Family life fiction / Stories about family

Book SynopsisConnie and Eva are best friends but their families are the worst of enemies… During the VE Day celebrations, two women meet completely by chance. As Connie and Eva talk they discover they are from feuding families, the Maxwells and the Dixons. But when they both begin nurses’ training, they can’t deny their natural bond of friendship and become more like sisters. Their lives intertwine as Connie starts courting Eva’s brother, Roger, a bomb disposal expert. In her heart, Connie holds a torch for local artist and freespirit Eugene, but a dark memory from her past makes her wary of trusting any man. The two women are determined to uncover the secrets that have plagued them and kept the two families at war for so long. But can their friendship survive the shocking truth? A moving family drama for fans of Maureen Lee and Katie Flynn.Trade ReviewPraise for Pam Weaver: ‘A heartrending story about mothers and daughters’ Kitty Neale ‘What a terrific read – Saga fans everywhere will love it and be asking for more from this talented new author.’ Annie Groves ‘The characters are so richly drawn and authentic that they pull the reader along through the story effortlessly. This book is a real page turner, which I enjoyed very much.’ Anne Bennett

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Book SynopsisPerfect for fans of Maeve Binchy' – Candis If you had one wish this Christmas… Those Christmas Angels Anne Fletcher sends a heartfelt plea in the hope that someone is looking down on her this Christmas. One wish – for her son to be happy. She doesn’t expect to have her prayer answered by three mischievous angels! They’re about to do a little matchmaking on Anne’s behalf and make her Christmas wish come true. Where Angels Go The angels are on hand again for lovely Beth Fischer who, since her divorce, is looking for romance once more. At eighty-six, Harry has prayed for peace of mind and little Carter Jackson has just one Christmas wish. Angels Shirley, Goodness and Mercy will make miracles happen this Christmas… Make time for friends. Make time for Debbie Macomber.

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Book SynopsisPerfect for fans of Maeve Binchy' – Candis Raise a glass and toast the Manning family wedding! For a small fee, fifteen-year-old Carrie Weston wants Jason Manning to take her mother out on a date. A confirmed bachelor, Jason’s having none of it and neither it seems is Charlotte, Carrie’s mum, who’s mortified… Her resistance, however, suddenly makes it more of a challenge, one that Jason can’t resist… With a broken engagement to one of the Manning sisters behind him, James Wilkens heads for some Vegas sun…there he meets Summer Lawton. She’s on the rebound from a painful betrayal and James bets her that in a year she’ll be over it. To prove his point, he makes a date – same time next year – what will happen when they meet again? Make time for friends. Make time for Debbie Macomber.

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Book SynopsisLacey’s mother was shot twelve years ago. Her killer is about to be released on parole. Only Lacey’s statement can keep him in jail. Lacey is facing the biggest decision of her life. Then her best friend dies in a car crash, leaving behind a grieving eleven-year-old daughter in need of a mother – a role Lacey’s not sure she’s ready for. Two lives rest on Lacey’s choices. Two lives only she can save. Praise for Diane Chamberlain ‘Fans of Jodi Picoult will delight in this finely tuned family drama, with beautifully drawn characters and a string of twists that will keep you guessing right up to the end.' - Stylist ‘A marvellously gifted author. Every book she writes is a gem’ - Literary Times ’Essential reading for Jodi Picoult fans’ Daily Mail ’So full of unexpected twists you'll find yourself wanting to finish it in one sitting. Fans of Jodi Picoult's style will love how Diane Chamberlain writes.’ - Candis

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Book SynopsisPerfect for fans of Maeve Binchy' – Candis At Christmas miracles do happen Ten years ago, despite their mothers’ feud, Noelle McDowell and Thomas Sutton fell in love – and planned to elope – until Thom never showed up. This Christmas Noelle is home for the holidays… Will snowfall and Christmas cheer finally reconcile their families – and even bring Noelle and Thom a second chance at love? Practical Jenna Campbell is being impractical – she’s flying to Alaska to marry a man she’s never met! Until she sits next to Reid Jamison, who takes it upon himself to change all her plans. Now Jenna’s stranded in a tiny town alone with Reid. Maybe she’ll be a Christmas bride, after all! Make time for friends. Make time for Debbie Macomber.

