Difficult Family Relationships

Five estranged cousins are lost in a maze of their family’s tangled secrets. Their grandparents, former potato farmers Gottfried and Marla Hemmings, managed to trade digging spuds for developing subdivisions, and now they sit atop a million-dollar bank account - wealth they’ve refused to pass on to their adult children or their five teenage grandchildren. "Because we want them to thrive," Marla always says. But for the Hemmings cousins, "thriving" feels a lot like slowly dying of a poison they started taking the moment they were born.

Caggie never wanted to be a hero, but some things are decided for us. Growing up among Manhattan’s social elite, Caggie always had everything a girl could want, including a storied last name. But after saving a girl from the brink of suicide, Caggie becomes infamous, and now all she wants is to be left alone. After all, she’s still reeling from the recent death of her younger sister, the subsequent destruction of her relationship with high school boyfriend, Trevor, and the way in which her family has since fallen apart.

There are two sides to every story. The surface reality that’s presented to the world. And then, there’s the other side. The real one. The one that matters. Seventeen-year-old self-proclaimed asshole Toby Page is alone. No friends. No family. He trades maintenance work in exchange for room and board. Every day, he fights demons no one else can see. Every day, he wants to give up. But he can’t. Not yet. When Alice Eliot moves in downstairs, she offers Toby some light in his dark world.

The six sections of the book explore what it means to be a young woman living in a world that doesn’t always hear her and tell the story of Kiran as she flees a history of trauma and raises her daughter, Sahaara, while living undocumented in North America. Delving into current cultural conversations including sexual assault, mental health, feminism, and immigration, this narrative of resilience, healing, empowerment, and love will galvanize listeners to fight for what is right in their world.

Christy is going to Europe! It’s a three-week outreach trip with Doug, Katie, and Tracy. First stop is London for some sightseeing, and then on to a castle in the English countryside for group training. Christy is so excited to be headed for Belfast with her friends. Their roommate, Sierra Jensen, adds lots of energy to their late night conversations along with Katie. Why is it that Tracy seems to be avoiding the merriment? If Christy can go the distance and trust God more than ever before, Christy will discover that a promise really can last forever.

Charlie likes to stand out. She's a vlogger and actress promoting her first movie at SupaCon, and this is her chance to show fans she's over her public breakup with co-star Reese Ryan. When Internet-famous cool-girl actress Alyssa Huntington arrives as a surprise guest, it seems Charlie's long-time crush on her isn't as one-sided as she thought. Taylor likes to blend in. Her brain is wired differently, making her fear change. And there's one thing in her life she knows will never change: her friendship with her best guy friend Jamie - no matter how much she may secretly want it to.

Sixteen-year-old Will spends most of his days the same way: Working at the Dollar Only store, trying to replicate his late father’s famous cornbread recipe, and walking the streets of Los Angeles. Will started walking after his father committed suicide, and three years later he hasn’t stopped. But there are some places Will can’t walk by: The blessings store with the chest of 100 Chinese blessings in the back, the bridge on Fourth Street where his father died, and his childhood friend Playa’s house.

Around the time that Freya loses her voice while recording her debut album, Harun is making plans to run away from home to find the boy that he loves, and Nathaniel is arriving in New York City after a family tragedy leaves him isolated on the outskirts of Washington state. After the three of them collide in Central Park, they slowly reveal the parts of their past that they haven't been able to confront, and together, they find their way back to who they're supposed to be.

In the first book of the Shaw Confessions, the companion series to the New York Times best-selling Mara Dyer novels, old skeletons are laid bare and new promises prove deadly. This is what happens after happily ever after. Everyone thinks 17-year-old Noah Shaw has the world on a string. They're wrong. Mara Dyer is the only one he trusts with his secrets and his future. He shouldn't. And both are scared that uncovering the truth about themselves will force them apart. They're right.

