Literary Fiction Family

When Charlotte Rainsford, a retired schoolteacher, is accosted by a petty thief on a London street, the consequences ripple across the lives of acquaintances and strangers alike. A marriage unravels after an illicit love affair is revealed through an errant cell phone message; a posh yet financially strapped interior designer meets a business partner who might prove too good to be true.

In the isolated Cape Cod village of Prospect, the Gilly sisters are as different as can be. Jo, a fierce and quiet loner, is devoted to the mysteries of her family's salt farm, while Claire is popular, pretty, and yearns to flee the salt at any cost. But the Gilly land hides a dark legacy that proves impossible to escape. Although the community half-suspects the Gilly sisters might be witches, it doesn't stop Whit Turner, the town's wealthiest bachelor, from forcing his way into their lives. It's Jo who first steals Whit's heart, but it is Claire - heartbroken over her high school sweetheart - who marries him.

“If I know why they are the way they are, then maybe I can learn why I am the way I am,” says Alex Tuchman of her parents. Now that her father is on his deathbed, Alex—a strong-headed lawyer, devoted mother, and loving sister—feels she can finally unearth the secrets of who Victor is and what he did over the course of his life and career. (A power-hungry real estate developer, he is, by all accounts, a bad man.) She travels to New Orleans to be with her family, but mostly to interrogate her tightlipped mother, Barbra.

Ed Cantowitz and Hugh Shipley meet in their final year at Harvard. Ed is far removed from Hugh’s privileged upbringing as a Boston Brahmin, yet his drive and ambition outpace Hugh’s ambivalence about his own life. These two young men form an unlikely friendship, bolstered by a fierce shared desire to transcend their circumstances. But in just a few short years, not only do their paths diverge—one rising on Wall Street, the other becoming a kind of global humanitarian—but their friendship ends abruptly, with only one of them understanding why.

A fiercely independent divorce lawyer learns the power of family and connection when she receives a cryptic message from her estranged mother in this bittersweet, witty novel from the nationally best-selling author of Someone Else's Love Story and Gods in Alabama - an emotionally resonant tale about the endurance of love and the power of stories to shape and transform our lives.

Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery is best known for her series of coming-of-age novels featuring the feisty orphan, Anne Shirley. However, Montgomery was also a prolific producer of short stories, which are notable for their wholesome presentations of romance and family life. This collection includes 27 stories that were published between 1909 and 1922.

Evicted from their trailer on New Year's Eve, Henry and his son, Junior, have been reduced to living out of a pickup truck. Six months later, things are even more desperate. Henry, barely a year out of prison for pushing opioids, is down to his last pocketful of dollars, and little remains between him and the street. But hope is on the horizon: Today is Junior's birthday, and Henry has a job interview tomorrow.

In the thrilling new saga from Western Heritage and Spur award-winning author Dusty Richards, Chet Byrnes stands his ground - with his courage, guns, and blood. For Chet Byrnes, building a ranching empire means adding new land, hiring good men, finding water and trying new breeds of cattle. But outlaws and Tuscon's idle rich want to take it all away - and Arizona just may be too lawless to stop it.

Bill and Penelope are the lucky ones. Not only do they survive the Shark Flu emerging from the melting Icelandic permafrost to sweep like a scythe across the world, but they begin to rebuild a life in the wreckage of the old. A garden to feed themselves planted where the lawn used to be, a mattress pulled down to the living room fireplace for warmth. Even Bill’s psychology practice endures the collapse of the social order, the handful of remaining clients bartering cans of food for their sessions.

Meet Claire: fifty-two, desperate to do something new and get a fresh start. Enter the chance to go to Rome: Home to a struggling convent facing a precipitous end, the city beckons Claire, who's long had a complicated relationship with religion, including a “missed connection” with convent life in her teens. Once in Rome, she finds a group of funny, fearless nuns in a gorgeous villa, beautiful runs throughout a color-saturated city, and a chance to reflect. It all leads her to an unexpected question—should she join the convent?