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Book Synopsis ‘A page-turning whodunit.’ – Ruth Ware, bestselling author of The Woman in Cabin 10 She always trusted her husband. Until he died. Clara Solberg’s world shatters when her husband and four-year-old daughter are in a car crash, killing Nick while Maisie is remarkably unharmed. But when Maisie starts having nightmares, Clara becomes obsessed that Nick’s death was far more than just an accident. Who wanted Nick dead? And, more importantly, why? Clara will stop at nothing to find out the truth – even if it makes her question whether her entire marriage has been a lie…Trade Review‘Brilliant, intense, and utterly addictive. Be prepared to run a gauntlet of emotions!’ -B A Paris, bestselling author of Behind Closed Doors ‘With Every Last Lie, Mary Kubica spins an utterly mesmerising tale of marriage and secrets. Haunting, psychologically deft and full of hairpin turns… it’ll have you rapt until its final pages’ - Megan Abbott, author of You Will Know Me ‘Single White Female on steroids’ – Lisa Scottoline ‘Grabs you from the moment it starts’ – Daily Mail ‘Gets right under your skin and leaves its mark. A tremendous read’ – The Sun 'Sensational' – Metro 'Fans of GONE GIRL will embrace this' – Lisa Gardner ‘Memorable and riveting’ – Lovereading.co.uk ‘Stunning – Kubica is an author to watch.’ – We Love This Book

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Book SynopsisYou only have yourself to blame, you might say, but that’s not true. Some decisions take you down one path, and others another … It’s all about power. Resi is a writer in her mid-forties, married to Sven, a painter. They live, with their four children, in an apartment building in Berlin, where their lease is controlled by some of their closest friends. Those same friends live communally nearby, in a house they co-own and have built together. As the years have passed, Resi has watched her once-dear friends become more and more ensconced in the comforts and compromises of money, success, and the nuclear family. After Resi’s latest book openly criticises stereotypical family life and values, she receives a letter of eviction. Incensed by the true natures and hard realities she now sees so clearly, Resi sets out to describe the world as it really is for her fourteen-year-old daughter, Bea. Written with dark humour and clarifying rage, Anke Stelling’s novel is a ferocious and funny account of motherhood, parenthood, family, and friendship thrust into battle. Lively, rude, and wise, it throws down the gauntlet to those who fail to interrogate who they have become.Trade Review‘Stelling is brilliant on the quantum universe of parenting, the sheer unpredictability of it … The novel moves effortlessly between time periods in recent German history and builds up the composite picture of a generation that has too often seen many of its ideals disappear into trust funds … compelling.’ -- Michael Cronin * The Irish Times *‘A bitterly funny and honest examination of what it means to look at oneself in the mirror and what happens to relationships in the midst of a transforming society.’ * Happy Magazine *‘German author Anke Stelling makes her English language debut with a swingeing screed against the privilege and hypocrisy of those who sell their souls to get ahead … A merciless tirade of a novel about class, so energised by rage and wit it’s impossible to tear your eyes from the page.’ -- Cameron Woodhead * The Age *‘Stelling makes a blistering English-language debut with this incendiary screed about hypocrisy and privilege among a group of friends in Berlin... This biting class critique is hard to turn away from.’ * Publishers Weekly *‘It’s a fantastic translation, capturing Stelling’s candid, often ironic tone, as well as the narrator’s propensity for rhyme and wordplay. The book is very much embedded in the social landscape it’s set in, and so Jones’ decision to keep a flavour of the original German works particularly well.’ -- Annie Rutherford * Goethe Institute *‘Stelling is down-to-earth and quick with her criticism of the liberal elite … There is a deep satisfaction in watching [main character] Resi defy expectation and norm, frustrating those who wish she would just be thankful.’ -- Connor Harrison * Necessary Fiction *‘[A]n apologia pro vita mea… this sad, angry, and occasionally funny book works as a portrait of modern Germany and its social mores.’ -- Bethane Patrick * LitHub *‘This is an extremely funny book. All credit to translator Lucy Jones here, for the humour is largely in the writing, with rhythms, bathos and the subversion of expectations all delivering laughs. Stelling is an expert on the ways human beings deceive themselves and how we often betray these lies unconsciously … Higher Ground is a deftly structured, ingenious piece of fiction … The result is a hugely entertaining, satisfying and thought-provoking novel. A really wonderful read.’ -- Ann Morgan * A Year of Reading the World *‘Higher Ground is an absorbing novel that kept me interested from start to finish. Laced with dark humour, it’s very contemporary, skewering complacency and hypocrisy among the moneyed classes in Berlin … It’s often laugh-out-loud funny, and it’s often wise as well, even when she’s sending herself up.’ -- Lisa Hill * ANZ LitLovers *