Laylee can barely remember the happier times before her beloved mother died. Before her father, driven by grief, lost his wits (and his way) and she was left as the sole remaining mordeshoor in the village of Whichwood, destined to spend her days scrubbing the skins and souls of the dead in preparation for the afterlife. It's become easy to forget and easier still to ignore not only her ever-increasing loneliness but the way her overworked hands are stiffening and turning silver, just like her hair.

New beginnings. Shocking revelations. Unexpected endings. As spring turns into summer, Elizabeth relishes her new role as a young wife, while her sister, Diana, searches for adventure abroad. But when a surprising clue about their father's death comes to light, the Holland girls wonder at what cost a life of splendor comes.

Would you rather know what’s going to happen or not know? A summer night. A Saturday. For Natalie’s amazing older sister, Claire, this summer is fantastic, because she’s zooming off to college in the fall. For Natalie, it’s a fun summer with her friends; nothing special. When Claire is hit by a car, the world changes in a heartbeat. Over the next four days, moment by moment, Natalie, her parents, and their friends wait to learn if Claire will ever recover.

It's 1953 and 11-year-old Penny dreams of a summer of butter pecan ice cream, swimming, and baseball. But nothing's that easy in Penny's family. For starters, she can't go swimming because her mother's afraid she'll catch polio at the pool. To make matters worse, her favorite uncle is living in a car. Her Nonny cries every time her father's name is mentioned. And the two sides of her family aren?t speaking to each other!

James Sveck, 18-year-old New Yorker, charming, precocious, confused, doesn't quite fit in (doesn't really want to)....If his future (i.e., college) seems completely meaningless, not to mention terrifying....Then: he'll start anew (move to the Midwest?)....James Sveck is misunderstood by a capricious mother, a self-absorbed father, a mordant older sister, his Teutonic therapist, his D-list celebrity grandmother, his unnervingly attractive art gallery colleague....

For 16-year-old Mel Hannigan, bipolar disorder makes life unpredictable. Her latest struggle is balancing her growing feelings in a new relationship with her instinct to conceal her diagnosis by keeping everyone at arm's length. But when a former friend confronts Mel with the truth about the way their relationship ended, deeply buried secrets threaten to come out and upend her shaky equilibrium.

Lucy lives on the 24th floor. Owen lives in the basement. It's fitting, then, that they meet in the middle - stuck between two floors of a New York City apartment building, on an elevator rendered useless by a citywide blackout. After they're rescued, Lucy and Owen spend the night wandering the darkened streets and marveling at the rare appearance of stars above Manhattan. But once the power is back, so is reality. Lucy soon moves abroad with her parents, while Owen heads out west with his father.

Tate's younger brother Indy is probably the best skateboarder in Spokane. He's also really smart though he couldn't care less about school. But when Indy clashes with his father one too many times and drops out of school, it's up to Tate to win his brother back from the seedier elements of Spokane. Can Tate convince Indy to come home, finish his high school degree, and return to skating under the bridge with their crew?

Janna Yusuf is so excited for the weekend: her brother Muhammad’s getting married, and she’s reuniting with her mom, whom she’s missed the whole summer. And Nuah’s arriving for the weekend too. Sweet, constant Nuah. The last time she saw him, Janna wasn’t ready to reciprocate his feelings for her. But things are different now. She’s finished high school, ready for college…and ready for Nuah. It’s time for Janna’s (carefully planned) summer of love to begin - starting right at the wedding.

Aaron and Tillie don't know each other, but they are both feeling suicidal, and arrive at the George Washington Bridge at the same time, intending to jump. Aaron is a gay misfit struggling with depression and loneliness. Tillie isn't sure what her problem is - only that she will never be good enough. On the bridge, there are four things that could happen: Aaron jumps and Tillie doesn't. Tillie jumps and Aaron doesn't. They both jump. Neither of them jumps. Or maybe all four things happen....

This book is for you―not your parents. Step-by-step, using approaches that are relatively easy but bring big results, you’ll be guided in how to improve the important and super-challenging relationship between you and your parents. This doesn’t mean you’re going to become best friends, but you will learn the skills needed to change how you see one another and how you interact. And ultimately, you will gain control over your own life.