Family Life Fiction

Fifth grade was the worst year of Marc's life. He stunk at gym class, math was too hard for him, the school lunch was horrible, and his class field trip was ruined because he couldn't swim. But what was the most awful thing about fifth grade? Kenny Williamson, the class bully, who called himself the "King of the Jungle". When Marc's mother tells him that his uncle Jake is coming to stay for the whole summer, Marc can't wait. Uncle Jake is a for-real super-cool Navy SEAL. And Uncle Jake has a plan.

As a panicked world goes into lockdown, Lucy Barton is uprooted from her life in Manhattan and bundled away to a small town in Maine by her ex-husband and on-again, off-again friend, William. For the next several months, it’s just Lucy, William, and their complex past together in a little house nestled against the moody, swirling sea. Rich with empathy and emotion, Lucy by the Sea vividly captures the fear and struggles that come with isolation, as well as the hope, peace, and possibilities that those long, quiet days can inspire.

In the spring of 1942, young Elzbieta Rabinek is aware of the swiftly growing discord just beyond the courtyard of her comfortable Warsaw home. She has no fondness for the Germans who patrol her streets and impose their curfews, but has never given much thought to what goes on behind the walls that contain her Jewish neighbors. She knows all too well about German brutality - and that it's the reason she must conceal her true identity. But in befriending Sara, Elzbieta makes a discovery that propels her into a dangerous world of deception and heroism.

When Lady Johanna learned that she was a widow, she vowed she would never marry again. Only sixteen, already she possessed a strength of will that impressed all who looked past her golden-haired beauty. Yet when King John demanded that she remarry - and selected a bridegroom for her - it seemed she must acquiesce, until her beloved foster brother suggested she wed his friend, the handsome Scottish warrior Gabriel MacBain.

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned - from the layout of the winding roads to the colors of the houses to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules. Enter Mia Warren - an enigmatic artist and single mother - who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter, Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons.

The scion of a family of wealthy timber barons, David Burkett has grown up with a father who is a malevolent force more than a father and a mother made vague and numb by alcohol and pills. He and his sister Cynthia, a firecracker who scandalizes the family at 14 by taking up with the son of their Finnish-Native American gardener, are mostly left to make their own way.

Quinn and Graham’s perfect love is threatened by their imperfect marriage. The memories, mistakes, and secrets that they have built up over the years are now tearing them apart. The one thing that could save them might also be the very thing that pushes their marriage beyond the point of repair.

Imagine that you live on a picturesque communal garden square, an oasis in urban London where your children run free, in and out of other people's houses. You've known your neighbors for years and you trust them. Implicitly. You think your children are safe. But are they really? On a midsummer night, as a festive neighborhood party is taking place, preteen Pip discovers her 13-year-old sister Grace lying unconscious and bloody in a hidden corner of a lush rose garden. What really happened to her?

London, 1940. Bombs fall and Josie Banks’ world crumbles around her. Her overbearing husband, Stan, is unreachable, called to service. Her home, a ruin of rubble and ash. Josie’s beloved tearoom boss has been killed, and Josie herself is injured, with nothing left and nowhere to go. Evacuated to the English countryside, Josie ends up at the estate of the aristocratic Miss Harcourt, a reluctant host to the survivors of the Blitz. Now a threat looms larger than anyone imagined. And a dangerous secret is about to upend Josie’s life again.

In the snowy Highlands of Scotland, Suzanne McBride is dreaming of the perfect cozy Christmas. Her three adopted daughters are coming home for the holidays and she can’t wait to see them. But tensions are running high… Workaholic Hannah knows she can’t avoid spending the holidays with her family two years in a row. But it’s the secret she’s hiding that has her panicked. Stay-at-home mom Beth is having a personal crisis. Posy isn’t sure she’s living her best life, but with her parents depending on her, making a change seems risky. But not as risky as falling for Luke…

In the debut novel that set her on the path to becoming an American classic, Anne Tyler's If Morning Ever Comes presents a timeless portrait of a young man's homecoming and his ensuing journey through youth, identity, family, and love. Raised among a family of strong-minded women has left Ben Joe Hawkes as something of a worrier, who has always felt like an outsider in his own family.

