Contemporary Family Life

Crystal Malloy owns the beauty salon in Mystic Creek, Oregon. It took years of work to stand on her own after a difficult upbringing and to turn her fledgling enterprise into a successful business. There's never been much time for romance, but when a handsome, friendly man stops in to her salon - he's traveling through town on business - she's immediately taken with him.

In this striking and bleak, yet luminous debut collection, Nathan Ballingrud, winner of the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award, uses the trappings of the Gothic and the uncanny to investigate a distinctly American landscape: The loneliest and darkest corners of contemporary life. Ballingrud’s stories are love stories. They’re also monster stories. Sometimes the monsters collected here are vampires or werewolves.

The Garretts are everything the Reeds are not: loud, numerous, messy, affectionate. And every day from her balcony perch, 17-year-old Samantha Reed wishes she was one of them...until one summer evening, Jase Garrett climbs her terrace and changes everything. As the two fall fiercely in love, Jase's family makes Samantha one of their own. Then in an instant, the bottom drops out of her world and she is suddenly faced with an impossible decision. Which perfect family will save her? Or is it time she saved herself?

As the long, mysterious life of a family matriarch begins to wind down, will she take her secrets with her? Or will her past adventures lead to new ones for the next generation? From a bustling Australian city to the beauty and promise of Granada and a captivating culture, one young woman may dare to find out....

When Toots Loudenberry relocated to Los Angeles to be near her daughter, Abby, she expected to bump into the occasional celebrity. She just never expected them to be dead. Meanwhile, Toots, Sophie, and Mavis are concerned that the prestigious Dr. Sameer’s budding romance with Ida may have something to do with his ailing bank balance. And Abby’s attempted makeover of the celebrity magazine The Informer into the most talked-about tabloid in town could end more than just her career.

Einfühlsam und schonungslos: Mit feinem Sinn für Humor erzählt Liane Moriarty von tiefen Verletzungen und längst fälligen Wahrheiten. Die Delaneys sind in Sydney die Vorzeigefamilie par excellence. Stan und Joy blicken voller Stolz auf ihr Leben und die vier erwachsenen Kinder. Doch keiner der vier konnte so richtig Fuß fassen - weder privat noch beruflich. Zu übermächtig waren die Ansprüche der Eltern. Die scheinbare Idylle gerät ins Wanken, als eine Fremde das alte Ehepaar mit einer schmerzhaften Wahrheit konfrontiert und Joy daraufhin spurlos verschwindet.

Sam is 28, Swedish and spending the summer in London, working for a top marketing agency. Over the course of the sticky summer months, she falls hard for Lucas, a man she first met as a teenager. Lucas is working at a boutique clothing store whilst trying to get a foot on the corporate ladder, and struggling to hold the pieces of his life together. Sam is a gorgeous distraction. But you can only avoid reality for so long, and both Sam and Lucas know their relationship can't last. Nobody can be this happy forever, surely?

Stephanie Ketterman has been doing her level best to find a new normal since her beloved husband's tragic death two years ago, but it's been a real struggle. After nearly three decades of wedded bliss with Paul, filling the gaping hole he left behind seems impossible. How can she look forward to her future when her heart is firmly stuck in the past? But when she begins to find evidence of secret trysts and cryptic notes written shortly before his death, she's forced to reexamine everything. What if perfect wasn't so perfect after all?

Increasingly wary of her father's genetic research, Rachel Kramer has determined that this trip with him will be her last. A letter from her friend changes everything. Married to SS officer Gerhardt Schlick, Kristine fears her husband views their daughter, Amelie, deaf since birth, as a blight on his Aryan bloodline. Rachel fears her father's files may hold answers about Hitler's plans for others like Amelie. Rachel turns to journalist Jason Young, who connects her to the resistance....

After a painful divorce, Maisey Lazarow returns to Fairham, the small island off the North Carolina coast where she grew up. She goes there to heal - and to help her brother, Keith, a deeply troubled man who's asked her to come home. But she refuses to stay in the family house. The last person she wants to see is her wealthy, controlling mother. Instead she finds herself living next door to someone else she'd prefer to avoid - Rafe Romero, the wild, reckless boy to whom she lost her virginity at 16.

