Family Life Fiction

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery - or, at least, that's what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn't a real Avery, then who is he? Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamorous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

Eleven-year-old Delphine and her younger sisters Vonetta and Fern travel to Oakland to meet their mother, Cecil, who abandoned their family years earlier. But even when Cecil gets them to her house, she shows no interest and seems to view them as nothing but a nuisance.

Historic Prince Edward Island in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence is the scene of this charming romance, which has captivated generations of readers young and old. Anne, the orphan child who brings happiness and love into the lives of her foster parents, is one of the most beloved heroines in all literature. But life was not kind to her at the start of her great adventure. For when Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, living alone, decided to adopt a child from the local orphanage, they asked for a boy.

Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny, biting, and passionate; she remembers everything and forgives no one. Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare, but she is paying a price for the illusion of perfection. New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for a nanny. She comes with a mysterious past and a sadness beyond her years. These three women are at different crossroads, but they will all wind up in the same shocking place.

From playwright, author and Oscar-nominated actor Jesse Eisenberg, When You Finish Saving the World tells the moving and evocative story of three individuals working to understand each other and themselves: Nathan, a father learning to connect with his newborn son; Rachel, a young college student seeking to find her place in a relationship and in life, before marriage to Nathan; and Ziggy, their son, a teenager hoping to figure out where he came from, and where he’s headed.

Hope Stevens thinks Wedding Tree, Louisiana, will be the perfect place to sort out her life and all the mistakes she's made. Plus, it will give her the chance to help her free-spirited grandmother, Adelaide, sort through her things before moving into assisted living. Spending the summer in the quaint town, Hope begins to discover that Adelaide has made some mistakes of her own.

Janner, Tink, and Leeli Igiby, the Lost Jewels of Anniera, are hiding from Gnag the Nameless in the Green Hollows, one of the few places in the land of Aerwiar not overrun by the Fangs of Dang. But there's a big problem. Janner's little brother - heir to the throne of Anniera - has grown a tail. And gray fur. Not to mention two pointed ears and long, dangerous fangs. To the suspicious folk of the Green Hollows, he looks like a monster. But Janner knows better. His brother isn't as scary as he looks. He's perfectly harmless. Isn't he?

To escape the stress of the holidays, the Heffleys decide to get out of town and go to a resort instead of celebrating Christmas at home. But what's billed as a stress-free vacation becomes a holiday nightmare.

With his mother dead, his father gone, and his older brothers and sisters unable to help, eight-year-old Ethan Cooper knows it's his responsibility to keep him and his younger siblings together - even if that means going to an orphanage. Ethan, Alice, Simon, and Will settle into the Briarlane Christian Children's Home, where there's plenty to eat, plenty of work, and plenty of talk about a father who never leaves. Even so, Ethan fears losing the only family he has. How can he trust God to keep him safe when almost everything he's known has disappeared?

On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother.

After successfully matchmaking within the Sydney desi community for years, Nas has decided to open a marriage agency to help all Australians find love. With 17 years of marriage to his dream woman Tasnim under his belt, he's keen to help others find the same happiness that he's had. But what he sees as a perfect, happy match isn't necessarily what something others agree on - including Tasnim. Before long, the cracks in Nas and Tasnim's marriage are beginning to show, and Salima, their 16-year-old daughter, is caught in the middle.

Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love. In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance.

Nine years, five older siblings, a few beloved dogs, and an endless array of adventures - these are the things that have shaped Lydia's journey since fans first met her in The Penderwicks in Spring. Now, it's summertime, and 11-year-old Lydia is dancing at the bus stop, waiting for big sister, Batty, to get home from college. This is a very important dance and a very important wait, because the two youngest sisters are about to arrive home to find out that the Penderwicks will all be returning to Arundel this summer, the place where it all began.

Nic wants nothing more than to move on—from her sister’s disappearance and the state it’s left her in. But then one day, Jules’s sister, Jenna Connor, walks into her life and offers Nic something she hasn’t felt in a long time: hope. What follows is a gripping tale of two sisters who will do anything to find their missing halves, even if it means destroying everything they’ve ever known.

It's wedding season on Nantucket. The beautiful island is overrun with summer people - an annual source of aggravation for year-round residents. When one lavish wedding ends in disaster before it can even begin - with the bride-to-be discovered dead in Nantucket Harbor just hours before the ceremony - everyone in the wedding party is suddenly a suspect. As Chief of Police Ed Kapenash digs into the best man, the maid of honor, the groom's famous mystery novelist mother, and even a member of his own family, the chief discovers that every wedding is a minefield - and no couple is perfect.

Several things about 14-year-old Georgia Nicolson's life are very wrong. Her bedroom smells like her little sister probably peed somewhere, but she can?t find where. Angus, her enormous cat, keeps terrorizing Mrs. Next Door's poodle. Dad's gone off to look for work in New Zealand. And one of her friends has rated Georgia's nose a zero on a scale from 1-10. But what's really driving her crazy is that Sex God Robbie doesn't give her the time of day.

Nantucket is only 11 miles away from Martha's Vineyard. But they may as well be worlds apart for estranged twin sisters Harper and Tabitha Frost. After not speaking for more than a decade, Harper and Tabitha switch islands - and lives - to save what's left of their splintered family. But the twins quickly discover that the secrets, lies, and gossip they thought they'd outrun can travel between islands just as easily as they can. Will Harper and Tabitha be able to bury the hatchet and end their sibling rivalry once and for all?

Seventh-grader Zoey has her hands full as she takes care of her much younger siblings after school every day while her mom works her shift at the pizza parlor. Not that her mom seems to appreciate it. At least there's Lenny, her mom's boyfriend - they all get to live in his nice, clean trailer. At school, Zoey tries to stay under the radar. Her only friend, Fuchsia, has her own issues, and since they're in an entirely different world than the rich kids, it's best if no one notices them. Zoey thinks how much easier everything would be if she were an octopus.

Jess Aarons has been practicing all summer so he can be the fastest runner in the fifth grade. And he almost is, until the new girl in school, Leslie Burke, outpaces him. The two become fast friends and spend most days in the woods behind Leslie's house, where they invent an enchanted land called Terabithia. One morning, Leslie goes to Terabithia without Jess and a tragedy occurs.

Timothy is on probation. It's a strange word - something that happens to other kids, to delinquents, not to kids like him. And yet, he is under house arrest for the next year. He must check in weekly with a probation officer and a therapist and keep a journal for an entire year. And mostly, he has to stay out of trouble. But when he must take drastic measures to help his struggling family, staying out of trouble proves more difficult than Timothy ever thought it would be.