Family Life Fiction

Between glances in the mirror, vain Bruce contemplates a new career as a wine merchant. His troubled flatmate, Pat, finds himself looking for true love at a nudist picnic. Precocious Bertie, now six years old, prepares for kindergarten despite the horror of being forced to wear pink overalls. Meanwhile, his domineering mother, Irene, and his psychologist, Dr. Fairbarn, struggle with dark secrets as Bertie plots his rebellion against them.

While Laura Ingalls grows up in a little house on the Western prairie, Almanzo Wilder is living on a big farm in New York State. Here Almanzo and his brother and sisters help with the summer planting and fall harvest. In winter there is wood to be chopped and great slabs of ice to be cut from the river and stored. Time for fun comes when the jolly tin peddler visits or, best of all, when the fair comes to town.

On the eve of her daughter Alia's wedding, Salma reads the girl's future in a cup of coffee dregs. She sees an unsettled life for Alia and her children; she also sees travel, and luck. While she chooses to keep her predictions to herself that day, they will all soon come to pass when the family is uprooted in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967.

For hundreds of years, the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table has been one of the world's most precious literary possessions. In 1902, the distinguished American artist Howard Pyle undertook to retell and illustrate this classic. His four-volume work has long been considered one of the outstanding interpretations of the Arthurian cycle.

This is the original 1927 story of The Tower Treasure: The Hardy Boys Book 1. Frank and Joe Hardy, brothers who are high school students, use their investigation skills to solve the mystery of the stolen treasure from the eccentric Applegates. After finally finding out who did it, the dying criminal confesses that the loot had been hidden “in the old tower.” The tower is searched in vain, but it remained for the Hardy boys to make an astonishing discovery that cleared up the mystery.

It's sink or swim for Jack and Annie when Magic Tree House whisks them off to the middle of the ocean. And that's just the beginning....

The world's population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. And in the UK, the breaking point has arrived. A growing number of people can no longer afford to start families, let alone raise them. But for those desperate to experience parenthood, there is an alternative. For a monthly subscription fee, clients can create a virtual child from scratch who they can access via the metaverse and a VR headset. To launch this new initiative, the company behind Virtual Children has created a reality TV show called The Substitute.

The audio edition of the best-selling middle grade novel about a spunky girl born without arms and a boy with Tourette syndrome navigating the challenges of middle school, disability, and friendship - all while solving a mystery in a western theme park. Aven Green loves to tell people that she lost her arms in an alligator wrestling match, or a wildfire in Tanzania, but the truth is that she was born without them.

In the powerful, haunting stories of Munro’s collection, men and women, in the midst of contemporary quandaries and crises, recall the long-buried yearnings, dreams, and hard choices that have given shape to their lives.

On dit que les familles heureuses n’ont pas d’histoire et pourtant… Arnold et Alia sont jumeaux et vivent avec leurs deux pères qui s’aiment. Tandis qu’Arnold préfère ne pas être remarqué et dessine discrètement des superhéros musclés, Alia parle haut et fort de sa famille particulière. À l’approche de leur treizième anniversaire, leurs pères entreprennent d’écrire 13 lettres qui dévoileront lequel des deux est le père biologique.

The Weirdie Triplets and Miss Emily are settling into Deadeye Manor when, against all logic, their parents return from the dead! Even worse, they want Barnacle, Melancholy and Garlic back, sparking a truly unusual effort to prove that Miss Emily is the best parent for them. Will the family get justice? Will the triplets succeed in their ridiculous fundraisers to pay for the lawyer? Why are there so many raccoons in the courtroom?

It's just a small story really, about, among other things, a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak's groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can't resist: books.

In 1980, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly the worse, and the family moves on with their lives, resuming their prized places in the saga of the American dream, comforted in the realization that though their money may have been what endangered them, it is also what assured them their safety.

I wanted to lose myself in the small town of Pelion, Maine. To forget everything I had left behind. The sound of rain. The blood. The coldness of a gun against my skin. For six months, each breath has been a reminder that I survived—and my dad didn't. I'm almost safe again. But the moment I meet Archer Hale, my entire world tilts on its axis . . . and never rights itself again. Until I trespass into his strange, silent, and isolated world, Archer communicates with no one. Yet in his whiskey-colored eyes, something intangible happens between us.

In The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction, inserting her inimitable voice into an enthralling story of love, adventure and discovery. Spanning much of the 18th and 19th centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker - a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia.

Hannah Brooks looks more like a kindergarten teacher than somebody who could kill you with a wine bottle opener. Or a ballpoint pen. Or a dinner napkin. But the truth is, she’s an Executive Protection Agent (aka "bodyguard"), and she just got hired to protect superstar actor Jack Stapleton from his middle-aged, corgi-breeding stalker.

Eighteen years ago, Tess McPhail left her tiny hometown of Wintergreen, Missouri, for the bright lights of Nashville and never looked back. Now, one of country music's biggest stars, "Mac" is a hardworking woman with little time for a personal life - until her sister insists she come home to help care for their widowed mother. The welcome Mac receives is less than warm, especially from her former next-door neighbor Kenny Kronek. With a teenage daughter to raise, the handsome divorce refuses to give Mac the time of day.

Years ago, Flora fled the quiet Scottish island where she grew up - and she hasn't looked back. What would have done on Mure? It's a place where everyone has known her all her life, where no one will let her forget the past. In bright, bustling London, she can be anonymous, ambitious...and hopelessly in love with her boss. But when fate brings Flora back to the island, she's suddenly swept once more into life with her brothers - all strapping, loud, and seemingly incapable of basic housework - and her father.

When Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students in the gritty '90s Chicago art scene, the two quickly join forces and hold on tight, each eager to claim a place in the thriving underground scene with an appreciative kindred spirit. Fast-forward twenty years to suburban married life, and alongside the challenges of parenting, they encounter the often-baffling pursuits of health and happiness from polyamorous would-be suitors to home-renovation hysteria.

A writer who's blocked - I'm a total cliche. Lucky for me, my agent has a cure that's an even bigger stereotype - a month at her villa in Tuscany, with nothing to do but find my muse. When he walks right in the front door, adorable son in tow, it feels like fate has finally done for me what it does for every other cliched girl I've seen in the movies. Except that he's completely off-limits. In this case, business and pleasure can never mix. Because Claudio is my agent's ex.