Family Relationships Fiction

In the hands of Sophocles, the master dramatist, the anguished tale of a man fated to kill his father and marry his mother retains its power to shock and move beyond any Freudian reference.

Simone Garcia-Hampton is starting over at a new school, and this time things will be different. She's making real friends, making a name for herself as student director of Rent, and making a play for Miles, the guy who makes her melt every time he walks into a room. The last thing she wants is for word to get out that she's HIV-positive, because last time...well, last time things got ugly.

Karina Ahmed has a plan. Keep her head down, get through high school without a fuss, and follow her parents’ rules - even if it means sacrificing her dreams. When her parents go abroad to Bangladesh for four weeks, Karina expects some peace and quiet. Instead, one simple lie unravels everything. Karina is my girlfriend. Tutoring the school’s resident bad boy was already crossing a line. Pretending to date him? Out of the question. But Ace Clyde does everything right. Though Karina agrees, she can’t help but start counting down the days until her parents come back.

What do the queen bee, star athlete, valedictorian, stoner, loner, and music geek all have in common? They were all invited to a scholarship dinner, only to discover it’s a trap. Someone has locked them into a room with a bomb, a syringe filled with poison, and a note saying they have an hour to pick someone to kill...or else everyone dies.

Sixteen-year-old Petula de Wilde is anything but wild. A former crafting fiend with a happy life, Petula shut herself off from the world after a family tragedy. She sees danger in all the ordinary things, like crossing the street, a bug bite, or a germy handshake. She knows: Life is out to get you. The worst part of her week is her comically lame mandatory art therapy class with a small group of fellow misfits. Then a new boy, Jacob, appears at school and in her therapy group.

It started out as an ordinary summer. But the minute thirteen-year-old Zinny covered the old, overgrown trail that ran through the woods behind her family's house, she realized that things were about to change. Right from the start, Zinny knew that uncovering the trail would be more than just a summer project. It was her chance to finally make people notice her, and to have a place she could call her very own.

It's 1991, and John "Spud" Milton's journey to manhood is still creeping along at a snail's pace. Nearly 15, Spud's starting his second year at boarding school and - to his utter mortification - he's still a spud! To make things worse, his dorm mates, the legendary Crazy Eight, have an unusual new member (Roger the cat), and his house is home to a new batch of unruly first-years. Spud is soon plagued with women trouble, coerced into expulsion-worthy adventures, and frustrated to find his dreams of fame in tatters after a disastrous production of Noah's Ark.

All across New Mouse City, rodents kept telling Geronimo he'd done things he couldn't remember! Had the cheese finally slipped off his cracker? It turns out that Geronimo's not going crazy: an impostor's going around town pretending to be him. Will Geronimo be able to stop the look-alike from taking over The Rodent's Gazette?

Shortly before her 17th birthday, Emma discovers she has a long-lost twin named Sutton Mercer. She contacts Sutton, who agrees to a rendezvous but never shows up. Curious at first, Emma slips into Sutton's ultra-glamorous life, assuming her identity. When it becomes clear that Sutton is not coming back, that someone made sure she never could, Emma plunges in to investigate who could have wanted her sister gone (a fairly long list, she discovers).

Nathan Bird doesn’t believe in happy endings. Although he’s the ultimate film buff and an aspiring screenwriter, Nate’s seen the demise of too many relationships to believe happy endings exist in real life. Playing it safe to avoid a broken heart has been his MO ever since his father died and left his mom to unravel - but this strategy is not without fault. His best-friend-turned-girlfriend-turned-best-friend-again, Florence, is set on making sure Nate finds someone else. And in a twist that is rom-com-worthy, someone does come along: Oliver James Hernández.

Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few listeners will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both loving and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord.

Vagabond seafarer Evan Strangward can move wind, waves, and weather, but his magical abilities can't protect him forever from the brutal Empress Celestine. As Celestine's relentless bloodsworn armies grow, Evan travels to the Fells to warn the queendom that an invasion is imminent. If he can't convince the Gray Wolf queen to take a stand, he knows that the Seven Realms will fall, and his last sanctuary will be destroyed. Among the dead will be the one person Evan can't stand to lose.

With a bit of last summer's sand in the pockets, the Traveling Pants and the Sisterhood that wears them embark on their 16th summer.

In her groundbreaking debut essay collection, actress Lily Collins—Golden Globe-nominated star of Rules Don’t Apply, Mortal Instruments, and To the Bone—is opening a poignant, honest conversation about the things young women struggle with: body image, self-confidence, relationships, family, dating, and so much more. Lily shares her life and her own deepest secrets, underlining that every single one of us experiences pain and heartbreak. We all understand what it’s like to live in the light and in the dark. For Lily, it’s about making it through to the other side, where you love what you see in the mirror and where you embrace yourself just as you are. She's learned that all it takes is one person standing up and saying something for everyone else to realize they’re not alone. By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Lily’s honest voice will inspire you to be who you are and say what you feel. It’s time to claim your voice! It’s time to live your life unfiltered.

Never in her life has Harlow felt as low as she does now. Even a beating from her mother was easier to take then the humiliation she just suffered at the hands of the Summer's siblings. Unable to return home due to a promise made to her foster father, she has to stay on until her commitments have concluded. With her new friends Alex and Shane trying to convince her to stay, and her grandparents and father of the same mind, Harlow's heart is torn in two. But a mysterious phone call and a possible job opportunity may just swing the pendulum to one side.

Divorce left Harper Szymanski with a name no one can spell, a house she can't afford, and a teenage daughter who's pulling away. With her fledgling virtual-assistant business, she's scrambling to maintain her overbearing mother's ridiculous Susie Homemaker standards and still pay the bills, thanks to clients like Lucas, the annoying playboy cop who claims he hangs around for Harper's fresh-baked cookies.

In Ginger Kid, popular comedian Steve Hofstetter grapples with life after seventh grade...when his world fell apart. Formatted as a series of personal essays, Steve walks his listeners through awkward early dating, family turbulence, and the revenge of the bullied nerds. This YA nonfiction is sure to be the beloved next volume for the first generation of Wimpy Kid fans who are all grown up and ready for a new misfit hero.

Maleeka Madison is a dark skinned African-American girl. She feels uncomfortable and wishes she had lighter skin. When her teacher, Miss Saunders, who suffers from a rare skin condition, shows that there is more to people than the color of their skin, Maleeka learns to appreciate and accept who she truly is.

With Father in Washington and Cuffy away visiting a sick cousin, almost anything might happen to the Melendys left behind at the Four-Story Mistake. In the Melendy family, adventures are inevitable: Mr. Titus and the catfish; the villainy of the DeLacey brothers; Rush's composition of Opus Three; Mona's first rhubarb pie and all the canning; Randy's arrowhead; the auction and fair for the Red Cross.

When a letter that was never meant to be seen by anyone draws high school senior Evan Hansen into a family's grief over the loss of their son, he is given the chance of a lifetime: to belong. He just has to stick to a lie he never meant to tell: that the notoriously troubled Connor Murphy was his secret best friend. Suddenly, Evan isn't invisible anymore - even to the girl of his dreams. And Connor Murphy's parents, with their beautiful home on the other side of town, have taken him in like he was their own, desperate to know more about their enigmatic son from his closest friend.