Family Humor

Seit sie Rentnerin ist, hat Monika Renner viel zu viel Zeit. Zeit zum Nachdenken über Vincenzo, ihre große Liebe von einst, und seinen plötzlichen Tod. Da erreicht Moni eine Nachricht von Lena, einer jungen Deutschen, die in Italien lebt. Von ihr erfährt sie Unglaubliches: Vincenzo ist gar nicht tot, sondern lebt als Orangenbauer auf Sizilien. Wie kann das sein? Moni ist empört und reist mit ihrem Enkel Jan nach Palermo. Gemeinsam mit Lena versuchen sie, Vincenzo zu finden. Monis Suche ruft aber nicht nur die Behörden, sondern auch windige Mafiosi auf den Plan.

Executive, wife, and mother of an outgoing first-grader, Sydney Clayton crushes her day-to-day obligations at work but flounders in the cutthroat world of parental politics. She manages to avoid the local drama until she’s faced with an ultimatum: join the Forest River PTA or risk her daughter becoming a social outcast. Sydney reluctantly becomes treasurer and takes the recently vacated position of the president’s sidekick. If that isn’t complicated enough, Sydney and her husband receive an unexpected offer for their house they don’t think they can refuse.

Trautes Heim - Glück allein! Das denken sich Herbert und Anja und beschließen, gemeinsam mit Sohn Oskar den Traum vom eigenen Haus zu verwirklichen. Der kleine Stammhalter soll wohl behütet im sicheren Garten spielen und nicht zwischen den Autos mitten in München. Als das passende Objekt gefunden ist, krempeln Herbert und sein bester Kumpel Hans die Ärmel hoch. Doch schon bald entwickeln sich die kleineren Umbauarbeiten zur gefühlten Lebensaufgabe. Dass der Elektriker selbst am meisten überrascht ist, wenn das Licht brennt, schafft nicht unbedingt Vertrauen.

Fifteen linked stories chart a true course through the lives of families, farmers, loggers, former classmates, and the occasional stripper. In the richly imagined town of Renata, Oregon, a man watches his neighbor's big-screen TV through binoculars, an errant son paints himself silver, mysterious electrical humming emanates from an enormous barn. In A Simplified Map of the Real World, intimate boundaries are loosened by history - and high above the strife and the hope and the often hilarious, geese seek the perfect tailwind. Stevan Allred's stunning debut deftly navigates the stubborn geography of the human heart.

Ten years ago, Bruno Tannenbaum was a passionate food journalist with a respected newspaper column, a popular segment on the evening news, and a bestselling guide to relationships through food. These days, Bruno is a passionate "has-been" living on his mother's couch, separated from his wife and daughters, eating his way through an ever-dwindling bank account, faced with the gnawing doubt that he'll never be the writer he once was.

Aristotle "Aris" Thibodeau is 12 and a half years old and destined for greatness. Ever since her father's death, however, she's been stuck in the small town of Kanuga, Georgia, where she has to manage her mother Diane's floundering love life and dubious commitment to her job as an English professor, not to mention coparenting a little brother who hogs all the therapy money. Luckily Aris has a plan. Following the advice laid out in Write a Novel in Thirty Days!, she sets out to pen a best seller using her charmingly dysfunctional family as material.

At thirty-nine, Leona Accorsi is broke, single, back in school, and living in her sister Carly's basement. She's perfectly content being quirky Auntie Lee to Carly's four children. That is, until Leona's doctor tells her that if she wants to have a child, she'd better do it now. Leona does want a baby. She always has, but the circumstances have never been right. Now she has a huge decision to make: face motherhood on her own or risk missing out on its rewards.

A small town girl from the Midwest is carried away by her "Prince Charming" to the super charged canyons of modern New York City. Warned by her uptight advertising executive husband to beware of strangers, the newlywed cannot repress her small town upbringing and instinctive innocence. She eventually befriends many of the offbeat and quirky tenants in her apartment building and enters into their complicated and sometimes tragic lives.

Florence Saint Claire is a loner. Albert Flowers is a social butterfly. Good friends who think they know each other. But, somewhere between who they are and who people think they are, lies The Best Kind of Beautiful. Award-winning journalist and author Frances Whiting brings her renowned warmth and empathy to this witty and gentle story about bringing out the best in each other.

