Literary Fiction Family

Dottie Badoura Fatma Balfour finds solace amidst the squalor of her childhood by spinning warm tales of affection about her beautiful names. But she knows nothing of their origins, and little of her family history—or the abuse her ancestors suffered as they made their home in Britain. At seventeen, she takes on the burden of responsibility for her brother and sister and is obsessed with keeping the family together. However, as Sophie, lumpen yet voluptuous, drifts away, and the confused Hudson is absorbed into the world of crime, Dottie is forced to consider her own needs.

Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. is a gripping examination of contemporary America through the prism of a family tragedy: When a powerful parent dies, each of his adult children reacts in startling and unexpected ways, and his grieving widow in the most surprising way of all. Stark and penetrating, Joyce Carol Oates’s latest novel is a vivid exploration of race, psychological trauma, class warfare, grief, and eventual healing, as well as an intimate family novel in the tradition of the author’s best-selling We Were the Mulvaneys.

One hundred fifty years of Roses' Tolivers, Warwicks, and DuMonts! We begin in the antebellum South on Plantation Alley in South Carolina, where Silas Toliver, deprived of his inheritance, joins up with his best friend Jeremy Warwick to plan a wagon train expedition to the "black waxy" promise of a new territory called Texas. Slavery, westward expansion, abolition, the Civil War, love, marriage, friendship, tragedy and triumph-all the ingredients (and much more) that made so many love Roses so much-are here in abundance.

Sara Stanley is only 14, but she can weave tales that are impossible to resist. In the charming town of Carlisle, children and grown-ups alike flock from miles around to hear her spellbinding narratives. And when Bev King and his younger brother, Felix, arrive for the summer, they, too, are captivated by the Story Girl.

The second novel and first quick-listen title from Sunday Times and New York Times best-selling author Cathy Glass. My Dad's a Policeman is a dramatic and engaging story of a young boy with an alcoholic mother. Lonely, bullied and desperate for a life of happiness and security he tells everyone he meets his dad's a policeman. Fast paced and compelling, this short story from Cathy Glass follows the experiences of a Ryan, a small and lonely 12-year-old boy who struggles to fit in.

New Yorkers Michael, a famous writer, and Lizzie, a journalist, travel to Italy with their friends from Maine - Finn; his wife, Taylor; and their daughter, Snow. "From the beginning," says Taylor, "it was a conspiracy for Lizzie and Finn to be together." In Rashomon style, with alternating points of view, the characters expose and stumble upon lies and infidelities past and present.

After years of trying to make it as a writer in 1990s New York City, James Smale finally sells his novel to an editor at a major publishing house: none other than Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Jackie - or Mrs. Onassis, as she's known in the office - has fallen in love with James' candidly autobiographical novel, one that exposes his own dysfunctional family. But when the book's forthcoming publication threatens to unravel already fragile relationships, both within his family and with his partner, James finds that he can't bring himself to finish the manuscript.

An unlikely criminal, Andy Durant is robbing gas stations to buy back land once connected to his wife's farm in upstate New York. But when he's shot and killed during a robbery, he leaves his wife, Grady, and their three children to fend for themselves. Moving back to the debt-laden farm, Grady ignites a plan that involves getting in the middle of an adjoining neighbor's marriage. Meanwhile, one by one the whole family is charmed by Royal Provo, a young and charismatic orphan working on the property.

In Trinidad, in 1796, teenage Rosa Rendon quietly but purposefully rebels against typical female roles and behavior. Bright, competitive, and opinionated, Rosa sees no reason she should learn to cook and keep house - it is obvious her talents lie in running the farm she expects to be her birthright, despite her two older siblings. But as her homeland goes from Spanish to British rule, it becomes increasingly unclear whether its free black property owners - Rosa's family among them - will be allowed to keep their assets, their land, and ultimately, their freedom.

This is the real world of modern Karachi as seen through the eyes of a young woman in an elite family. Here are the hidden dramatic realities of the upper class, the undertow of religion, revealing the truth sometimes spoken in hushed whispers, more often swept away by the flourish of silk saris at extravagant dinner parties...or perhaps never mentioned at all.

