Meg Mitchell Moore Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Meg Mitchell Moore is a romance and literary fiction author from Northern California. She has asserted that writing is something that she has always wanted to do since she learned how to write and read. Moreover, Moore has always loved reading, which she believes is a prerequisite for anyone that wants to become an author. She was born to a father who was an officer in the US Navy, which meant that the family had to move every few years. In fact, she was born in Spain and living in a home with no internet, or TV, she defaulted to reading for entertainment. Whenever they moved to a new place, her mother would take Meg and her sister to the library for their library cards. As a young adult, she went to Providence College, where she got her bachelor’s in English before she proceeded to New York University for her masters in English Literature. During this time, she thought she would pursue a career as a professor of English but she gravitated towards journalism given that she loved writing and was very good at it. She started as a freelancer, penning feature articles for a variety of publications before getting a permanent job at a group of technology magazines. It was while she was working in magazines that she began thinking about writing fiction.

Meg Moore is huge on aspects of family and the majority of her works are character-driven narratives on familial themes. Rather than writing plot-driven stories, she usually comes up with a narrative and then lets the protagonists come to life. She has asserted that she never knows how her book will end since she does not outline any of her works. For instance, in her novel Islander, the characters have to deal with career and personal struggles. She just lets the story evolve naturally as the lives and stories of the protagonists connect and intersect in some way. Place is also very important in Meg’s novels and all her novels are set in New England except for Admissions which is set in California. Since she lived on the Maine Coast while she was a senior student in high school, she set her novel “The Captain’s Daughter” in Maine. “So Far Away,” her critically acclaimed work which is a multigenerational novel whose story starts in the 1920s to the modern day is set in Massachusetts.

Mitchell Moore currently makes her home in Newburyport. She has said that she moved her family to Newburyport because she wanted to write a novel set in a new location. While she had attended Providence College, she wanted to visit Block Island which she had heard was amazing. She immediately set out to explore it when she arrived and instantly loved the beauty and exhilarating tranquility of the place that she knew she had found the location for her next novel. In fact, she would go back to the island several times while she was working on her manuscript. Just like some of her characters, Moore balances the demands of family life with her career. Given that she has two children in school, she often does her writing once she has dropped the girls off to school. Since her children will usually be home in the afternoons, that is the time she does errands and takes them to games and playdates among other things. Once she is done with her drafts, she usually takes time away from everything and does intensive editing and revising. This is usually in the form of a two or three times a year vacation, which she takes on her own but with the full support of her husband.

Meg Mitchell Moore’s “The Captain’s Daughter” is an emotionally compelling story about a woman who came back to her hometown in Maine with regrets. She had been born in Little Harbor and was the daughter of a single father who fished for lobster. Given her father’s profession, Elizabeth Banes could row a skiff and set a trap just like or better than most men in town. But deep down she wanted to get away and make a new life for herself. She got married, had two kids, and is a member of the suburban country club in an affluent town in Massachusetts but is dissatisfied with her life. When her father got injured at work, Eliza puts her life on hold to come back to help him. But upon arrival in Maine, she discovers that her father’s injuries were more severe than he had let on. Things are further complicated when her first love learns that she is home and comes around bringing back memories and secrets she thought long buried. Then she meets a seventeen-year-old local named Mary Brown who is dealing with her own crossroads too and Eliza starts wondering what would have been if she had never left. With gorgeous sunsets, humor, summer cocktails, and insights, it is an empathetic story about the life-changing choices that people make and the inevitable consequences that have to be dealt with.

“The Islanders” by Meg Mitchell Moore is the story of a rising literary star that had the privilege of being the son to a very famous thriller author. Anthony Puckett’s star is rising as his debut novel won critical acclaim and was a bestselling title for more than two years. But nothing went right with his second novel and from the depression that followed, he sought to get away from it all. He borrowed a crumbling beach house on Block Island that belongs to his friend in the hope that the tranquility will be good for getting him back on an even keel. On the island, he meets Joy Sousa, a woman that runs whoopie pie café. She had come to Block Island as a newly divorced woman determined to make a new life for herself and to take care of a young daughter. She is a model of independence to her friends and customers and is often found working hard to be the best she can be. But her tranquil life has been thrown off-kilter as a food truck from the city has come onto the island and is now threatening her livelihood. Meanwhile, another resident of Block Island is Lu Trusdale that is in town with her sons and husband for a well-deserved vacation. When her son had been born, she had an agreement with her husband that she would quit her job and take care of the children while he brought home the bacon. But over the years she had developed a passion and now the project is increasingly demanding of her time, which makes her regret the deal she entered into.

Meg Mitchell Moore’s “The Admissions” is the story of the Hawthorne family that seems to have it all. They live in an affluent suburb of the city, have a great house, and have assured the future of their three children. Angela Hawthorne the firstborn is a star athlete and straight-A student who intends to go to her father’s alma mater and will do anything to get in. But suddenly she is losing her edge on the track, her grades are slipping and she cannot help but fantasize about a handsome baseball player. Meanwhile Nora her mother is also at her limits as she has to juggle a real estate career, carpooling, and teacher-parent meetings. Cecily is no longer the carefree child of old, Maya who is in second grade still cannot read while their father seems oblivious to all that is happening since he fears that a dark secret of his may come out. A few bad moves have created a bad situation for the Hawthornes and they are about to learn that it may cost them a lot more to keep the life they had worked so hard to achieve.