The Giving Tree (just dropped my kid at college, I'm fragile RN)

The House of Sand and Fog made me sob.

John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things

June Allison's Bastard out of Carolina

Eowyn Ivey's The Snow Child

Olive Kittredge by Elizabeth Strout

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Two books that come to mind are "Small Great Things" and "Before We Were Yours".

Small Great Things was written be Jodi Picoult. It is about a black woman who has been a labor and delivery nurse for 20 years. One day a white supremacist couple come in to have their baby. They see a black woman is on staff and say they don't want a black person dealing with them in any way. The supervisor says okay and tells the black L & D nurse to stay away from their baby. The next day the black nurse realized the baby is in distress and no one else is around to help the baby. What should she do? Eventually she gets arrested.

Before We Were Yours was written by Lisa Wingate. It is based on a true story about a woman who would kidnap good looking blonde white children of poor people, then sell them to rich people.

Jacqueline Winspear - her Maisie Dobbs books are so good. I love the characters.

Margaret Owen made me laugh and cry with her Little Thieves books.

For romance, Mimi Matthews does it for me every time. She does angst so well.

I know words may hit differently for different people, but what’s a book that made you cry (not just shiny eyes)? Or an author who has this ability in many of their books?

One genre I enjoy reading is romance, and I’ve noticed emotionally vulnerable characters turn on the waterworks - see author Chloe Liese.