Family Humor

Suzy Medley is having a bad day...when a shabby terrier turns up at her door. Just like Suzy, Scout has been abandoned, although only Suzy has been left with a financial mess and a business in tatters thanks to her ex. Suzy takes Scout in, and her chaotic world changes in unexpected ways: strangers have never been more welcoming, and her teenage kids can’t wait to come home to visit. Then a chance encounter on a windy Hebridean beach makes things more complicated, because Suzy isn’t the only one who needs a friend.

Leslie Anne Greene Carter is the Last Original Wife among her husband Wesley's wildly successful Atlanta social set. His cronies have all traded in the mothers of their children they promised to love and cherish - till death did them part - for tanned-and-toned young Barbie brides. If losing the social life and close friends she adored wasn't painful enough, a series of setbacks shake Les's world and push her to the edge. She's had enough of playing the good wife to a husband who thinks he's doing her a favor keeping her around. Now, she's going to take some time forherself - in the familiar comforts and stunning beauty of Charleston, her beloved hometown.

The seat of the Trelawney family for over 700 years, Trelawney Castle was once the jewel of the Cornish coast. Each successive Earl spent with abandon, turning the house and grounds into a sprawling, extravagant palimpsest of wings, turrets, and follies. But as the centuries passed the Earls of Trelawney, their ambition dulled by generations of pampered living, failed to develop other skills.

Coming from one empathetic parent to another, the tips in this book are real, clever, honest, and designed to make life with a terrible two- or three-year-old a little bit more manageable. Hilarious, helpful, and handy, this book will be appreciated by any parent who has asked: "Why didn't anybody warn me that unconditional love would be so much work?"

When Miss Julia burst on the scene in her debut, Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind, this proper lady of a certain age found her orderly world turned upside down when Hazel Marie Puckett appeared with her nine-year-old son, Little Lloyd, who looked disturbingly similar to Miss Julia's late husband. Now, in Miss Julia Takes Over, with her sharp tongue and iron backbone intact, Miss Julia must tackle another disruption when Hazel Marie doesn't return from a dinner date. Miss Julia hires J. D. Pickens to investigate, despite her reservations about his taste for beer and women.

Cooper Redmond has only one thing on his mind: tagging as many bases as possible by the end of sophomore year. He’s already picked out a prime target: the divine Prudence Nash, whose sexy serpent tattoo haunts his dreams. But when Coop is paired with the infamous “Hot Dog” Helen for a semester-long Health project on safe sex, his hopes of making it to the Majors are suddenly DOA. It’s going to take something seriously epic to resuscitate his reputation.

Cy Riemer is the patriarch of a successful and loving Chicago family. But not all is copacetic in Cy's world. The scientific newsletter he publishes is foundering financially, his ex-wife still relies on him for money and intimacy, and he can never seem to find the time or the wherewithal to relax. Much of Cy's stress is caused by the trouble he has with his brilliant and duplicitous son, Jack.

Tietam Brown tells the story and speaks in the voice—at once innocent and too knowing for his age—of Antietam (Andy) Brown, named for the great-great-great- grandfather who died on that Civil War battlefield. Andy at seventeen is himself the veteran of a violent boyhood, having been locked up in the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center for killing a teenager who attempted to rape him. Now, after seven years, he is out, free, at a crossroads, trying to make a fresh start.

Samantha van Leer is a sophomore at Vassar College majoring in psychology with a minor in human development. She has four dogs: Alvin, Harvey, Dudley, and Oliver - for whom the prince in this story is named.

Meet the Devohrs: Zee, a Marxist literary scholar who detests her parents' wealth but nevertheless finds herself living in their carriage house; Gracie, her mother, who claims she can tell your lot in life by looking at your teeth; and Bruce, her step-father, stockpiling supplies for the Y2K apocalypse and perpetually late for his tee time. Then there's Violet Devohr, Zee's great-grandmother, who they say took her own life somewhere in the vast house, and whose massive oil portrait still hangs in the dining room.

