Mother leading plot in a European novel (4,4)
I believe the answer is:
adam bede
'novel' is the definition.
(George Eliot novel)
'mother leading plot in a european' is the wordplay.
'mother' becomes 'dam' (female parent of an animal).
'leading' says to put letters next to each other (some letters go in front of others).
'plot' becomes 'bed' (a plot of land).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'european' becomes 'E' (abbreviation e.g. EU).
'dam'+'bed'='dambed'
'a'+'e'='ae'
'dambed' placed inside 'ae' is 'ADAM BEDE'.
(Other definitions for adam bede that I've seen before include "Novel by George Eliot" , "Carpenter" , "Book by George Eliot" .)