Mothers, that word can conjure a huge range of different emotions in people, deep abiding love, heart-breaking sorrow, bitter anger or even indifference.  While there is plenty to celebrate in this short collection of novels featuring Mums, I’ve also included some books that may be a little different to the normal hearts, flowers and merrymaking of Mother’s Day. These twenty tales not only feature mums who can be seen in the best light, but flawed mothers also star. Then there are several books that I just had to include, where a strong female influence rather than an actual mother sits as the focus. I’ve picked a number of different genres too, from humorous to horror, fantasy to modern and contemporary, and crime to family drama. Mums crop up everywhere in literature, and so this is a celebration of mothers, step mothers, or people acting as a mother-figure - warts and all.