Throughout these books, Follett has followed the fortunes of five intertwined families - American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh - as they make their way through the twentieth century. Now they come to one of the most tumultuous eras of all: the enormous social, political, and economic turmoil of the 1960s through the 1980s, from civil rights, assassinations, mass political movements and Vietnam to the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, presidential impeachment, revolution - and rock and roll.

Mackenzie Blue is a star! Or she will be...as soon as she gets the part of an aspiring singer on a new TV pilot! But juggling auditions and the rest of her life turns out to be harder than Zee thought. Zee's friends are helping her hold everything together. But Zee doesn't like having to bail on plans--and her friends--to run to another audition. Is being a star worth it?

During their thirty years of marriage, Rose Redfern has confided everything (well, nearly everything) to Michael, and is certain that he would never hide anything from her. That's why it's such a shock when, shortly before Rose and Michael are set to take a romantic trip to Venice, she receives strong evidence that he's having an affair with a woman their daughters' age. Rose feels emotionally unmoored, and her sense of betrayal swiftly turns vengeful. She stumbles across a stash of powerful barbiturates, previously used to medicate an epileptic dog, and wonders if she might not find a new use for them…

Lara just got told off on Facebook. She thought that Christian liked her, that he was finally going to ask her to his school's homecoming dance. It's been a long time since Lara's felt this bad, this depressed. She's worked really hard since starting high school to be happy and make new friends. Bree used to be BBFs with overweight, depressed Lara in middle school, but constantly listening to Lara's problems got to be too much. Bree's secretly glad that Christian's pointed out Lara's flaws to the world. Lara's not nearly as great as everyone thinks.

In 1944, British bomber pilot Hugo Langley parachuted from his stricken plane into the verdant fields of German-occupied Tuscany. Badly wounded, he found refuge in a ruined monastery and in the arms of Sofia Bartoli. But the love that kindled between them was shaken by an irreversible betrayal. Nearly 30 years later, Hugo's estranged daughter, Joanna, has returned home to the English countryside to arrange her father's funeral. Among his personal effects is an unopened letter addressed to Sofia. In it is a startling revelation.

The war between the tribes is finally over, and now the dragonets of the prophecy have a plan for lasting peace: Jade Mountain Academy, a school that will gather dragonets from all the tribes and teach them to live together, perhaps even as friends. Moonwatcher isn't sure how she feels about school, however.

Thirty years have passed since Greta left Marchmont Hall, a grand and beautiful house nestled in the hills of rural Monmouthshire. But when she returns to the Hall for Christmas she has no recollection of her past association with it – the result of a tragic accident that has blanked out more than two decades of her life. Then, during a walk through the wintry landscape, she stumbles across a grave in the woods and the weathered inscription on the headstone tells her that a little boy is buried here.

Chief of Police Ed Kapenash is about to retire. Blond Sharon is going through a divorce. But when a 22-million-dollar summer home is purchased by the mysterious Richardsons—how did they make their money, exactly?—Ed, Sharon, and everyone in the community are swept up in high drama. The Richardsons throw lavish parties, flirt with multiple locals, flaunt their wealth with not one but two yachts, and raise impossible hopes of everyone they meet. When their house burns to the ground and their most essential employee goes missing, the entire island is up in arms.

Every child prodigy grows up eventually. For the Promise sisters, escaping their mother's narcissism and the notoriety that came with her best-selling book hasn't been easy. Minerva Promise claimed that her three test-tube daughters - gifted pianist Joanie, artistic Meg, and storyteller Avery - were engineered and molded to be geniuses. In adulthood, their modest lives fall far short of her grand ambitions.