted vs. what is now accepted.

Hebron, our quirky patriarchal linchpin, has been diagnosed with cancer in his mid 70s. He is worried about breaking the news to his grown daughter, Maggie. as he has been the only family she as ever known since her paternal grandmother passed away years ago. Even though Maggie, now 44, has been married for 20 years and has two children of her own, she and her dad remain extremely close.

What we are treated to in this novel is the fact that there is a huge secret that Hebron has been keeping from Maggie for 4 decades. Maggie had always been told that her mother had an affair, didn't want Maggie any longer, and just left.

Jump back to the year 1982, and we get a first hand glimpse into Dawn's (Maggie mother's) life. Dawn did what was expected of her, rather what was expected by society. She married, had a child by 19 or 20, and was a housewife and mother to Maggie. Dawn met the love of her life, Hazel, when Maggie was three years old.

The remainder of the book jumps back and forth from 1982 to forty years later, relating the story of both Dawn's life and then Hebron and his daughter's life. We are shown first hand how society viewed same sex relationships and child rearing only 40 years ago in our history.

This book really makes the reader stop and think - how we (thankfully, at least the majority of people) have come so far in their thinking in just 4 short decades. Through a divorce/custody trial, we are shown the ugliness of how Dawn's relationship with Hazel is treated in court. Dawn is called everything from perverted, unnatural, wicked, nefarious, and evil. Maggie has obviously never known her mother or doesn't even know if she is still living.

With her father's impending terminal illness and helping him downsize his boxes and boxes of files and mementos over the years, Maggie's curiosity, perhaps for the first time in her life, gets piqued.

Look for Claire Lynch's book when it hits shelves in early June. Her prose is descriptive and flows so easily. It is a shorter read, which is easily finished in a couple of sittings, because the reader is so engrossed in the story. Thank you, NetGalley and Scribner, for the opportunity to preview this ARC.

Powerful premise of a time where prejudice won. Appreciate the execution. Approachable writing style.
Struggled with some of the characters and did not fully connect with them. Very much a slow burn even with the short overall book length. However, appreciated the various POVs and timelines. Recommend it to anyone who finds the premise appealing.

Claire Lynch’s A Family Matter is a stunning novel about the lines that love, secrets, and time can carve through a family. Told across two timelines—1982 and 2022—the story paints as portrait of people whose best intentions still leave damage in their wake.

In 1982, Dawn is a young mother trying to find her footing as a wife and parent when she meets Hazel, a woman who turns her world inside out. Their connection is immediate, electric, and impossible to ignore, even as Dawn grapples with the life she’s already committed to. Meanwhile, decades later, Heron—Dawn’s former husband—is facing his own mortality. His terminal diagnosis forces him to confront the truths he’s buried, particularly the ones he's kept from their daughter Maggie.

Lynch writes with a gentle hand but an unflinching gaze, showing how tenderness and betrayal often coexist. The characters feel deeply real—flawed, searching, weighed down by love and regret. What moved me most was the way A Family Matter refuses easy answers. It's a story about heartbreak, but ends with hope.

For a debut, this is remarkable! Claire Lynch is a writer to watch.

#Scribner #AFamilyMatter #ClaireLynch #DebutNovel

When Dawn and Heron start a life together and have their first child it seems as though their lives will follow as "normal": kids, settling down and growing old together. When Dawn meets Hazel, however, their lives will change forever. This is a heart-wrenching story of what small minds and prejudices can do to destroy a family forever.

Well written and thoroughly researched, A Family Matter delves into a time in the UK when homosexuality was used as a blow in divorce proceedings., with devastating results for parents and children as well.

I flew through this book, hooked right from the beginning. A story of a young mother who falls in love with another woman and has to fight for her right to keep her daughter. Set in 1982 England, the story is fiction but based on many similar true-life stories from this time. A good reminder of how far we’ve come in the past 40 years, but we can still learn to do better.

thoroughly enjoyed this debut novel. The author took her time developing two timelines in the past and present, 1982 and 2022, and then bringing them full circle at the end.

In 1982 Dawn is adjusting to life as a mom, and a wife to her husband. When she meets Hazel, she gets caught up in a whirlwind of feelings, and feels so much joy. Relationships like this tend to be inappropriate or looked down upon, but she's finding her feelings hard to resist. Now she is more confused than ever on what to do. In 2022, Heron, her ex husband, in his 60’s, receives a terminal diagnosis that will change everything. He needs to tell his only daughter Maggie, but he feels like he can't do it. He's afraid for her to find out about the secrets that he's hid from her for so long.

This is a character driven book, and the characters are fleshed out and well developed. Some parts felt a little slow, but I still was pulled into these characters lives to find out how it was all going to turn out. It was a sad story but also full of hope. I was definitely impressed that this was a debut. Can't wait to see what Claire writes next.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the gifted copy. All opinions are my own.

A short but emotionally packed book about family bonds, love, secrets and judgement. Lots of pain but also a lot of love. The characters were all multi faceted which I appreciated. It would be easier to have hateful things done by someone who is clearly villainous rather than by someone who is merely a flawed person capable of both love and cruelty. The excuse of different times does not exonerate someone from dehumanizing another back then and will not do soon the future for dehumanizing someone now.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This quiet, quick story is told in two timelines. In the early 1980s, a young married mother of one, Dawn, meets and falls in love with Hazel. She's torn between a life with her husband and daughter and one with Hazel. In the 2020s, Heron, a single father in his 60s, gets a grim diagnosis from his doctor and starts putting his affairs in order. It took me a while to figure out how the timelines were related, but I loved how the author told the stories - moving both forward and backward in time - and how they intersected. Thank-you to Ms. Lynch, Scribner, and NetGalley for the ARC of this title

I really like this author and her writing and this book didn't disappoint. Her characters are full of life and this book also had a bit of intrigued. It was a sad portrayal of the times and the court system.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an early release in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I was very excited to receive an advanced copy of A Family Matter. This is a powerful story of family and the unjust treatment of women, especially lesbian women in 1980s Britain. It is especially poignant in recent events happening in the U.S.

This is a slow read with really developed characters. The story is about one family told in both the 1980's and 2020's and how this family's present is shaped by secrets. I enjoyed the multiple point of views and how Lynch fleshed out the relationship between Heron and Maggie and Maggie and her own children.

This was not a quick read for me - it moved a little slow at times. Also, I think the ending was too abrupt - I think Lynch could have expanded on it and its affect on Heron.

Overall, an impressive debut!

Thank you Netgalley and Chatto and Windus for an advanced copy in exchange for my review!

This was a really unique and engaging read, I loved the alternating timelines and POVs. The writing was solid and the story elicited a lot of emotions!

I was asked to read and review “A Family Matter” by Claire Lynch. Here, the focus is on a family and how the choices and events in one generation impacted those forty years later. In 1982, a young mother, Dawn, finds herself attracted to Hazel, but such a relationship is taboo. Meanwhile, in 2022, Heron, Dawn’s former husband, is facing a terminal illness and wrestles with what to tell his daughter, Maggie, especially as many of the secrets he is keeping might end up hurting her if revealed.

This is a slow moving story, though quite thoughtful. I thought the struggles of Dawn in particular were narrated in a fresh and thoughtful way. I did not connect with Maggie and Heron as much—sometimes when a story is told in dual narrative with multiple points of view, it’s hard to find someone to “side” with. However, I do think this novel makes an effort to acknowledge such prejudice in a poignant way.

Three and a half out of five stars.