For the mom who likes dishy family sagas

Vantage Point, by Sara Sligar

An unthinkably rich brother and sister — heirs to a steel fortune — are haunted by a family curse and by compromising videotapes (possibly faked) that upend the brother’s Senate campaign. Read our review.

Also consider: “A Reason to See You Again,” by Jami Attenberg; “Playworld,” by Adam Ross; “The God of the Woods,” by Liz Moore

For the mom who loves history

The Fate of the Day, by Rick Atkinson

There is no better writer of narrative history than the Pulitzer Prize-winning Atkinson, who is able to transport readers to a different time and place without minimizing the differences of the past from the present. This book — the second in his planned trilogy about the American Revolution — is so compulsively readable that it’s hard to put down. Read our review.

Also consider: “Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age,” by Eleanor Barraclough; “The Waiting Game: The Untold Story of the Women Who Served the Tudor Queens,” by Nicola Clark; “The Illegals: Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West,” by Shaun Walker

For the mom who just wants to read thrillers