Family life fiction Books

An unforgettable story of outrunning poverty through the power of stories and imagination.In a neglected part of town beset with social problems, from unemployment and crime to inequalities of health and education, a twelve-year-old girl sees an...

Daniel Zimmer will do almost anything to end his pain-except for the one thing that might work.Growing up in 1970s Brooklyn under the shadow of his tyrannical father and against the backdrop of the Son of Sam murders, the Karen Ann Quinlan tragedy, and...

From the acclaimed storyteller, a propulsive tale of desire, betrayal, duty, and infidelity-and the explosive consequences of a buried passionThe newsman in Luke Blackburn shuns the spotlight when he and his old friend, now the county mayor in Key West,...

Spanning generations and crossing continents, this is the sweeping story of one American family facing ordinary challenges amidst extraordinary events. Through every trial, they are continually drawn back to a single location, Crystal Lake. This family...

From Jennifer duBois, 'one of a handful of living American novelists who can comprehend both the long arc of history and the minute details that animate it' (Karan Mahajan) and 'a writer of thrilling psychological...

A marvellous debut novel exploring the fractures caused by the Partition of India, as well as the legacy and contemporary parallels of sectarian violence around the world.Lahore, British India. 1943. As World War rages, resentment of colonial rule grows,...

Bad New Age mother seeks miracle cure in Germany but encounters her past with an aloe plant instead.A mother abandons her family in California to pursue a miracle cure in Munich. Once she gets there however, she wonders if she might have already died...

New York Times bestselling author Susan Isaacs returns to a pair of her readers' favorite characters, former FBI agent Corie Geller and her retired cop dad, who must solve one of the NYPD's coldest homicide cases-before the crime's sole survivor is...

A grieving Hector Peterson and his estranged father Winston Telemacque arrive on the lush island of Dominica in 2017 to spread his mother's ashes when Hurricane Maria strikes. Amid the devastation, the fragile peace between father and son is tested as...

Longlisted for the 2023 Republic of Consciousness US and Canada Prize An Oprah Daily Best Book of 2023 One of the Globe and Mail's Most Anticipated Titles of 2023 Listed in CBC Books Fiction to Read in Fall 2023 A 49th Shelf Fall Book To Put On Your List...

When the FBI can' t help, an unassuming banker takes matters into his own hands to bring his son homeWade, a respected banker in La Jolla, CA, and his estranged wife, Fiona, make the unbearable decision to send their teenage son, Myles, away to an...

Abandoned by her husband, marooned by an epic snowstorm, a mother gives birth to her third child. Her sense of entrapment turns into a desperate rage in this unblinking portrait of a woman whose powerlessness becomes lethal.Lojman tells, on its surface,...

Tulsi Gurung arrives in Pennsylvania on a day so impossiblydamp and gray he wonders if he's landed on the underside of the world. He issixteen and brimming with wonder and fear. Born and raised in Refugee CampGoldhap, Tulsi is technically a refugee from...

Winner of the Oregon Book Award for Fiction.Kesha Ajs-Fisher'sNo God Like the Mother follows characters in transition, through tribulation and hope. Set around the world--the bustling streets of Lagos, the arid gardens beside the Red Sea, an apartment in...

Onefateful encounter upends the lives of two women in this tensedomestic thriller, a modern spin on Alfred Hitchcock'sStrangers On A Trainthat flips the script on race and gender politics."I'm a big believer that women should help each other, Tasha," she...

For readers of Isabel Allende, Gabriela Garcia, and Julia Alvarez, the story of a woman who must fight for her love and her child in a Cuba suffocated by oppressionA free spirit who spends time near the port of Havana, where her friend Osiris is known as...

For readers of Marilynne Robinson, Elizabeth Strout, and Katie Kitamura, the indelible journey of a quiet young woman-the "silent person" in the Seder-finding her way. Hailed as "radiant and transporting" (Margot Livesey), The Promise of a Normal Life is...

The Pain Eater is the story of two brothers from Michigan reunited after the death of their father.They've never been close, but now they have to live together-and it gets more difficult when one discovers a strange creature, vomited from the body of a...

In his debut collection, Marston Hefner brings a unique voice and playful style to meditations on self-acceptance, the folly of youth, and how love can lead to actualization and destruction.Through moments of family intimacy, work presentations,...

How do you stay alive when everybody wants you dead? The Devil Hound, set in mid-eighteen century Europe and the Americas, as an evil priest dedicates his life to destroying two innocent Romani (Gypsy) brothers because of their ethnic origin and because...

A redemption story of family, faith, and forgiveness in small-town Louisiana.After a lifetime of abuse and loss, sixty-one-year-old Vernon Davidson is ready to get back at God, his coworkers, and everyone else in his northern Louisiana hometown. To numb...

A novel of one family, a century of war, and the promise of homecoming from Dayton Literary Peace Prize winner and National Book Award finalist Andrew KrivakRooted in the small, mountain town of Dardan, Pennsylvania, where patriarch Jozef Vinich settled...

The last place Angelina Moltisanti ever wants to go is home. She barely escaped life under the roof, and the thumb, of her violent but charismatic father, Jack. Yet home is exactly where she ends up after an SUV plows into her car just weeks after she...

2023 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award Long List2023 Book of the Year, Southern Literary ReviewNamed a 2023 Great Group read, Women's National Book AssociationA South Carolina family endures one life-shattering day in 1961 in a town that lies in the shadow...