In the great wave of husband-leaving ushered in by the Sexual Revolution, Molly Held frees herself from her cold, flagrantly unfaithful husband after their final quarrel turns violent. With her five-year-old son, she lights out for an Upper West Side apartment and the new life she hopes to find with Conrad Schwartzberg - the charismatic radical lawyer who has recently become her lover. Having escaped from a desert, she lands in a swamp.

Cy Riemer is the patriarch of a successful and loving Chicago family. But not all is copacetic in Cy's world. The scientific newsletter he publishes is foundering financially, his ex-wife still relies on him for money and intimacy, and he can never seem to find the time or the wherewithal to relax. Much of Cy's stress is caused by the trouble he has with his brilliant and duplicitous son, Jack.

From naughty children to rebellious teenagers, Rosie and Alex have stuck by each other through thick and thin. But just as they're discovering the joys of teenage nights on the town and dating disasters, they're separated. Alex's family moves from Dublin to America, and Alex goes with them. For good. Rosie's lost without him. But on the eve of her departure to join Alex in Boston, Rosie gets news that will change her life forever and keep her at home in Ireland.

On her 49th birthday, Anna Fergusson, Boston neuroscientist and dedicated introvert, arrives at an unwanted crossroads when the funding for her research lab is cut. With her confidence shattered and her future uncertain, on impulse she rents a cabin for a year on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. However Turtle Island, alive with sea birds and nesting Green turtles, is not the retreat she expected.

Cam McHugh died in a tragic farming accident. He has a message for his son and only his dog can hear him. Halo is no ordinary dog. Not only can she see ghosts, she can talk to them, too. If only she could tell Hunter that death doesn't mean an end to being around the ones we love, maybe she could help him find his voice again. Unfortunately, she may never have the chance. Dognapped by the man who threatens to destroy the only family she has ever known, Halo must escape and find her way home - hundreds of miles away.

Pursuing literary glory, Edward Gunther gives up his job as a copywriter, sells everything he owns, and moves with his wife and three children from Chicago to Venice. But success does not come as quickly or as painlessly as Edward had hoped. During his first month in Italy, he struggles to get his essays published, argues with his wife about the family finances, and embarks on an unsteady affair with Nina Callahan, an American poet who insists on keeping him at arm's length.

In this tale of two lives immutably intertwined, Sister Rachel is a nun in a failing order, a painter with a history of madness, devoted to her dying Mother General. Her brother Phillip is an accountant serving time for embezzlement, a man capable of great violence and anger who has turned his back not simply on the church, but faith as well. They have nothing in common except for a shared childhood tragedy. Or do they?

Until John Wilson met the warm, wise woman who became his fourth wife, the object of his most intense devotion had always been the work of William Shakespeare. From his feat of memorizing Romeo and Juliet and half a dozen other plays as a student to his evangelical zeal as a professor, John's faith in the Bard has shaped his life. But now his mental powers have been diminished by dementia, and his wife has reluctantly moved him to a residential care facility.

Seduced by Slim's stories of the privations of a cross-country trek that ended in the violence of an historic riot and tales of Depression-era work camps, Edie MacDonald has followed him from mine to mine, where he finds work and she cares for their son, Belly, in the thin shelter of canvas tents. Until now. Edie has left Slim behind, passed out in an unheated apartment on the coldest day of the year. Boarding a train with Belly, she travels westward. When the train struggles through a snowstorm and possible calamity, the lens shifts between Belly's perspective and Edie's.

Frustrated 35-year-old plumber Isaac Sullivan believes he has both the intellect and skill to be a surgeon. Forced to take over his father's plumbing business straight out of high school, Isaac's dreams of attending the University of Michigan fell by the wayside. However, the unfortunate setback didn't stop him entirely. For the past decade, he has absorbed every medical textbook and journal available to him. For practical experience, Isaac performs surgeries on the wildlife around his house, preparing for the day he attends Michigan.