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Book Synopsis'I absolutely adored this book' - Stephen KingMeet Mrs Planksy, supposed retiree, reckless motorbike rider and exasperated solver of international internet scams.Mrs Plansky's Revenge is bestselling author Spencer Quinn's first novel in a new series since the meteoric launch of Chet and Bernie -- introducing the irresistible and unforgettable Mrs Plansky, in a story perfect for book clubs and commercial fiction readers.Mrs Loretta Plansky, a widow in her seventies, is settling into retirement in Florida while dealing with her 98-year-old father and fielding requests for money from her beloved children and grandchildren. Thankfully, her new hip hasn’t changed her killer tennis game one bit.One night Mrs Plansky is startled awake by a phone call from a voice claiming to be her grandson Will, who needs ten thousand dollars to get out of a jam.By morning, Mrs Plansky has lost everything. Law enforcement announces that her life savings have vanished, and that it’s hopeless to find the scammers behind the heist. First humiliated, then furious, Loretta Plansky refuses to be just another victim.In a courageous bid for justice, Mrs Plansky follows her only clue on a whirlwind adventure to a small village in Romania to get her money and her dignity back — and perhaps find a new lease on life, too.Trade Review'If you like Sue Grafton and Janet Evanovich, hop on this train.''Terrific... Quinn radiates pure comedic genius.''I absolutely adored this book. Really fun but with a few teeth, as well. Mrs. Plansky is a terrific character. The story ticks along like a good watch.' -- Stephen King'Nothing short of masterful.''Mrs Plansky is a wonderfully memorable heroine, full of wit ... Readers will be eager to see what Mrs Plansky gets up to next.' * Publisher's Weekly *

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Book SynopsisThe Columbia space shuttle and its contents rain down on the people of Kiser, Texas, in Kathryn Schwille’s imaginative debut novel set six weeks before the invasion of Iraq. What Luck, This Life begins in the aftermath of the space shuttle’s break-up, as the people of Piney Woods watch their pastures swarm with searchers and reporters bluster at their doors. A shop owner defends herself against a sexual predator who is pushed to new boldness after he is disinvited to his family reunion. A closeted father facing a divorce that will leave his gifted boy adrift retrieves an astronaut’s remains. An engineer who dreams of orbiting earth joins a search for debris and instead uncovers an old neighbor’s buried longing. In a chorus of voices spanning places and years, What Luck, This Life explores the Columbia disaster’s surprising fallout for a town beset by the tensions of class, race, and missed opportunity. Evoking Sherwood Anderson’s classic Winesburg, Ohio and Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, the novel’s unforgettable characters struggle with family upheaval and mortality’s grip and a luminous book emerges—filled with heartache, beauty and warmth.Trade Review“A century after the publication of Winesburg, Ohio, Kathryn Schwille has created a similarly unexpected, and unexpectedly moving, portrait of a small town: this one in East Texas, in the wake of a tragedy. Her characters speak from the heart; their troubles and small triumphs speak to all of us.” * Andrea Barrett, author of Ship Fever and Archangel *"Kaleidoscopic and incredibly moving, What Luck, This Life is the story of a hardscrabble town and the people who call it home. This is a book full of heart and wisdom." * Thomas Pierce, author of The Afterlives *What Luck, This Life is an astonishing work of literary talent, surprising at every turn. The novel takes the catastrophe of a space shuttle blowing its fragments across the uninspired landscape of an East Texas town and in the search for remains uncovers a second set of catastrophes and secrets in the lives of the people on the ground. The characters are wild and desperate, but they are also us. For we are all cast out, looking for a return. From the tattered remains of disaster, Schwille creates a glimmering constellation of humanity, a flash of heavenly light. Just thinking about this book makes me feel more alive. * Elaine Neill Orr, author of Swimming Between Worlds *A modern day Winesburg, Ohio. * Kirkus *With this novel, Schwille has given us a landscape of longings, passions, and heartaches so real and deep we can almost walk around in it. The pieces of the Columbia fall on and bring into relief the whole rich array of lives and dramas that exist in Kiser, Texas--every one of them rendered with remarkable feeling. The result is a powerful portrait of Kiser and of the human condition. * Clare Beams, author of We Show What We Have Learned *

