History Literature / FamilyTreeSeries

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Abby's father Luther is realistically racist, bigoted, and misogynist for a white man in the 1930s. He thinks the town starts going downhill when the "wrong kind" of people move in. The phrase "Maine should stay white" comes out of his mouth to Abby--and by white he means [[WhiteAngloSaxonProtestant American and Protestant]], certainly not ''Catholic''. He thinks there are better families for Abby to associate with, not Irish Orrin or French Canadian Marie. When his daughter Abby marries Orrin [[spoiler:(her second marriage)]], he is furious--because the boy's half Irish Catholic through his mother--and refuses to attend the wedding. And any time he doesn't want to deal with something, he shuts it down and puts it away; too many questions from Abby annoys him. He never grows out of this, and his prejudices extend to black people, Asian people, Jewish people, and anyone he considers "foreign."
* DisappearedDad: Zander for Dana [[spoiler:after he dies by drowning]]. Part of Dana's drive to move back to New York is to feel close to him again.
* DistantFinale: The series was published between 2013 and 2015, with the last event of the last book before the finale being Georgie's high school graduation in 2013. The epilogue of the last book (and framing prologue of the first book) are set in 2022 with Abby reminiscing about her life on her 100th birthday. The epilogue informs the readers that [[spoiler:Richard is married with a child and Georgie is married and pregnant with her first child. Abby also mentions in passing the deaths of her second husband Orrin, younger sister Rose, and younger brother Fred, which occurred sometime between 2013 and 2022.]]

** Abby's mother Nell loses two babies early in their lives as stillbirths after Abby and Rose: Millicent and Luther, Jr. Her husband Luther planted a rosebush for each of them--but more to make his wife get over things and get on with life and back to keeping house than to actually help her heal. [[spoiler:And even he didn't suggest it; Nell asked for them to remember her babies and he begrudgingly allowed it.]]

** Abby's mother Nell lost two children as infants in stillbirths.

* AesopCollateralDamage: Doubles with SpecialAesopVictim. [[spoiler:Georgie's beloved music teacher Mr. Elden dies in the two-car accident that broke her brother Richard's leg--and killed his other two friends, including the Drunkdriver Seth.]]

* AbusiveParents: Luther Nichols is not a good father or patriarch. He controls his daughters' activities and constantly makes decisions for them without their input, insisting he knows what's best for them. He considers anything he doesn't know directly to be lying, and shuts down any questions Abby asks. He forbids her to play with children he doesn't approve of because of his racism, which includes Irish and Catholics. He gets angry when his disabled son Fred is incapable of eating with the rest of the family at fourteen months old, trying to force him to be at the table even though he can't sit up and trying to cram the food in his mouth. When forcing it doesn't work he takes his poor mood about it out not only on the family but on the help. He eventually sends Fred away to a "school" (really an institution) because the boy's disability embarrasses him as a person who's [[RagsToRiches "made it" socially]], and said he did what was right for Fred even though [[CallingTheOldManOut Abby says he did it because it was easy.]] He got only one son with Nell that lived past infancy--the previous one was stillborn--and was ashamed of him because he wasn't perfect, enough to all but abandon him.[[note]]He later has Miles with his second wife Helen, but Abby, Rose, and Adele are all [[HalfSiblingAngst estranged from him]], and their children (and later grandchildren) don't get to know him, his family, or Helen well; it's implied he either carries his father's prejudices or was doted on so much they avoided him.[[/note]] He tells Abby, when Zander asks to marry her when she's barely out of high school, that she ''has'' to and there won't be any argument otherwise (in part because Zander's family is rich and Luther's social standing matters more to him than anything Abby wants).[[note]]Abby does not marry Zander at first despite what her father tells her to do, turning Zander down and leaving to live independently in New York City. She and Zander don't marry until five years later.[[/note]] [[spoiler:And Nell's diary reveals to Georgie that Luther was upset he and Nell had two girls first, as [[WantedASonInstead he wanted at least three boys.]]]]

* BigFancyHouse: Luther moves his family to one in the early 1930s after making enough money to move them from Lewisport to Barnegat Point--it has two bathrooms, a parlor, and enough rooms that everyone including the new baby can have their own room. Abby doesn't feel comfortable there, especially after [[spoiler:her little brother Fred is sent away and her mother Nell dies.]] By the time Abby is an adult and has Dana, Julia, and Peter, only Helen and Luther live there with their servants. The house remains as a sign of Abby's estrangement from her father and his money until Georgie's book, when [[spoiler:after Helen's death]] it goes up for sale with most of the contents auctioned off. Abby takes nothing in memory and neither does her great granddaughter Georgie, but does one last walk through on her own.