Hannah and Will Abbott define the American dream: two kids, a home in the suburbs, and a seemingly perfect marriage. But discontent lurks under the surface of their outwardly happy lives. Both Will and Hannah suspect the other of infidelity. When they independently consult divorce attorneys, the conflict escalates and Hannah flees with the children against a court order. This snap decision starts a social media firestorm, and, suddenly, the Abbott divorce is big news.

Bronx doesn't mind being used as a pawn in the hot lawyer's plan to piss off his father. After all, he probably would have done the same thing if his dad had introduced him to a new step-mom who was barely six months older than him. And it helps that Monty is not only ridiculously good-looking, but he's smart, kind, and has an accent that makes Bronx weak in the knees. He's also an amazing distraction from the fact that Bronx's husband up and left him and his son without warning, turning their lives upside down.

Hope Nichols has never felt as if she belonged anywhere except her hometown of Pine Gulch. So when she hears that her family's property, Christmas Ranch, is set to be shut down forever, a determined Hope heads home. She refuses to let the Grinch steal her holiday - this will be the most memorable ranch Christmas ever! And, thanks to hunky former navy SEAL Rafe Santiago and his adorable nephew, she might just pull off that miracle.

His Second-Chance Family by RaeAnne Thayne: Julia Blair is hoping for a fresh start. So when she sees an apartment-for-rent sign on Brambleberry House, she can’t help but feel that it’s a good omen. Having spent summers as a teen in a cottage near the rambling Victorian home, Julia easily pictures herself and her two children starting over in the one place that’s always felt welcoming to her. Katie’s Redemption by Patricia Davids: After two years away, Katie Lantz returns to her Amish community nine months pregnant - and unmarried.

Mareike Fallwickls neuer Roman über die Last, die auf den ­Frauen ­abgeladen wird, und das Aufbegehren: ­radikal, wachrüttelnd, empowernd. Helene, Mutter von drei Kindern, steht beim Abendessen auf, geht zum Balkon und stürzt sich ohne ein Wort in den Tod. Die Familie ist im Schockzustand. Plötzlich fehlt ihnen alles, was sie bisher zusammengehalten hat: Liebe, Fürsorge, Sicherheit. Helenes beste Freundin Sarah, die ­Helene ­ihrer Familie wegen zugleich beneidet und bemitleidet hat, wird in den Strudel der ­Trauer und des Chaos gezogen.

Her body used to work perfectly. For years, she tallied her orgasms, maintained a Top Humps list, and rated men on whether they excited her more mentally or physically—all with the purpose of finding the ideal love match. Now, as she moves into her thirties and is settled down with Serious Boyfriend Number Three, she’s run into a problem. Sex hurts. She can’t get wet. Her vagina, which has never led her astray before, suddenly seems like it might be broken.

The Fergusons make their home in a small California town where life is supposed to resemble paradise, but for 13-year-old Rosie, reality is a bit harsher. Her mother, a recovering alcoholic, is still beset by grief over the early death of her first husband. Rosie's stepfather is a struggling writer plagued by doubts and hilarious paranoia. And Rosie, aching in the bloom of young womanhood and obsessed with tournament tennis, finds that her athletic gifts now place her in peril, as a shadowy man who stalks her from the bleachers seems to be developing an obsession of his own.

Quinn Maguire has a stable life, a fiancé, and what she thinks is a clear vision for her future. All of that comes undone by her mother’s deathbed confession - the absentee father Quinn spent thirty years resenting is not her real father at all. With that one revealing whisper, Quinn embarks on a journey to Maui, her mother’s childhood home, a storied paradise that holds the truth about her mother’s past and all its secrets Quinn is determined to uncover.

New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award winning author Lisa Scottoline is loved by millions of readers for her suspenseful novels about family and justice. Scottoline delivers once again with Keep Quiet, an emotionally gripping and complex story about one man's split-second decision to...

While her humanitarian husband Liam has been digging wells in Africa, Mara Jacobs has been struggling. She knows she's supposed to feel a warm glow that her husband is nine time zones away, caring for widows and orphans. But the reality is that she is exhausted. Then Liam's three-year absence turns into something more, changing everything and plunging her into a sunless grief. As Mara struggles to find her footing, she discovers that even when hope is tenuous, faith is fragile, and the future is unknown, we can be sure we are not forgotten...or unloved.