This is the story of a family where the mom falls in love with another woman and in the 1980s, in their community and in the eyes of the law, that's not acceptable. So Dawn has to make hard choices. Terrible choices. And her husband also makes terrible choices. Choices that hurt them and their beautiful daughter.

This quiet, short booked packed a lot in. I loved the quiet writing even if the topic was devastating. I didn't think the characters were developed enough for me to feel like I was empathizing. I wanted to follow along more, I wanted to root for them all even though they were caught in a terrible situation. But I felt like I was watching it all from a distance.

I was terrified to read how much of the law was anti-LGBTQ only 40 years ago and it's terrifying what can happen to families if this becomes true again.

with gratitude to netgalley and Scribner for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

A Family Matter by Claire Lynch is a beautifully written, heart-wrenching, and powerful book. As our current political environment is stripping rights away from vulnerable people, this book helps us to remember that it wasn't too long ago when those rights were not even present.

The story starts out exploring an interesting father-daughter relationship in a small English town, where we applaud single father, Heron, for raising Maggie (now grown) since Maggie was three. Maggie knows almost nothing about her mother and knows over the years not to ask. Maggie is quite content having been raised by Heron. Things start to change when Heron learns that a diagnosis of cancer will take his life soon.
As we learn this, the book travels back to 1982, when Maggie was three years old. We learn that Heron had a wife, Dawn, and that they divorced. The reasons for divorce and how it disrupted the family is really where the story starts (spoilers ahead). Heron and Dawn married in their early twenties and Dawn had Maggie at 23 years old. Unsatisfied, Dawn has an affair with a woman, Hazel. Believing that Dawn can have a future with Hazel, she dreams about how she and Hazel can raise Maggie. She tells Heron about the affair to move one step closer to her future. Despite Heron being a weak, pliable, and unemotional husband, he locks Maggie out of the house and forbids her from seeing Maggie. He files for divorce in a British court and he weakly goes along with a plan by his solicitor to provide evidence of Dawn's "depravities" and "homosexual deviancies". He doesn't believe Maggie is a bad mother, but he doesn't feel he can stop the trajectory of the divorce, as strong, capable men are leading him in a way they think fit. After Dawn is brutally shamed in court, full custody of Maggie is awarded to Heron and Dawn is banished from raising her child. In 2023, Maggie, not knowing any of this about her past, accidently uncovers the truth.

When I put this book down, I said "wow" out loud. For me, 1982 doesn't seem that long ago, and as a high schooler at the time, I don't remember any LGBTQ+ individuals. I think now I understand why and took for granted, over the years, the introduction of legislation allowing same-sex marriage, the gay pride parades where everyone feels free to embrace LGBTQ+ values and welcoming those who "come out". This book makes us acknowledge the struggles that occurred before this movement started and the gut-wrenching actions that took place in the name of ignorance. The greatest part of the story is where Maggie finally meets her mother and Hazel at their cozy ocean-side home and lets out an involuntary laugh, and exclaims, "[t]his was the great scandal the judge saved me from". This is a must read.

Thank you NetGalley for an Advance Reader Copy.

A glimpse into the life of a family with decades old secrets. We don’t often think about how much things can change over time and how people can open their eyes and minds to ideas once thought to be the “right way”. In this case, as recent as the 1980’s, mothers who were lesbian had their rights stripped away because some closed-minded people thought they were subversive. Mothers lost custody of their children. How devastatingly sad for those mothers and their children. This book takes a look at how lives could have been lived after a judgement was made like this on court. This dual-timeline story taking place in the UK goes between the 1980’s as Heron and his wife Dawn are a young couple with a young daughter, Maggie and present time (2022-2023) as Maggie and Heron face a big change in their lives. As Heron is faced with his own mortality, Maggie discovers a secret he has been harboring almost her whole life. She must decide whether to confront him with this knowledge and face what will come next.
This story really causes you to consider how much has changed since the 80’s. Although I live in the U.S., I am sure things were similar here. Having a very dear friend go through such a similar situation in the 2000’s, and knowing what she went through, I can’t imagine how sideways things could have gone for her and her daughters if the mindsets of more people hadn’t changed over the years. Thank goodness for progression. As with everything else, people had to fight for those rights and get changes made. As the author mentions in her note at the end of the book, she has personal experience with this and is also grateful for those who fought for change.
Thank you to Netgalley and Scribner Books for an ARC of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.

Read this in 1 day. I do wish it was longer but a lot was packed into this short book and everything that was needed was there. Definitely one I will remember 😭🤍

I was really surprised with this book in the best way. I loved the characters and I was completely immersed in the storyline. I was on the edge of my seat wanting to know what happened.

This was so tragic & unnecessary but understandable during the timeframe. This was overall just a really good read!

Thank you NetGalley and Scribner Publishing for the ARC for my honest review!

#NetGalley #AFamilyMatter

This is a novel about one woman’s affair and how it had devastating consequences. It’s 1982 and Dawn is a young mother still getting used to married life. When she meets Hazel, it’s a connection she can’t say no to.

The heartbreak I felt for Maggie in this story was profound. This book touches on very complicated family relationships, abandonment, and the choices we make.

Maggie’s father has raised her alone since she was three; all she knows about her mother is that she had an affair and left them. #AFamilyMatter is not only Maggie’s story; it is also the story of her father, Heron, who has recently been diagnosed with a terminal illness; and it’s especially the story of Dawn, Maggie’s mother, and the courage she had all those decades ago.

The opening scene of this book is so wonderful. It’s unexpected and well-written. It starts by telling us that Heron has found out he has a fatal illness with only a small amount of time to live, and then we follow him to the grocery store where he goes straight to the frozen section and climbs into one of the freezers. When someone finds him there - and screams, of course - Heron is saddened to learn that the manager just writes him off as a confused old man.

This book is made up of so many little moments, little details about life, marriage, parenting — maybe none as vivid and unique as this opening scene - but all so poignant, many of them relatable.

And somewhere along the way, all these mundane moments start to morph into something more crucial, shaping into a truly heartbreaking tale.

When I started this book, I didn’t expect to read it in a day, but Claire Lynch has written such a beautiful and important story, that I just couldn’t stop coming back to it every free moment that I had.

Thank you NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC of this book!

Well told story about an unhappy marriage and society’s view on who should get custody when the woman leaves her husband for her best friend. The hatred towards the female couple is evident. Depicts how lives are wasted when hatred is in charge.

This sounded like it would be right up my alley, but unfortunately I abandoned it at 17%. There didn't seem to be a connective thread between the chapters and characters, and by that point in the book I would have hoped that the direction of the story would be somewhat in view. Maybe once I hear more about it from other readers after its publication I will revisit, but I had to DNF for now.

A Family Matter is an emotional debut novel that looks at divorce and child custody from three points of view. Heron and Dawn marry in the early 1980s and have a daughter, Maggie. Soon after, Dawn begins a relationship with Hazel, a new teacher in the small English village outside London. When Dawn tells Heron about the love affair, he files for divorce. Through then and now chapters, the story takes readers through the divorce trial, Heron raising Maggie, and then Maggie, who is now a married mother of two, seeking out her mother. The heart wrenching story captures the emotion of divorce on children. The author provides a note explaining how the novel shows the antediluvian views the legal system had on gay parents. Highly recommended for book discussion groups--there is a lot to talk about in this exceptional novel.

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