** One of the largest is regarding Abby's mother, Eleanor. [[spoiler:She was DrivenToSuicide after her husband Luther sent their only son Fred away to a group home because he was disabled and she never mentally recovered; she had already struggled with mental health for years, but losing Fred without any notice and not being taken to see him broke her. Abby doesn't know until she's an old lady, as she was only told her mother died in her sleep.]]

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Adele, the baby of Abby's siblings, as a child often referred to "fairies" as something she believed in (saying they took Fred and her mother Nell away). She [[ConfirmedBachelor never wants to marry]] and eventually leaves for New York and gets a job as a costume designer for films and Broadway. Her apartment is eccentrically designed and she never lives with anyone else other than her niece Dana, and spends lots of time among various friends her father wouldn't approve of. [[spoiler:She later dies of breast cancer in the 1980s, and two different services are held--one in New York and a more conservative one in Maine, and at the New York one her employer Bobbie Palombo (whom she knew from the time she arrived) is treated like family by Dana.]] The parallels to being a queer woman who stayed in the closet are present.
* DomesticAbuse: Luther counts. While he never hits Eleanor, he's emotionally cold and controlling. He made Nell stop seeing her old friends after their marriage, saying he didn't like her friend Faye and forbidding them from meeting after they start courting. He makes her quit her job as a milliner after they marry. His planting the rosebushes (as representative of each child she lost) was more for her to get back to doing housework again instead of sulking about [[spoiler:and it was her who begged for them to remember them; he didn't want the rosebushes]]. The worst thing he does, however, is placing their only son Fred (who is mentally and physically disabled) in a group home out of embarrassment and without consulting her. Many of his views don't change, and Abby has to demand to know where her little brother is to find him again.

** An example with Abby getting married to childhood friend and part-Irish Catholic Orrin and later Dana to the Jewish Matthew Goldberg. Luther is not pleased with either marriage and actually refuses to attend Abby's wedding to Orrin because of it.

* MorningSickness: Abby is off being sick on the ferry back home when [[spoiler:her husband Zander falls overboard and drowns]]. Dana didn't realize this and initially blamed Abby for not being there when it happened, thinking she had been (hypocritically) drunk too--and not realizing her mother was pregnant until later when she learns about the next baby on the way. Abby spends the whole pregnancy sick with morning, afternoon, ''and'' evening sickness, not helped by her having to face that Zander's [[MsRedInk spendthrift ways]] have left a lot of debts behind for her to clear up.
* MsRedInk: [[spoiler:After Zander's death]], Abby learns Zander spent his writing money as fast as he earned it--partially on their very lavish New York City lifestyle. He also sent large checks to pay part of his parents' house costs in Maine, since their business had failed and they could only afford their new smaller house with Zander's assistance. She spends years clearing up Zander's many debts--when her father Luther told her the reason she had to marry Zander was because [[{{Irony}} she'd never have to worry about money again]] if she married him.

* NouveauRiche: Luther is this after he makes enough money to move his family to Barnegat Point. He complains when Nell says the girls should still do chores after they've moved, saying that Stuart Burley--a well off man living next door--doesn't make his children do chores and hires help. He throws a big fancy party for Abby for her eleventh birthday with a spread of food that includes Lobster, cold roast beef, and three salads. Then he makes a big show of presenting her with a silver wristwatch--something she didn't ask for.

** Kaycee, George's younger sister and Francie's friend [[spoiler:and later sister-in-law]], goes by this; her initials are Katherine Christine. Everyone calls her Kaycee.