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Book SynopsisA magnificent generational saga that charts a family’s rise and fall, its secrets and inherited crimes, from one of Canada’s most acclaimed novelistsLonglisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize • “A rugged, riveting novel . . . This superb family saga will satisfy fans of Richard Powers’s The Overstory.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)“There are plenty of visionary moments laced into [Christie’s] shape-shifting narrative. . . . Greenwood penetrates to the core of things.”—The New York Times Book Review It’s 2038 and Jacinda (Jake) Greenwood is a storyteller and a liar, an overqualified tour guide babysitting ultra-rich vacationers in one of the world’s last remaining forests. It’s 2008 and Liam Greenwood is a carpenter, sprawled on his back after a workplace fall, calling out from the concrete floor of an empty mansion. It’s 1974 and Willow Greenwood is out of jail, free after being locked up for one of her endless series of environmental protests: attempts at atonement for the sins of her father’s once vast and violent timber empire. It’s 1934 and Everett Greenwood is alone, as usual, in his maple-syrup camp squat, when he hears the cries of an abandoned infant and gets tangled up in the web of a crime, secrets, and betrayal that will cling to his family for decades. And throughout, there are trees: a steady, silent pulse thrumming beneath Christie’s effortless sentences, working as a guiding metaphor for withering, weathering, and survival. A shining, intricate clockwork of a novel, Greenwood is a rain-soaked and sun-dappled story of the bonds and breaking points of money and love, wood, and blood—and the hopeful, impossible task of growing toward the light.Trade Review“Ingeniously structured and with prose as smooth as beech bark, Michael Christie’s Greenwood is as compulsive as it is profound. A sweeping intergenerational saga that explores trees and their roots—from the precious evergreens that become commodities in the entertainment business of the future to the intricately tangled trees of family—all of it is dazzlingly delivered in a framework inspired by the actual growth rings of a tree. Every one of Greenwood’s characters burrowed their way into my heart. Beguilingly brilliant, timely, and utterly engrossing, Greenwood is one of my favorite reads in recent memory.”—Kira Jane Buxton“Christie skillfully teases out the details in a page-turner of a saga that complements sylvan books such as Sometimes a Great Notion and The Overstory, one that closes with Jake’s realization that, tangled lineage and all, a family is less a tree than ‘a collection of individuals pooling their resources through intertwined roots.’ Beguilingly structured, elegantly written: ecoapocalyptic but with hope that somehow we’ll make it.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)“A rugged, riveting novel . . . This superb family saga will satisfy fans of Richard Powers’s The Overstory while offering a convincing vision of potential ecological destruction.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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Book SynopsisPublicada con gran éxito en Argentina en 2016, La uruguaya ha confirmado a Mairal como uno de los más destacados narradores de la literatura argentina contemporánea. Lucas Pereyra, un escritor recién entrado en la cuarentena, viaja de Buenos Aires a Montevideo para recoger un dinero que le han mandado desde el extranjero y que no puede recibir en su país debido a las restricciones cambiarias. Casado y con un hijo, no atraviesa su mejor momento, pero la perspectiva de pasar un día en otro país en compañía de una joven amiga es suficiente para animarle un poco. Una vez en Uruguay, las cosas no terminan de salir tal como las había planeado, así que a Lucas no le quedará más remedio que afrontar la realidad. Narrada con una brillante voz en primera persona, La uruguaya es una divertida novela sobre una crisis conyugal que nos habla también de cómo, en algún punto de nuestras vidas, debemos enfrentarnos a las promesas que nos hacemos y que no cumplimos, a las diferencias entre aquello que somos y aquello que nos gustaría ser.ENGLISH DESCRIPTIONFrom acclaimed Argentine author Pedro Mairal and Man Booker International-winning translator Jennifer Croft, the unforgettable story of two would-be lovers over the course of a single day. Lucas Pereyra, an unemployed writer in his forties, embarks on a day trip from Buenos Aires to Montevideo to pick up fifteen thousand dollars in cash. An advance due to him on his upcoming novel, the small fortune might mean the solution to his problems, most importantly the tension he has with his wife. While she spends her days at work and her nights out on the town-with a lover, perhaps, he doesn't know for sure-Lucas is stuck at home all day staring at the blank page, caring for his son Maiko and fantasizing about the one thing that keeps him going: the woman from Uruguay whom he met at a conference and has been longing to see ever since. But that woman, Magalí Guerra Zabala, is a free spirit with her own relationship troubles, and the day they spend together in this beautiful city on the beach winds up being nothing like Lucas predicted. The constantly surprising, moving story of this dramatically transformative day in their lives, The Woman from Uruguay is both a gripping narrative and a tender, thought-provoking exploration of the nature of relationships. An international bestseller published in fourteen countries, it is the masterpiece of one of the most original voices in Latin American literature today. “A perfect novel. A triumph from beginning to end. The novel's style, that carries the soft irony of a writer in command of his narrative voice, its extension, its verbal prowess, its impeccably paced rhythm and, of course, the theme: a marital crisis written from the perspective of an Argentine man in his mid forties who is facing an existential crisis.” ―El Pais (Spain) “[Pedro Mairal] displays his full talent in a wisely structured novel, outstanding in its narrative rhythm and in the twists and turns of the plot, where humor emerges at the same time a tragedy takes shape surrounding an enigma . . . A story about love and its imponderables.” ―Página 12 (Argentina) “I wasn't able to put the book down.” ―María Dueñas “A perfect novel.” ―Edmundo Paz Soldan “The loss and recovery of desire, the ambition of everlasting adventures, the earthquake of becoming a father, the flight forward . . . all these things occur in a single day (. . .), interwoven in the brilliant prose of Pedro Mairal, one of the best Latin American writers of our time.” ―Leila Guerriero

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