If you liked the Secret Life of Bees, try these titles:

Quilter’s apprentice/Jennifer Chiaverini

Sarah agrees to help a cantankerous old woman in exchange for quilt lessons.  As the two women become friends, they find they have many things to teach each other. This is the first book in the Elm Creek Quilt series.

Clover / Dori Sanders

After her father dies within hours of being married to a white woman, a ten-year-old black girl learns with her new mother to overcome grief and to adjust to a new place in their rural black South Carolina community.

26a / Diana Evans.

Twins Georgia and Bessi create a private fantasy universe to escape a father who drinks too much and a mother who pines for her Nigerian childhood.  As the twins grow older, the real world intrudes and threatens the bond between them.

Friendship Cake/J. Lynne Hinton

When five women from the Hope Springs Community Church form a committee to create a cookbook, they embark on a project more meaningful than they could ever have imagined

As hot as it was you ought to thank me/Nancy Kincaid

In the summer after her father's abandonment, thirteen-year-old Berry witnesses her mother's pursuit of the local preacher and the arrival of a handsome convict who helps repair hurricane-damaged roads in her conservative Florida hometown.

Some days there’s pie/Catherine Landis

Intertwines the stories of Rose, who is in denial of her terminal illness, and Ruth, who has run away from her life.

To Kill a Mockingbird/Harper Lee

Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s

Icy Sparks/Gwyn Hyman Rubio

At the age of ten, an Appalachian girl develops croaks, jerks and spasms, which leads to her explusion from school. After treatment--she has Tourette's syndrome--she learns to control herself, attends college and there is a happy ending.

Divine secrets of the YaYa sisterhood/Rebecca Wells

Vivi sends her daughter a scrapbook of her lifelong friendship with "the Ya-Ya's," From Sidda's response to it, a story unfolds regarding a dark period in Vivi and Sidda's past that plagues their present relationship

Any bitter thing/Monica Wood

Lizzy Mitchell was raised from the age of two by her uncle, a Catholic priest. She has never understood why she was taken from him and sent away to boarding school at age nine. Her search and what she discovers completely shatters her understanding of herself.

Life of Pi : a novel / Yann Martel.

Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days lost at sea.

Peace like a river / Leif Enger.

Reuben was an adolescent in Minnesota in the 1960s, when his brother, Davy, shot and killed two young men who were harassing the family. It is a story of relationships and a look at the possibility of magic in the everyday world.

Plainsong / by Kent Haruf.

An unlikely extended family is formed when a high school teacher helps a pregnant student make a home with two elderly bachelor ranchers.

Lying awake / Mark Salzman.

Sister John experiences a series of visions, accompanied by severe headaches. Her doctor's diagnosis is that her visions may be merely the result of these headaches and may have disastrous consequences to her health. As Sister John struggles with the decision of stopping her headaches (and possibly the visions), she also deals with questions of divine will.

Bee season : a novel / Myla Goldberg.

When Eliza sweeps her school and district spelling bees in quick succession, Saul takes it as a sign that she is destined for greatness. He lavishes upon her the attention previously reserved for her brother Aaron, who in his displacement embarks upon a lone quest for spiritual fulfillment.

Evensong / Gail Godwin.

Young, poised, and ardent, Margaret has earned the affection and respect of her parishioners, including those skeptical about a woman pastor, an accomplishment that will stand her in good stead when her life and marriage are threatened by the arrival of several colorful and demanding individuals

Eat cake : a novel / by Jeanne Ray.

Ruth loves to bake cakes. When she is alone, she dreams up variations on recipes. When she meditates, she imagines herself in the warm, comforting center of a gigantic bundt cake. If there is a crisis, she bakes a cake; if there is a reason to celebrate, she bakes a cake. Ruth sees it as an outward manifestation of an inner need to nurture her family-which is a good thing, because all of a sudden that family is rapidly expanding.

At home in Mitford / Jan Karon.

This heartwarming book introduces readers to a small, charming North Carolina town and its equally charming denizens.  The first book in the Mitford Years series.

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency / Alexander McCall Smith.

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency tells the story of Precious Ramotswe, a delightfully cunning and a profoundly moral woman who is drawn to her profession to "help people with problems in their lives."  The first book in a series.

These is my words : the diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901 : Arizona territories : a novel / Nancy E. Turner.

Sarah Prine struggles in the Arizona Territory of the late 1800’s but ultimately finds love and joy in creating a home.

Cane River / Lalita Tademy.

"Cane River" is an epic novel based on the lives of four generations of African-American women, sweeping from the early days of slavery through the Civil War and into a pre-Civil Rights South