* PoorCommunicationKills: Much of the strife in the family (especially from mother to daughter) can be attributed to this trope. The biggest ones are between Dana and Abby and Georgie and Francie. Dana didn't want to hurt her mother Abby by telling her the real reason she left for New York (with Abby seeing it as abandonment) was because Dana missed her father and felt [[spoiler:guilty for her father's death as he fell overboard in front of her]]). And Francie keeps the secret of almost being kidnapped to herself--and the guilt when her not telling anyone resulted in the kidnapping and murder of another child--for several decades and this makes her an [[MyBelovedSmother overprotective mom]] that doesn't let Georgie do anything, uproots her whole family to Maine without caring about her half-black husband's employment potential as a teacher (and wrecks the family finances when he can't keep a job) all so she can feel "safe" about her children--and in the process almost drives Georgia away. When sixteen-year-old Georgie runs away to her Nana Dana's after one too many denials to do ''anything'' without her mother either forbidding it or hovering over her, Dana has to face that she's been just as bad with not talking to her own mother and decides they all need to sit down and finally talk about their [[GenerationalTrauma family issues]] without keeping secrets. All four generations finally talk things out about their various burdens and secrets. [[spoiler:The fifth generation comes into play when Georgie, who has been reading her great-great-grandmother Nell's [[SecretDiary hidden diaries]], presents them to the family--and it's clear that Nell had the same issue with Abby, including being unable to talk about her deteriorating mental health that lead her to [[DrivenToSuicide take her own life]], which Abby always thought was her dying in her sleep.]]

* RichesToRags: Zander is the son of the prominent in town Burley family. The family is socially prominent and rich to the point Luther invokes their name as a family to look up to when they move next door to them. When Zander asks to marry Abby through her father, part of the reason Luther demands that Abby do so (along with his sexist attitude) is because Zander's family is so socially prominent and well off and it'll be a good merging of the families. [[spoiler:Abby turns Zander down the first time but accepts five years later after living on her own.]] It's around ten years of marriage later [[spoiler:after Zander dies]] that Abby finds out that--while her husband had made quite a lot of money as a writer--[[MsRedInk he'd spent it as fast as it came in]] ''and'' had been sending large checks to his parents in Maine since their business had failed and they could only afford their new smaller house with Zander's assistance, all while the Burleys were living a very lavish lifestyle in New York City. Abby pays off all Zander's many debts herself--without asking her financially well-off father for any help other than a place to live and a car for a short while--and works multiple odd and often humiliating jobs to support their four kids until she marries Orrin. [[{{Irony}} Ironically]], one of the reasons Luther told Abby she had to marry Zander was that she would never have to worry for money once they were wed, but it's ''all'' she does after [[spoiler:Zander's death]] until she remarries.

* StayInTheKitchen: Luther's attitude towards women (especially WASP women of his class level) working and going to college is exceptionally backwards. He forbid his wife Nell from spending time with old friends after they start courting and makes her quit her job when they marry because he doesn't want anyone to think he can't support a family on his own by having his wife (and later, daughters) work. When a divorced woman, Miss Irene Maynard, takes over the old clothing store, one of the many reasons that Luther forbids his daughter Abby from working there--other than him not thinking it's a respectable job--is because she's divorced, and after graduation the only job Luther lets Abby get is as a librarian. It takes Abby--and later Adele--moving to New York City to become independent women.

* VomitIndiscretionShot: Peter has one when he's a child; he swings too much and throws up his ice cream mid-swing, which is vividly described. A rude woman says aloud that that's why "children like him" should stay at home instead of being in public, and Dana [[CowardiceCallout calls her out]] for her bigotry.

* WickedStepmother: Helen March, who marries Luther after his wife Nell dies. She's never accepting of her stepdaughters Abby, Rose, and Adele after she marries their father Luther (not helped by the fact she's [[AgeGapRomance only six years older than Abby]]). She immediately replaces Nell's things with hers, and she thinks Abby is rude, stubborn, and thoughtless. Abby says she never really accepted her. Even otherwise pleasant and friendly Peter doesn't like her, and when [[spoiler:Luther dies]] she's only supported by her son Miles, with the rest of the family distant. [[spoiler:She dies at some point in Georgie's book; this is only noted with a quick mention that the house is now up for sale and everything in it to be auctioned, with Abby walking through it one last time.]]

# ''Best Kept Secret'': Frances "Francie" Goldberg, Dana's only child, is growing up in the late TheSeventies and [[TheEighties. When a predator shakes up her world, Francie carries the guilt herself as a deep secret.

# ''The Long Way Home'': Dana Burley, Abby's oldest daughter, is growing up in TheFifties and TheSixties and is much closer to her dreamy father than her more practical mother. When tragedy strikes the family, Dana takes it poorly.
# ''Best Kept Secret'': Frances "Francie" Goldberg, Dana's only child, is growing up in the late [[TheSeventies '70s]] and [[TheEighties '80s]]. When a predator shakes up her world Francie carries the guilt herself as a deep secret.