There are not a plethora of novels set in Northeastern Arkansas and the bootheel of Missouri, but Pope's debut novel explores this beautiful and sparsely populated country, full of cotton fields and tiny towns-and is all the richer for the author's...

It's the late 1960s in McKinney, Texas. At the downtown theater and the local drive-in, movies-James Bond, My Fair Lady, Alfie, and Dr. Zhivago-feed the dreams and obsessions of a ten-year-old Clarke who loves Audrey, Elvis, his family, and the handsome...

A writer about to give birth investigates the story behind a mother she knows who has just killed her own twins.A mother kills her twins. Another woman, the narrator of this story, is about to give birth. She is a writer, and she realises that she knows...

Written by widely acclaimed author. Auur Jnsdttir has won the Icelandic Literary Prize, the Icelandic Women's Literature Prize, and others, in addition to being the granddaughter of perhaps the most famous Icelandic writer, Halldor Laxness. Hailed as...

A stunning novel about growing up in Russia on the brink of collapse, from the preeminent storyteller of his generation From the critically acclaimed author of Oblivion comes Year of the Comet, a story of a Russian boyhood and...

A pulpy tale of mismatched twins struggling to embody the perfect woman: "Effortlessly cool and slyly spiky, Despentes probes the dynamics of fame, beauty, and female competition, putting her finger on the pulse of what it's like to wear the daily drag...

"Intense and bravely uncompromising. An adult study of pain, thwarted affection, and guarded privacies in a world at the edge of violent public breakdown. An impressive achievement." -DAVID MALOUF, author of Ransom: A Novel and The Happy Life: The Search...

Think you know your neighbors? Think again.When actress Allison Langley leaves her former rockstar husband in the middle of the night, her sudden departure becomes the talk of upmarket Oak Hill. But the relentless gossip comes to an abrupt halt when...

A teacher asked me a question, and I opened my mouth as a sort of formality but closed it softly, knowing with perfect certainty that nothing would ever come out again.Ruby gives up talking at a young age. Her mother isn't always there to notice; she...

* At once a crime drama and a multigenerational family saga, KEEPING THE HOUSE is a debut that establishes Cin as one of the most exciting new writers to emerge in some time.* Tice Cin's prose is vivid and propulsive and fully immerses the reader into...

A love story in the slow lane, a road novel from Stoke-on-Trent to Wales, a stolen caravan, and a salesman who kidnaps the love of his life - this is a journey of self-discovery for an odd couple of 60-somethings: childhood sweethearts reunited in later...

When Wren Irving's numbers come up in the first ever national lottery draw, she doesn't tell her husband, Rob. Instead she quietly packs her bags, kisses her six-month-old daughter Phoebe goodbye, and leaves. Two decades later, Rob has moved on and found...

"Lara" is a powerful semi-autobiographical novel-in-verse based on Bernardine Evaristo's own childhood and family history. The eponymous Lara is a mixed-race girl raised in Woolwich, a white suburb of London, during the 60s and 70s. Her father, Taiwo, is...

CBC BOOKS WORKS OF CANADIAN FICTION TO READ IN THE FIRST HALF OF 202349th SHELF EDITORS' PICK FOR JUNE 2023 When a family is forced to return to the mother's childhood home, she seeks meaning in her ancestral roots and the violent beauty of the natural...

Callie Dressler thought she'd put her past where it belonged - behind her. But when her ex-boyfriend brings their breakup to the big screen, she can no longer deny that their history has been looming over her all along.At thirty-one, Callie Dressler is...

Never trust other people's memories, and watch out for your own He knows he wept, but he cannot recollect a single other detail. Tormented by the tragedy, Sean relives the horror over and over again. As he struggles to recall what really happened, his...

WINNER of the LEE SMITH NOVEL PRIZE"This sun-and-salt-kissed coming-of-age story reads like a wry, honest chat with a close friend." -Jaclyn Fulwood, Shelf AwarenessEvie Austin, native of Hatteras Island, North Carolina and baddest girl on the planet,...

This rich, raw and urgent debut novel is a domestic noir of sex and survival set in Trinidad's capital.Alethea Lopez is about to turn 40. A fashionable, mixed-race boutique manager who lives and works in Trinidad's capital city, Port of Spain, she is...

WINNER OF THE 2023 SCOTT MONCRIEFF PRIZESHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 WARWICK PRIZE FOR WOMEN IN TRANSLATION Is it possible to make your own path in the world while upholding your family legacy? That's the question at the heart of this tender and poignant...

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2023 One of CBC Books Best Books of 2023 100's Best Books of 2023 "To say Heighton is an immensely talented writer is true enough but insufficient ... As good a writer as Canada has ever produced." -National PostThe...

Winner of the 2023 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize An outrageously comic novel documents a middle-aged writer and mother's grappling with mid-life crisis-her husband's and her own.Preoccupied with her fledgling literary career, intent on the...

Finalist for the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for TranslationWinner of the 2022 VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres AwardRemnants is an exploration of our relationships with family and perception, told through a profound investigation of a...

Megan Chernoff is a talented but unemployed copywriter in an identity crisis after the birth of her second child. Seeking a fresh start, she and her family move to New York City, where she meets Daphne Cole - a gorgeous, stylish, well-known mom fluencer...

*A 2022 FOREWORD REVIEWS BOOK AWARD FINALIST*A new novel by the award-winning author ofUnder the Mercy Trees. Famed puppeteer and master manipulator Walter Gray surprises his three daughters by announcing there is a fourth at his 80th birthday party.An...