Family Life Fiction

Bronte Mettlestone is 10 years old when her parents are killed by pirates. This does not bother her particularly: Her parents ran away to have adventures when she was a baby. She has been raised by her aunt Isabelle, with assistance from the butler, and has spent a pleasant childhood of afternoon teas and riding lessons. Now, however, her parents have left detailed instructions for Bronte in their will. (Instructions that, annoyingly, have been reinforced with faery cross-stitch, which means that if she doesn't complete them, terrible things could happen!)

The Penryn family have always been eccentric—living in a dilapidated castle in the wilds of Cumbria with an orchid-mad father and a classicist mother who likes to re-enact Greek myths, who wouldn’t be? Well-heeled Londoner Althea Penryn doesn’t expect a divorce and job hunt over the Christmas holidays, but her husband claims he’s done and the prenup is solid. She packs up her reluctant teenage children and heads home to Casterglass Castle to confront the ghosts of her past—including the real one her mother claims lives in the old guard tower.

Ava Connors is comfortable with her life just as it is, still living in the tiny terrace house where she was brought up by her grandmother, Maggie, seeing her long-term boyfriend, Finlay, and working in a florist. But Maggie’s health is declining, and Finlay is tired of waiting for Ava to make a commitment. Ava has never really known her mother, Scarlett; when she inherits an old and dilapidated house it ignites an interest in the mother who abandoned her as a child. Why did Scarlett leave her to be brought up by her grandmother? Ava begins to question her past.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself.

Coming to the aid of a wounded whale, Kit and Nita are plunged into deep wizardry. The whale is a wizard, and she enlists Kit and Nita in battle against the sinister Lone Power. Becoming whales themselves, Nita and Kit join in an ancient ritual performed by whales, dolphins, and a single fearsome shark. But which poses more of a danger: the Lone Power, or ed'Rashtekaresket, the enormous shark as old as the sea?

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.

Sadie may be married now, but she's as spirited as ever, and her life is no less tame. In fact, soon after she and Mark are settled into the farmhouse Mark is renovating, she's visited by three FBI agents who question her about the two children who mysteriously appeared one day at the ranch. Before the agents leave, they warn Sadie that her beloved horse, Paris, is highly valuable, and that she and Mark may be in grave danger because of Paris.

Ella's one wish is to become a fairy like her mom. She dreams of the day she will have her sparkly crown and Computwand. Ella even imagines what her first spell would be: a glittery unicorn of her very own. But Ella knows that spells are often harder than they look, even with the special fairy apps available...and being a fairy in waiting is not all rainbows and butterflies. Will Ella learn more magic to help her become a fairy someday? Or will she learn she doesn't need to be a fairy yet for all her wishes to come true?

Vincent Appleton smiles at his daughters, raises a gun, and blows off his head. For the Appleton sisters, life had unraveled many times before. This time it explodes. Eight-year-old Hariet, known to all as Ari, is dispatched to Cape Breton and her Aunt Mary, who is purported to eat little girls. With Ari on the journey is her steadfast companion, Jasper, an imaginary seahorse. But when they arrive in Pleasant Cove, they instead find refuge with Mary and her partner Nia.

Since she was nine years old, Alina Dziak knew she would marry her best friend, Tomasz. Now 15 and engaged, Alina is unconcerned by reports of Nazi soldiers at the Polish border, believing her neighbors that they pose no real threat, and dreams instead of the day Tomasz returns from college in Warsaw so they can be married. But little by little, injustice by brutal injustice, the Nazi occupation takes hold, and Alina’s tiny rural village, its families, are divided by fear and hate. Then, as the fabric of their lives is slowly picked apart, Tomasz disappears.

It is summer's end, and Sea Breeze, the family's beloved estate on Sullivan's Island, must be sold. It is an emotional time of transition as Mamaw and the three sisters each must face loss and find a new place in the world.

As a young girl Sandy Price dreamed of owning a pony like Misty of Chincoteague. Journeying to Chincoteague for the annual pony penning, a grown Sandy decides to make her dream come true. At the end of the auction she brings home not just one but four beautiful ponies, including Sunshine, a direct descendant of Misty. When Twilight, Sunshine’s foal, first appears from her stall, the fire of the wild ponies of Assateague is in her eyes. She races and rears herself into a lather, bucking at even the temporary confinement when the farrier examines her hooves.

Twelve-year-old Elvis Babbitt has a head for the facts: she knows science proves yellow is the happiest color and she knows that the naked mole rat is the longest living rodent. She knows she should plan to grieve her mother, who has recently drowned while sleepwalking, for exactly 18 months. But there are things Elvis doesn't yet know - like how to keep her sister Lizzie from poisoning herself while sleep-eating or why her father has started wearing her mother's silk bathrobe around the house.

Edward Bloom, an aging salesman, is dying. As his grown son, William, cares for him, the young man tries to focus on what he knows about his father’s life. Story after story surfaces in William’s memory, and he shares mythic visions of a fantastic father who was loved by all - a man who was the best runner, fisherman, businessman, and adventurer in the world. Big Fish tells these tall tales of Edward Bloom’s life. Punctuated with his vast repertory of jokes, they set the stage for Edward’s final, wonderful transformation.

Ever since the Bommarito sisters were little girls, their mother, River, has written them a letter on pink paper when she has something especially important to impart. And this time, the message is urgent and impossible to ignore - River requires open-heart surgery, and Isabelle and her sisters are needed at home to run the family bakery and take care of their brother and ailing grandmother.

Pearl Tull is nearing the end of her life but not of her memory. It was a Sunday night in 1944 when her husband left the little row house on Baltimore's Calvert Street, abandoning Pearl to raise their three children alone: Jenny, high-spirited and determined, nurturing to strangers but distant to those she loves; the older son, Cody, a wild and incorrigible youth possessed by the lure of power and money; and sweet, clumsy Ezra, Pearl's favorite, who never stops yearning for the perfect family that could never be his own. Now Pearl and her three grown children have gathered....

What do you do when the unthinkable happens? August 8, 2000: A carefree birthday party goes horribly wrong. The children scatter to play hide and seek. But one little girl never returns. Three-year-old Grace has vanished without a trace. Fourteen years later: With the case long since gone cold, Grace's family has done its best to move on. But her sister, Elise, has never given up hope. And now Elise thinks she may have found her.... Is Elise going crazy? Could Grace really have returned? And if she has, where was she taken?

On a cold night in October 1937, searchlights cut through the darkness around Alcatraz. A prison guard's only daughter - one of the youngest civilians who lives on the island - has gone missing. Tending the warden's greenhouse, convicted bank robber Tommy Capello waits anxiously. Only he knows the truth about the little girl's whereabouts and that both of their lives depend on the search's outcome.

Luke Garner, an illegal third child, spent his first 12 years in hiding. For the past four months, Luke has lived among others, using the identity of Lee Grant, at the Hendricks School for Boys. But just as things are finally starting to go right, Lee's little brother, Smits, arrives at the school, and Luke finds himself caught in a tangle of lies that gets more complex with every passing day. Can Luke trust Smits to keep his secret? And can he trust Smits' menacing bodyguard, Oscar?

The Amish community of Lancaster is being terrorized by barn fires. David and Malinda Beiler's barn was the first to go. The clues are sparse, but Levi, the Beilers' oldest son, happened to be awake in the middle of the night and spotted a white vehicle driving past the house with its lights off. Sarah, David and Malinda's daughter, observes her parents' agony. Not only is she afraid and wishing she could protect her parents, she's entranced by the flirtatious Matthew Stoltzfus.