** Richard, who's been drinking himself, gets in the car with his DrunkDriver friend Seth behind the wheel. [[spoiler:He's the only survivor of the two-car accident that kills Seth, his other friend, and Georgie's music teacher who was in the car they hit.]]

** Georgie [[spoiler:loses her beloved music teacher when her brother's friend collides with him in a drunk driving accident; her older brother Richard is the only survivor of the accident.]] She also learns that her great-great-grandmother, Nell [[spoiler:lost her first love in World War I--or ''thought'' she did. She did lose two babies early in life ''and'' was separated from her only living son Fred because her controlling husband Luther sent him to an institution.]]

** The DrunkDriver car accident that kills [[spoiler:Georgie's music teacher also kills all of Richard's other friends, including the driver Seth; he's the only survivor]].

* AbusiveParents: Luther Nichols is not a good father or patriarch. He controls his daughters' activities and constantly makes decisions for them without their input, insisting he knows what's best for them. He considers anything he doesn't know directly to be lying, and shuts down any questions Abby asks. He forbids her to play with children he doesn't approve of because of his racism, which includes Irish and Catholics. He gets angry when his disabled son Fred is incapable of eating with the rest of the family at fourteen months old, trying to force him to be at the table even though he cant' sit up and trying to cram the food in his mouth. When forcing it doesn't work he takes his poor mood about it out not only on the family but on the help. He eventually sends Fred away to a "school" (really an institution) because the boy's disability embarrasses him as a person who's [[RagsToRiches "made it" socially]], and said he did what was right for Fred even though [[CallingTheOldManOut Abby says he did it because it was easy.]] He got only one son with Nell that lived past infancy--the previous one was stillborn--and was ashamed of him because he wasn't perfect, enough to all but abandon him.[[note]]He later has Miles with his second wife Helen, but Abby, Rose, and Adele are all [[HalfSiblingAngst estranged from him]], and their children (and later grandchildren) don't get to know him, his family, or Helen well; it's implied he either carries his father's prejudices or was doted on so much they avoided him.[[/note]] He tells Abby, when Zander asks to marry her when she's barely out of high school, that she ''has'' to and there won't be any argument otherwise (in part because Zander's family is rich and Luther's social standing matters more to him than anything Abby wants).[[note]]Abby does not marry Zander at first despite what her father tells her to do, turning Zander down and leaving to live independently in New York City. She and Zander don't marry until five years later.[[/note]] [[spoiler:And Nell's diary reveals to Georgie that Luther was upset he and Nell had two girls first, as [[WantedASonInstead he wanted at least three boys.]]]]

* BigAppleSauce: Nearly every character spends some time here.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Adele, the baby of Abby's siblings, as a child often referred to "fairies" as something she believed in (saying they took Fred and her mother Nell away). She never wants to marry and eventually leaves for New York and gets a job as a costume designer for films and Broadway. Her apartment is eccentrically designed and she never lives with anyone else other than her niece Dana, and spends lots of time among various friends her father wouldn't approve of. [[spoiler:She later dies of breast cancer in the 1980s, and two different services are held--one in New York and a more conservative one in Maine, and at the New York one her employer Bobbie Palombo whom she knew from the time she arrived being treated like family by Dana.]] The parallels to being a queer woman who stayed in the closet are present.

** Abby does this in the very next generation, despite all her faults between her and her daughter Dana. When her son Peter is born with Down Syndrome, she doesn't send him away like her father did with her disabled younger brother Fred. Even after [[spoiler:Zander dies]], she raises Peter herself, makes sure he has every accommodation she can get for him, and ensures he is always connected to his family, including his sisters, nieces, and nephews. When she's no longer able to care for him, she arraignes for him to move in with his older sister Dana and Francie. Peter and his niece Francie [[CoolUncle have a loving bond]] because of this.

* AgeGapRomance: The school nurse Helen marries Abby's father Luther (who is old enough to have a teenaged daughter) when she's 23--only six years older than Abby herself. Rose points out, after the wedding, that Helen's father looks almost exactly the same age as their father.
* TheAlcoholic: Zander. He drinks heavily to the point Abby is clearly upset with it and tells him not to do so in front of the children--which he does anyways, and often where Dana notices (though as a DaddysGirl she takes his side over her mother's). It ends up resulting in [[spoiler:his death when Dana is ten when he drunkenly chases his flyaway hat over the railing of a moving ferry and falls into the water, drowning in the process and widowing Abby.]]

