Family Life Fiction

All Betty Widdershins wants is an adventure - one that takes her far away from Crowstone, the gloomy island where she's always lived. But instead of an adventure, Betty and her sisters, Fliss and Charlie, are given of a set of magical objects, each with its own powers: a scruffy carpet bag, a set of wooden nesting dolls, and a gilt-framed mirror. And these magical objects come with their own terrible secret: The sisters' family is haunted by a generations-long curse that prevents them from ever leaving their island - at the cost of death.

Magic is fading from the Wild Wood. To renew it, goblins must perform an ancient ritual involving the rarest of their kind - a newborn changeling. But when the fateful night arrives to trade a human baby for a goblin one, something goes terribly wrong. After laying the changeling in a human infant's crib, the goblin Kull is briefly distracted from his task. By the time he turns back, the changeling has already perfectly mimicked the human child. Too perfectly: Kull cannot tell them apart. Not knowing which to bring back, he leaves both babies behind.

Since emigrating from Bangladesh, 14-year-old Nadira and her family have been living in New York City on expired visas, hoping to realize their dream of becoming legal U.S. citizens. But after 9/11, everything changes. Suddenly being Muslim means you are dangerous - a suspected terrorist. When Nadira's father is arrested and detained at the U.S.-Canadian border, Nadira and her older sister, Aisha, are told to carry on as if everything is the same. The teachers at Flushing High don't ask any questions, but Aisha falls apart....

Achim is 11 years old when he moves from the orphanage to the house by the sea. Here everything is strange and new. But one day he discovers an unusual door that leads to a circular room with walls made of rough stone. The light coming through the window is hazy, as if the room is under water. It is a magic room - which he calls “The Adopted Room” - belonging to another world. And on a bed in the room sits a boy who is waiting to take Achim with him into the realm of the powerful Nameless One.

Frances is finally about to see her dreams realized as Marcus finally returns from the war. But the threat of her father-in-law and a much-changed Marcus, leave Frances in a perilous situation. Emily’s lie has trapped her in a new future. She lives in a big house and has a job she loves. But it could all come tumbling down around her if her shocking secret is ever revealed? Alice believes Daniel will return home to her, but if he does, will he be the same man he was if he does survive?

Nestled into the cliffs in southern Italy's Amalfi coast, Positano is an artist's vision, with rows of brightly hued houses perched above the sea and picturesque staircases meandering up and down the hillside. Santina, still a striking woman despite old age and the illness that saps her last strength, is spending her final days at her home, Villa San Vito. The magnificent 18th-century palazzo is very different from the tiny house in which she grew up. And as she decides its fate, she must confront the choices that led her here so long ago.

For most girls, sleepaway camp is great fun. But for Amy Becker, it's a nightmare. Amy, whose home life is in turmoil, is sent to Camp Takawanda for Girls for the first time as a teenager. Although Amy swears she hates her German-immigrant mother, who is unduly harsh with Amy's autistic younger brother, Amy is less than thrilled about going to camp. At Takawanda she is subjected to a humiliating "initiation" and relentless bullying by the ringleader of the senior campers.

In 1979, Vincent Bianco has just graduated high school. His only desire: collect a little beer money and enjoy his final summer before college. So he lands a job as a laborer on a construction crew. Working alongside two Vietnam vets, one suffering from PTSD, Vincent gets the education of a lifetime. Now forty years later, with his own son leaving for college, the lessons of that summer - Vincent’s last taste of innocence and first taste of real life - dramatically unfold in a novel about breaking away, shaping a life, and seeking one’s own destiny.

All her life Barrie Watson has been a virtual prisoner in the house where she lived with her shut-in mother. When her mother dies, Barrie promises to put some mileage on her stiletto heels. But she finds a new kind of prison at her aunt's South Carolina plantation instead - a prison guarded by an ancient spirit who long ago cursed one of the three founding families of Watson Island and gave the others magical gifts that became compulsions.

Flo lives an eccentric life - she travels with a popular circus in which the main acts star orphaned children with secret shape-shifting abilities. Once Flo turns 16, she must perform, but she's not ready. While practicing jumping a flaming hurdle in a clearing beside the circus, she spots a dark figure in the trees and fears he saw her shift. The news sends the circus into a panic.

