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Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits.
The patriarch of a prominent family tries to keep things the same while Chile is changing around him.

Valerie Anand, The House of Lanyon.
During the War of the Roses, a tenant farmer resents the family who own the land he farms. Sequel: The House of Allerbrook.

Jeffrey Archer, Kane and Abel.
A wealthy Boston boy and a poor Polish orphan grow up to become rivals. Sequel: The Prodigal Daughter.

Ellen Baker, Keeping the House.
A new bride becomes obsessed with a grand abandoned house and begins to unravel dark secrets woven through the generations of a family.

Barbara Taylor Bradford, A Woman of Substance.
Emma Harte turns a small shop into the world’s greatest department store. Sequels: Hold the Dream; To Be the Best; Emma’s Secret; Unexpected Blessings; Just Rewards.

Lan Samantha Chang, Inheritance.
After their mother’s suicide, two Chinese sisters vow to stay together but are torn apart by the Japanese invasion and an act of betrayal.

Sandra Cisneros, Caramelo.
A Mexican-American girl inherits a handmade shawl from her grandmother and is reminded of her ancestors and where she came from.

Kiana Davenport, Shark Dialogues.
Four young women are called together by their grandmother to learn the story of their family against the backdrop of the history of Hawaii.

R.F. Delderfield, God Is an Englishman.
Returning to England after serving in the army, Adam Swann marries a runaway heiress and founds a business empire. Sequels: Theirs Was the Kingdom and Give Us This Day.

Ivan Doig, Dancing at the Rascal Fair.
Scotsman Angus McCaskill settles in Montana in the late 1800s. Sequels: English Creek and Ride with Me, Mariah Montana.

Sara Donati, Into the Wilderness.
In 1792, an English schoolteacher comes to America and is drawn to a man who was raised as a Mohawk by his father Hawkeye. Sequels: Dawn on a Distant Shore, Lake in the Clouds, Fire along the Sky, and Queen of Swords.

Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex.
The story of a girl who learns she is a hermaphrodite begins three generations earlier with a secret kept by her Greek-immigrant grandparents.

Lion Feuchtwanger, The Oppermanns.
A prosperous Jewish family in Berlin face increasing restrictions and persecution during Hitler’s rise to power.

Diana Gabaldon, Outlander.
An Englishwoman travels back in time to 1743 and is caught up in the Jacobite uprising with a Scotsman and his clan. Sequels: Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross, and A Breath of Snow and Ashes.

James Galsworthy, The Forsyte Saga.
Several generations are affected when a solicitor’s wife falls in love with the architect designing their country home. Includes A Man of Property, In Chancery, and To Let.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude.
The rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo seen through the eyes of one family.

Winston Graham, Ross Poldark.
An Englishman returns to Cornwall after the American Revolution to find his life has changed. First in a series of 12.

Philip Hensher, The Northern Clemency.
The lives of two English middle-class families who become neighbors in 1974 intertwine over the course of 20 years.

Elizabeth Jane Howard, The Light Years.
The Cazalet family gather at their summer home in Sussex as World War II approaches. Sequels: Marking Time, Confusion, and Casting Off.

John Jakes, The Bastard.
The illegitimate son of an English nobleman settles in Boston on the eve of the Revolution. Sequels: The Rebels, The Seekers, The Furies, The Titans, The Warriors, The Lawless, The Americans.

Dennis Lehane, The Given Day.
In Boston at the end of World War I, a cop whose father is a powerful police captain befriends an African-American man on the run from the law.

Jeffrey Lent, In the Fall.
After the Civil War, a Union soldier brings home a new wife—a former slave with a secret that will affect subsequent generations of the family.

Bette Bao Lord, Spring Moon.
A girl from a prominent family grows to womanhood during a time of great change in China.

Victoria Lustbader, Hidden.
The son of Jewish immigrants meets the son of a wealthy family in the army during World War I and their lives become intertwined.

Naguib Mahfouz, Palace Walk.
The story of the disintegrating family life of a merchant, his timid wife and their rebellious children. Sequels: Palace of Desire and Sugar Street.

Rani Manicka, The Rice Mother.
A girl married to an older man makes the best of things but is haunted by a prophecy of heartbreak.

Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks.
Four generations of a German family cope with the loss of traditions and the changes that come with modernization.

William Martin, Cape Cod.
A church elder and a whaler become enemies aboard the Mayflower and their families continue to feud in the New World.

Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds.
In the Australian Outback, a woman and a Catholic priest share a forbidden love that endures through a lifetime of joys and sorrows.

Gina Nahai, Caspian Rain.
A Jewish girl in Iran observes the disintegration of her family during the tumultuous period before the Islamic Revolution.

Rosamund Pilcher, The Shell Seekers.
A woman’s children have different ideas about what she should do with a priceless artwork that her father painted.

Belva Plain, Evergreen.
A 16-year-old girl emigrates from Poland to New York where she takes a job as servant to a rich German-Jewish family. Sequels: The Golden Cup and Tapestry.

Mario Puzo, The Godfather.
The Corleone family vie for control against other Mafia families in New York.

Naomi Ragen, The Ghost of Hannah Mendes.
Two sisters with no interest in their Sephardic roots are sent by their grandmother to find a medieval manuscript written by an ancestor.

Preeta Samarasan, Evening Is the Whole Day.
The secrets of a prosperous Malaysian family are revealed after a tragic death.

Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy.
The lives of four Indian families intertwine as a mother seeks a suitable husband for her daughter.

Beverly Swerling, City of Dreams.
In 1661, a brother and sister who emigrate from England to New Amsterdam are driven apart and their families become rivals in the field of medicine. Sequels: City of Glory and City of God.

Lalita Tademy, Cane River.
A family saga of four generations of women born into slavery along the Cane River in Louisiana.

Junichiro Tanizaki, The Makioka Sisters.
The third of four sisters faces decreasing marital prospects as the family’s wealth and status decline.

Jack Todd, Sun Going Down.
Three generations of a family forge a life in the West from the Civil War through the Depression.

Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter.
In 14th century Norway, a privileged girl falls for an unsuitable man against her father’s wishes.

Penny Vincenzi, No Angel.
At the turn of the century, a woman marries into a publishing family and rises to the top of the company. Sequels: Something Dangerous and Into Temptation.

Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited.
In England between the wars, a man becomes involved in the lives of an aristocratic family.

Eleanor Widmer, Up from Orchard Street.
A story of three generations of a Russian-Jewish immigrant family on New York's Lower East Side, from the widowed matriarch to her granddaughter.

Janice Woods Windle, True Women.
Several generations of women live through the turbulent history of Texas.

Barbara Wood, Green City in the Sun.
In the early 1900s, a British man starts a coffee plantation in Kenya while his sister opens a clinic but they come into conflict with the Kikuyu.