Family Drama Fiction

I'm going to make her my queen. One wedding. One child. Five years. Ten million dollars. Those are the terms of our contract. My offer is sound, bold, and necessary. In order to gain my inheritance, I have to have a wife. She thinks her clause will keep me from having her skin on mine. She's very wrong. The de Loughrey's rule the world, and I am their king. I get what I want, and what I want is her. I'll have her beneath me no matter what.

Meet 11-year-old Dara Palmer. She loves dancing and dreams of being a world-famous actress, which means she has to get the main part in the school play. When she doesn't get any part at all, Dara begins to wonder whether it's because of her looks rather than her acting skills. But Dara has big ideas and is determined not to let prejudice stop her from being in the spotlight.

Meet eleven-year-old Dara Palmer. She loves dancing and dreams of being a world famous actress - which means she has to get the main part in the school play. When she doesn't get any part at all, Dara begins to wonder whether it's because of her looks rather than her acting skills. But Dara has big ideas - and is determined not to let prejudice stop her from being in the spotlight.

After a lifetime of taking care of his impossible but irresistible sister and his cherished niece, Tom is ready to put himself first. An architect specializing in tiny houses, he finally has an opportunity to build his masterpiece—“his last shot at leaving a footprint on the dying planet.” Assuming, that is, he can stick to his resolution to keep the demands of his needy family at bay. Naturally, that’s when his phone rings.

Nick Abbott and Trent Dawson have nothing in common but basketball. Or so it seems. But as the basketball season progresses, their lives become unexpectedly intertwined. In this story of an unlikely bond, award-winning author Carl Deuker explores that dark and confusing place between loneliness and friendship, between faithfulness and betrayal.

Peter Ducksworth, a Trinidadian widower of English ancestry, retires to Barbados, believing he will find an earthly paradise there. He decides to divide his land among his three daughters while he is alive, his intention not unlike that of King Lear, who hoped "That future strife/May be prevented now". But Lear made the fatal mistake of confusing flattery with love, and so does Ducksworth. Feeling snubbed by his youngest daughter, Ducksworth decides that only after he dies will she receive her portion of the land.

Barnett Durang has a secret. No, not THAT secret. His widowed mother has long known he’s gay. The secret is Barnett is getting married. At his mother’s farm. In their small Louisiana town. She just doesn’t know it yet. It’ll be an intimate affair. Just two hundred or so of the most fabulous folks Barnett is shipping in from the “heathen coasts,” as Mom likes to call them, turning her quiet rescue farm for misfit animals into a most unlikely wedding venue.

Mother and daughter Charlie and Eva never sought social media fame, but when a stunning photo of Eva went viral, fame found them. Now, after more than two years documenting life on the road in their vintage Airstream trailer, the duo has temporarily settled on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Eva is happily finishing her senior year of high school and applying to college, but Charlie longs for the adventures they left behind. When Eva goes missing less than a week before her graduation, it’s Charlie who is immediately suspected of foul play.

Meet Noh Inji: thirty years old, five wedding rings and counting, and she’s never once been in love. When Inji takes a job at Wedding & Life, the popular matchmaking service, she never imagines her role will be with NM, their secretive marriage division that rents out “field spouses” for a fixed period to their elite clientele. Just like a real marriage, Inji’s assignments involve a wedding, some sex, and a spot of housework. It’s all tailored exactly to the client’s desires—no legal battles, no fights, no emotional baggage.

Grace Stanton’s life as a rising media star and beloved lifestyle blogger takes a surprising turn when she catches her husband cheating and torpedoes his pricey sports car straight into the family swimming pool. Grace suddenly finds herself locked out of her palatial home, checking account, and even the blog she has worked so hard to develop in her signature style. Moving in with her widowed mother, who owns and lives above a rundown beach bar called The Sandbox, is less than ideal.

Meet Eve, who has departed from her 30-year career to become a Free Spirit, Sally, who has waved goodbye to her indifferent husband and two grown-up children, and Anastasia: defiantly independent narrow-boat-dweller, suddenly vulnerable as she awaits a life-saving operation. Inexperienced and ill-equipped, Sally and Eve embark upon a journey through the canals of England, guided by the remote and unsympathetic Anastasia.

When Shelley first met Greg, her life had been full of possibility. A whirlwind romance, a dream wedding, moving into their first house together, thinking about starting a family.... But now, it’s 10 years since their wedding. Greg has gone. And there’s a room in the house where Shelley has shut a baby blanket away. She’s been managing to hide from her past. Until one day, everything changes. She sees the couple moving in next door, giggling as they walk up the path to their new home. The woman is pregnant. It’s like she has everything that Shelley has lost.

Devastated by the consequences of her wrong actions, Andi ventures out on her own and decides on a course of action that could destroy her. Meanwhile, Bailey Flanigan is caught up in her own drama with Cody Coleman. A Campus Crusade retreat gives them time alone along the shores of Lake Monroe and lets them face a possibility they've avoided for years.

Bea couldn't be more excited to trade the stifling Stockholm summer heat for vacation on Gotland Island. She’s looking forward to spending quality time with her beloved husband of thirty-two years, Niklas, and their two moody teenage daughters, and recuperating from the stress of daily life in the company of her beloved in-laws. One night shortly before their departure, Bea and Niklas have a seemingly mundane argument over a trivial issue, and Niklas goes out with a friend to blow off steam.

Scarlett Fontaine is a true Hollywood legend—a singer, actress, and beloved fashion icon. But Scarlett dies tragically at just thirty-six years old, leaving behind no children. Or so the story goes… Gwen Hollingsworth is the curator at a museum dedicated to Scarlett’s life. She’s also sole heir to Scarlett’s fortune as a descendant of the star. But all is not well in Gwen’s world. She’s dealing with a messy marital separation and is struggling to move forward.

'Twas the night before Christmas. Ebenezer Scrooge was alone, when suddenly he heard a ghostly moan. A ghost it was, took him back to the past, then to the present and future days in hope that Scrooge would mend his ways.

Forensic psychologist Callum Kilkenny lost his wife, Shay, to the very serial killer he’d hunted for five years. When Nathaniel Conrad—known as the Alphabet Man, for his love of tattooing codes onto his victims’ bodies—was condemned to death row, Callum thought the game of cat and mouse was over. But just before execution, Nathaniel drops a bombshell: he’s not the one who murdered Shay.

Despite having jobs and men that they love, each knows that something is missing: the closeness that once sustained them. Carmen is a successful actress in New York, engaged to be married, but misses her friends. Lena finds solace in her art, teaching in Rhode Island, but still thinks of Kostos and the road she didn’t take. Bridget lives with her longtime boyfriend, Eric, in San Francisco, and though a part of her wants to settle down, a bigger part can’t seem to shed her old restlessness. Then Tibby reaches out to bridge the distance, sending the others plane tickets for a reunion....

Recently divorced Cooper Chance knows he’s officially in a rut when his parents take him barhopping in the hope of resuscitating his love life. At first, he’s skeptical. How could a gritty dive bar possibly solve his problems? But then he runs into Nora McHale. Nora isn’t at the bar looking for love. She’s there to unwind after yet another exhausting day at her bakery. And even if she were hoping to meet someone, it sure wouldn’t be Cooper - her best friend’s ex-husband.

It’s been fifteen years since Gem’s eight-year-old daughter Sara-Jane went missing, snatched with her best friend Abby right outside their school. A frantic search united the community at first, but after Abby was found and brought home, single mother Gem’s dogged persistence only led to accusations that she was stirring up class tensions. Even that she was somehow involved.