Même les familles parfaites ont leurs secrets. La famille Bird vit dans une jolie maison des Cornouailles, un décor de carte postale. Elle y coule des jours heureux. La mère hippie, le père bon vivant et leurs quatre adorables enfants sont décidés à faire de chaque instant de leur vie un éclat de joie. Jusqu’à ce qu’un certain dimanche de Pâques, la tragédie s’invite sous leur toit, dans les combles de leur grenier. Ce choc dévastateur déchire peu à peu les Bird, rongés par leurs secrets et les non-dits. Les années passent, et les enfants quittent le nid. Soudain, la famille n’existe plus.

Diane a toujours eu des rêves simples. Un mari, deux enfants, un métier qui lui plaît, c'est plus que ce qu'elle osait espérer. Le jour où Seb la quitte, son monde vacille. Absorbée par sa peine, elle ne voit pas que le drame se joue ailleurs. Tout près d'elle, dans cette chambre qui fait face à la sienne, les rires de sa fille s'épuisent. Lou a seize ans, le mal de grandir, et son premier chagrin d'amour lui arrache plus que des larmes. Quand Diane comprend, elle est prête à tout pour l'aider. Y compris à retourner vers un passé qu'elle avait fui.

Conor and Grace are twins, recently orphaned after their widowed father's death. They decide to set sail for new pastures in their father's last possession, his sailboat. But a vicious storm capsizes their boat, and the twins are separated. Two mysterious ships sail to their rescue, each picking up one twin before disappearing into the mist. Conor wakes to find himself on a pirate ship; Grace finds herself locked in a darkened room, as the vampirates wait for night to fall and their feasting to begin.

"Bien sûr que j’accepte d’être le tuteur de vos filles !" avait dit le duc de Holbrook au vicomte de Brydone. Or, ce dernier décède peu après, laissant le duc responsable de quatre Ecossaises désargentées. Lui qui s’attendait à des fillettes constate, médusé, qu’il s’agit de quatre belles jeunes filles. Désormais, il va falloir les marier et le duc est vite dépassé. Aussi la raisonnable Tess Essex décide-t-elle de se dévouer. En tant qu’aînée, c’est à elle de donner l’exemple et d’épouser le comte de Mayne, qui lui fait l’honneur de demander sa main.

The Vanderbeekers are looking forward to the wedding of two of their favorite people! But when one of the siblings receives a dire diagnosis, instead of preparing for a celebration, the family is suddenly spending their time at the hospital. And soon they are helping a newly made and critically ill friend, even as they struggle with how their own lives have turned upside down.

For Sierra Jones, Sullivan's Crossing is meant to be a brief stopover. She's put her troubled past behind her, but the path forward isn't yet clear. A visit with her brother, Cal, and his new bride, Maggie, seems to be the best option to help her get back on her feet. Not wanting to burden or depend on anyone, Sierra is surprised to find the Crossing offers so much more than a place to rest her head. Cal and Maggie welcome her into their lives, and she quickly finds herself bonding with Sully, the campground owner.

As the Great War continues to take its toll, headstrong 21-year-old Emily Bryce is determined to contribute to the war effort. She is convinced by a cheeky and handsome Australian pilot that she can do more, and it is not long before she falls in love with him and accepts his proposal of marriage. When he is sent back to the front, Emily volunteers as a “land girl,” tending to the neglected grounds of a large Devonshire estate. It’s here that Emily discovers the long-forgotten journals of a medicine woman who devoted her life to her herbal garden.

Since time immemorial, the Haddesley family has tended the cranberry bog. In exchange, the bog sustains them. The staunch seasons of their lives are governed by a strict covenant that is renewed each generation with the ritual sacrifice of their patriarch, and in return, the bog produces a “bog-wife.” Brought to life from vegetation, this woman is meant to carry on the family line. But when the bog fails—or refuses—to honor the bargain, the Haddesleys, a group of discordant siblings still grieving the mother who mysteriously disappeared years earlier, face an unknown future.

Mia Tang is at the top of her game! She's spending winter break with Mom, Lupe, Jason, and Hank in San Francisco's Chinatown! Rich with history and hilarious aunties and uncles, it's the place to find a great story-one she hopes to publish while attending journalism camp at the Tribune. But this trip has as many bumps as the hills of San Francisco . . .

This stunning debut - like The Lovely Bones - is a child's story narrated from the afterlife, and an emotional fable about love, forgiveness, and what most makes us human. With prose that is rich in emotion - from laughter to tears to outrage to joyful relief - and an eloquence that distills poetry from the language of medicine and the words for ordinary things, Raoul Wientzen has delivered a novel of rare beauty that speaks to subjects as profound as faith, what makes us human, and the value of a life.