What happens when the world’s greatest literary icon dies before she finishes the final book in her best-selling series? And what happens when she leaves that book in the hands of her unstable, neurotic daughter, who swears she’s not a real writer? Sara Grayson is a 32-year-old greeting card writer about to land the toughest assignment of her life. Three weeks after the death of her mother - a world-famous suspense novelist - Sara learns that her mother’s dying wish is for her to write the final book in her best-selling series.

After 20 years of teaching, steady, reliable Professor Sterling flips out in front of her literature class. Time for a change? Definitely! So when her dad starts cancer treatment, Alene has to brave-up to break out of her routine life. She flies to Colorado to buy cannabis where it is legal, and sneak it home to Texas, where it is not. Arriving at the height of the Green Rush, Alene discovers the glitzy world of pot dispensaries below the gritty streets of downtown Denver.

The puppy started it. The poor thing was cold and trembling, abandoned on their front doorstep. Dash, impulsive as always, decides on the spot that they should keep it. But her husband, Andrew, thinks it's the craziest thing he's ever heard. A fight over a scruffy little dog doesn't seem like much of a reason to walk out on your husband of 20 years - but the spat over the puppy is just the last of many straws.

Aaron Tucker, aspiring New Jersey screenwriter and occasional freelance journalist, puts on his sleuthing hat after a young man with Asperger's syndrome is arrested for a senseless murder. Despite damning evidence, including the accused's confession and possession of the murder weapon, Tucker, who has an autistic son, finds the nature of the crime incompatible with his understanding of the suspect's symptoms. Persisting even after a local mobster warns him off, the amateur detective uses his son to pursue the truth.

The holidays are coming, and a plan to build a mini-mall has some residents in a tizzy. It'll take some shrewd negotiating and a little help from the Big Guy upstairs for Dorothy to set this one right.

Jimmy Smith runs like the wind, sings like an angel, and wears a gas mask in his father's Valiant. He knows the winner of every Melbourne Cup, eats Choo Choo Bars and tends to his ant farm. Jimmy lives with his extended family in the country village of Point Henry. It's 1969. Neil Armstrong has just landed on the moon and the Vietnam War is raging on television sets across the world. But Jimmy is concerned with matters closer to home...the city people are coming, bringing their pole houses and cul-de-sacs with them.

Forty-six-year-old divorcée Christine is finally happy - or so she thinks. She has an amazing boyfriend but she also has a drama-filled family she fears might scare him off. And when Christine spies her dependable Aunt Inge in the company of a man who is most certainly not her husband, it sends the family drama into overdrive - and delivers an unexpected wake-up call to Christine. Because after witnessing the newfound passion with which 60-something Inge is tackling each day, Christine becomes aware of the mounting frustrations in her supposedly fabulous life. Sick and tired of playing it safe, Christine finally decides the time has come to make some big changes.

Sammy Sullivan is working his way down the ladder of success. Divorced and pushing fifty, his relationships have the longevity of a fruit fly. But how many men can get themselves fired and have their only son expelled from prep school all in one day? Now, after almost eighteen years, he and Jake may finally get to know each other. (That's if his ex-wife - the super-achiever Sammy can only dream of being - doesn't find out.) Jake knows virtually nothing about his roots. So, Sammy shows him the old neighborhood in the far reaches of Queens.

Danny Johnson, a writer whose career never materialized, moves with his wife and children to Cascade Falls, a water-filled golf community in the bone-dry desert outside of Phoenix. Grudgingly going to work for his father Ted, the Elmer Gantry of home development, Danny's quest for stability ultimately comes up short. His marriage begins to fray and the housing market goes bust, forcing him and those around him to examine their lives anew.

Morgan and Devon Gregson Bennett are an interracial creative power couple living happily enough in Brooklyn until a freak accident leaves a little girl orphaned in Los Angeles. Setting aside reservations about the price motherhood will exact on their marriage and careers, Morgan and Devon agree to adopt Vabeh, a bi-racial ethnic-hair-products heiress. Vabeh touches down in New York, wearing last season’s fur and on a mission to quickly distinguish herself from the other bold-faced names at her new school, the tony School for Spoiled Kids.

Acclaimed author Lance Rubin makes his middle grade debut with a hilariously terrifying, terrifyingly hilarious story of a boy who gets more than he bargained for when he creates an A.I. best friend. Zed Moonstein is terrible at making friends. For the most part, though, that’s not such a...