** Abby moves to New York City to get away from her overbearing father and WickedStepmother Helen; her younger sister Adele follows her later and lives there from then on. She and Zander initially live here with their children, but after [[spoiler: Zander's death]] she moves back with her children to Maine and then around the state for some time.

* CoversAlwaysLie: A minor one, but Georgie Noble--who is a quarter Black (through her paternal grandmother Denise) and a quarter Jewish (through her maternal grandfather Matthew)--appears WASP levels of white on the cover. While she does in fact have dark blonde hair, it's very thick and curly due to her being partially black and Jewish (the text says it's so thick a comb won't easily go through it), but the cover makes it look straight and fine.

** Georgie is in first grade when [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror 9/11]] happens; it's her fifth day of first grade. Her best friend Leslie's father works in the Twin Towers, and her father works in New York City while her grandmother and aunt and uncle live there. George comes home safe and the rest of the family is okay, but [[spoiler:Leslie's father dies, and her mother ends up moving their family to Colorado.]] Paranoid Francie uproots the whole family to Maine in the wake, making her husband lose his good teaching job in the process.

* NouveauRiche: Luther is this after he makes enough money to move his family to Barnegat Point. He complains when Nell says the girls should still do chores after they've moved, saying that Stuart Burley--a well off man living next door--doesn't make his children do chores and hires help. He throws a big fancy party for Abby for her eleventh birthday with a spread of food that includes Lobster, cold roast beef, and three salads. Then he makes a big show of presenting her with a silver wristwatch--something she didn't want.

# ''Better to Wish'': Abby Nichols is living in TheThirties and the early years of TheForties, dealing with her overbearing racist social climbing father, changing family dynamics and finances, loss, and secret friendships.

# ''Best Kept Secret'': Francine "Francie" Goldberg, Dana's only child, is growing up in the late [[TheSeventies '70s]] and [[TheEighties '80s]]. When a predator shakes up her world Francie carries the guilt herself as a deep secret.

* AgeGapRomance: The school nurse Helen marries Abby's father Luther (who is old enough to have a teenaged daughter) when she's 23--only six years older than Abby herself. Rose points out, after the wedding, that Helen's father looked exactly the same age as their father.

* CoversAlwaysLie: A minor one, but Georgie Noble--who is a quarter Black (through her paternal grandmother Denise) and a quarter Jewish (through her maternal grandfather Matthew)--appears WASP levels of white on the cover. While she does in fact have dark blonde hair, it's very thick and curly due to her being partially black and Jewish, but the cover makes it look straight and fine.

* DaddysGirl: Dana prefers her father Zander over her mother Abby and takes his side even when he's clearly wrong, such as his [[TheAlcoholic severe drinking problem]]. This becomes even more prominent when he publishes a book that she illustrates for him. Which means she's devastated when [[spoiler:he dies when she's ten years old, especially because he fell overboard and off the ferry in front of her]]. Years later, she says her mother "nagged" him about his drinking, even though he was the one out of control. It's not until she's an adult with children--and grandchildren--of her own that she finally confesses that the real reason she wanted to go back to New York City was because she wanted her father back. [[ItsAllMyFault She also felt guilt]] for being there and seeing him [[spoiler:fall overboard into the water]], even though she was a child and couldn't have done anything.

** Every one of the girls except Dana go by a nickname: Abby for Abigail, Francie for Francine, and Georgie for Georgia.

** Abby does this in the very next generation, despite all her faults between her and her daughter Dana. When her son Peter is born with Down Syndrome, she doesn't send him away like her father did with her disabled younger brother Fred. Even after [[spoiler:Zander dies]], she raises Peter herself, makes sure he has every accommodation she can get for him, and ensures he is always connected to his family, including his siblings, nieces, and nephews. Peter and his niece Francie [[CoolUncle have a loving bond]].

** Peter is this for Dana's daughter Francie. She doesn't care he has Down Syndrome and she's always close to him. [[spoiler:When he dies when she's in college, Francie is gifted his favorite cowboy hat during his last words.]]