"The patron saint of liars" by Ann Patchett (4th estate, 2003)

Part I is from Roses's PoV. In 1906 there are miracles at Habit - Joan Clutterbuck was 3 when she was saved. A posh hotel was built for pilgrims. After the stock market crash it was abandoned and taken over by Catholic nuns and called Saint Elizabeth’s. Rose, after 3 years of loveless marriage with Thomas, pregnant, escapes across the States to the Catholic haven where 25 unwed mothers are staying until they give their babies away. They all have stories to tell. Sun, 45, has been odd-job-man there since we was 18. Son asks Rose to marry him. She agrees, lives with him, has a child in 1969, Cecilia, continues working in the kitchen.

Part II is Son's PoV. He was engaged to a Cecilia. After Pearl Harbour he enlisted, got shot in the knee during training so never served. Cecilia didn't want a wounded husband. She drowned - he'd tried to save her then ran away. He thinks that Rose doesn't care much about Cecelia. After a while, he thinks that Rose cares little for him too. Joan dies, leaving Son and Rose some land and her house. Son and Cecilia move into their new house, Rose stays.

Part III is from the PoV of Cecilia, 15. Rose gives Cecilia driving lessons (she's kept the car that she arrived in). When Son has an accident, Cecilia drives him to hospital. It brings Son and Rose back together. Only now does Rose tell Cecilia about her parents. Rose disappears in the night. A week later, Thomas arrives, looking for Rose to tell her that Rose's mother had died. Thomas tells them that they'd been married. Cecilia seems not to suspect that Thomas is her father. Maybe Son and Thomas have a chat about it. Thomas leaves the next day.

This first novel has similarities to Barbara Kingsolver's first - The bean trees). In both a young woman leaves in a car, religion and babes/children are involved, and there are plucky old women. Part II is the least interesting. The language is elsewhere entertaining

• My mother liked to watch me get ready, like I had watched her get ready when I was a girl (p.15)
• There was a way she watched me when I was looking in the mirror. She thought I didn't see her. She would stare at me so intently and I knew she was trying to see me like a strange would (p.16)
• Everywhere you went you heard the water, the same way you heard your breathing, and would later hear the highway, or trains, or women's voices. But the sound was so much a part of everything that you couldn't hear it at all then (p.18)
• My mother had married Joe the spring after I left, and it made me sad in a way, not her marriage, but the fact that she felt she had to wait for me to go (p.28)
• We had three full nativity scenes, each as complicated as a chess set (p.94)
• It was one thing that my mother was forever missing my attempts to be close to her, but the fact that she didn't get my digs at her either made me insane

Other reviews

• shutupheathcliff (There is no magic cure, however, for the fear and sense of entrapment that brought Rose there. Ultimately, Rose can’t deny the person she truly is — and her attempts to pretend otherwise end up hurting people who care about her. Is Rose a likeable person? A good one? I would say no to both questions. But her story is beautiful.)
• plumlibrarian (Rose, the main character, calls herself a liar. She does lie. Big, huge, rending lies she tells. But that isn’t her greatest fault. Her greatest fault is cowardice. And her second husband Son and daughter Cecilia think she’s strong. Perhaps because she’s quiet and cold and doesn’t allow herself to be told what to do. But again, she’s not so much strong as she is cowardly. ... I believe that we, the kind and gentle readers, are expected to undergo a shift in what we feel for her. The first third of the book is told from her perspective and she’s clearly sympathetic. ... Who’s never felt trapped in a relationship we didn’t want as much as the other person? Who can’t relate to the fears and anxieties around being pregnant when you don’t want a child? And who can’t feel for a young woman putting a baby up for adoption? But the second third of the book is told from Son’s perspective. And he deserved much more than to marry a woman who didn’t love him and didn’t want to make him happy despite the fact that he took on her daughter and raised her as his own and never questioned her about her past. ... The people in Rose’s life are good people. They handle the situation with resounding aplomb and by their grace her own lack of courage is shown in even starker relief.)
• theliteraryflaneur (Towards the end, Rose becomes harder and harder to fathom, so it was quite good to have seen her perspective earlier.)