It is the summer of 1944, and nine-year-old Andy Catlett is engrossed in the wide easy countryside near Port William, Kentucky. But sadness, loss, and mystery invade Andy's world on a hot July afternoon when his Uncle Andrew is murdered.

Growing up in a small fishing village in 1980s Iran, 11-year-old Saba Hafezi and her twin sister, Mahtab, are fascinated by America. They keep lists of English vocabulary words and collect contraband copies of Life magazine and Beatles cassettes. So when Saba suddenly finds herself abandoned, alone with her father in Iran, she is certain that her mother and sister have moved to America without her. Bereft, she aches for their company, and for the Western life she believes she is being denied. All her life she had been taught that "fate is in the blood", which must mean that twins will live the same life, even if separated by land and sea.

Eliot Gordon would do anything for her family. A 38-year-old working mother, she lives an ordinary but fulfilling life in suburban Atlanta with her partner, Grant Delaney, and their three daughters. The two older girls are actually Eliot's stepdaughters, a distinction she is reluctant to make as she valiantly attempts to maintain a safe, happy household . . . Then Finn Montgomery, Eliot's long-lost first love, appears, triggering a shocking chain of events that culminates in a split-second decision that will haunt her beloved family forever.

Thirteen-year-old Huck runs away from his alcoholic and abusive father in a stolen canoe. Hiding on a wooded island, he comes upon a slave named Jim, who is also fleeing--from slavery. The two set off down the Mississippi on a piece of a raft, each in search of his own kind of freedom.

Elizabeth is tired. Years after coming to New York to try to build a life, she has found herself with two kids, a husband, two jobs, a PhD - and now they're filing for bankruptcy. As she tries to balance her dream and the impossibility of striving toward it while her work and home lives feel poised to fall apart, she wakes at ungodly hours to run miles by the icy river, struggling to quiet her thoughts.

Rosa Guerrero beat the odds as she rose to the top of the corporate world. An attractive woman of a certain age, the longtime chief of human resources at Ellery Consumer Research is still a formidable presence, even if her most vital days are behind her. A leader who wields power with grace and discretion, she has earned the devotion and loyalty of her staff. No one admires Rosa more than her doting lieutenant Leo Smalls, a benefits vice president whose whole world is Ellery.

No matter what the world throws her way, at least Ruthie Beamish has the house. Lovingly renovated, located by the sea in a quiet Long Island village, the house is her nest egg - the retirement account shared with her ex-husband, Mike, and the college fund for their teenage daughter, Jem. The catch? To afford the house, Ruthie must let it go during the best part of the year. It's Memorial Day weekend, and Ruthie has packed up their belongings for what Jem calls "the summer bummer": the family's annual exodus to make way for renters.

Otis Till, the grapefather of Red Mountain, has regained his senses of smell and sight, but his vision of what Red Mountain should be is now threatened by a greedy landowner. Margot Pierce has finally opened her French inn, but as her son leaves for college and her boyfriend says goodbye, she realizes how lonely her world could possibly become. Can she stomach the trials of going back on the dating market, even if that means finding him online?

In Washington state wine country, Red Mountain is a refuge for searchers and wanderers, artists and lovers, farmers and chefs — people looking for a place to belong. Despite the stunning landscape, the world-class wines, and their best efforts, the eccentric inhabitants often attract trouble. Brooks Baker, the man with the most broken of pasts, craves stability, but he’s forced into making a tough decision when the woman he loves considers a move to Florida.

After losing her husband, Harold, and her beloved grandson, Cody, within the past year, Louisa has two choices. She can fade away on her Indiana family farm, where her companionship comes courtesy of her aging chickens and an argumentative cat. Or, she can concoct a plan. Louisa, a retired schoolteacher who's as smart, sassy, and irreverent as ever, isn't the fading away type.