One day, sitting in traffic, Stella Sweeney attempts a good deed. The resulting car crash changes her life. But in this event is born the seed of something which will take Stella thousands of miles from her old life, turning an ordinary woman into a superstar, wrenching her whole family apart. For the first time real, honest-to-goodness happiness is just within her reach. But is Stella Sweeney, Dublin housewife, ready to grasp it?

Penny Baker is coping. Just about. Three kids, one dog, one lovely but sometimes oblivious husband. Tick, tick tick. She is even managing to hold her own among the competitive school mums - if you don't look too closely. But when she finds herself also caring for her elderly mother, diagnosed with dementia, the household is thrown into disarray and Penny finds herself stretched to breaking point trying to meet everyone's needs. Can she make the new family situation work? And is there any chance of finding some space in it all for herself?

As they prepare to relocate to Charleston, SC, Olivia, the ultimate New Yorker, has reservations about the promise she made to retire in the Lowcountry, where Nick wants to return home and lead a more peaceful life. They are moving north to south, fast pace versus slow pace, and downsizing. Nick is ecstatic. Olivia is not. She can't let Nick know that their finances are not what he thought. Her client list is evaporating, their monetary reserves are dwindling, and maybe that house she picked out on Sullivan's Island needs too much work.

Edgewood Rectory may be set in an ancient landscape, but the Grantly family are very much of their time. Caught up in the uncertain world that has emerged since the outbreak of peace, the Rector and Mrs Grantly are bewildered by the challenges facing their eldest children: Eleanor, longing for more excitement than can be found in the Red Cross Library; and Tom, struggling to readjust to student life at Oxford after his military service.

Eight years have passed and in 2016 many things have changed for the eccentric Trelawney family. In the months leading up to the Brexit referendum, Ayesha, the beautiful, young secret daughter of the late Enyon Trelawney, has married the much older thuggish banker Tomlinson Sleet with whom she has a young daughter, Stella. Ayesha is busy restoring the once broken-down Trelawney Castle in Cornwall, which Sleet has bought, to its former glory, as well as studying art at the Courtauld in London.

Meena Dave is a photojournalist and a nomad. She has no family, no permanent address, and no long-term attachments, preferring to observe the world at a distance through the lens of her camera. But Meena’s solitary life is turned upside down when she unexpectedly inherits an apartment in a Victorian brownstone in historic Back Bay, Boston.

Twenty years ago, Abigail Sorenson’s brother Robert went missing one day before her 16th birthday, never to be seen again. That same year, she began receiving scattered chapters in the mail of a self-help manual, the Guidebook, whose anonymous author promised to make her life soar to heights beyond her wildest dreams. Now, two decades after receiving those first pages, Abi is invited to an all-expenses paid weekend retreat to learn “the truth” about the Guidebook. It’s an opportunity too intriguing to refuse.

Meet teenage Wiccan Mila Flores, who truly could not care less what you think about her Doc Martens, her attitude, or her weight because she knows that, no matter what, her BFF Riley is right by her side. So when Riley and Fairmont Academy mean girls June Phelan-Park and Dayton Nesseth die under suspicious circumstances, Mila refuses to believe everyone's explanation that her BFF was involved in a suicide pact. Instead, armed with a tube of lip gloss and an ancient grimoire, Mila does the unthinkable to uncover the truth: she brings the girls back to life.

Grace has what one might call a 'full and interesting life', which is code for not married and has no kids. Her life is the envy of her straight friends, but all this time she has been waiting in secret for love to hit her so hard that she would run out of breath, like the way a wave in a rough sea bowls you over, slams you into the sand and nearly drowns you.

Phoebe Avery has always been a lucky girl. Popular, smart, and beautiful, Phoebe has it all. She's even planning the hottest party ever with her four best friends to celebrate their middle school graduation. With the perfect green dress picked out at Neiman Marcus and half her class clamoring for invites, plus a new guy to crush on, Phoebe could not be in a better mood...until it looks like the party might be over before it can even start.