Showing titles in Family Life

Every Kind of Wanting explores the complex intersection of three unique families. Miguel Guerra, who grew up in poverty in Venezuela before his family's relocation to Chicago, could not be more different from his partner Chad Merry, a happy-go-lucky real estate mogul from Chicago's wealthy North Shore. When Chad's sister, Gretchen - struggling with the deterioration of her marriage - offers the couple her eggs, they begin scrambling for a surrogate to carry the child, finally settling on Miguel's old friend Emily, happily married to an eccentric Irish playwright.

Jack Farley, at 21 years of age, thought his life should be a dream come true. But somewhere along the way he found himself lost and alone. So, in 1983, he finds himself at the crossroads, unsure of which path will lead him back to passion and fulfillment. He returns to home, to Dallas, to old loves that broke his heart. But every step along the way is filled with mishaps, new discoveries, and, if he's lucky, a chance to not only find love but also acceptance by his estranged father.

Born into an extraordinarily talented family, 29-year-old Michael Van Allen is the gay son of a well-known concert pianist and an equally famous painter. All his life he has yearned for the talent and creativity that should have been his birthright but have somehow been denied him. When he wakes up in a mental hospital, his memory gone, his former life erased, his doctor tells him of his screaming breakdown during one of his father's performances. This is the story of Michael's journey in search of his former self.

The world of this novel moves back in time as the layers are peeled away to reveal the truth about a long-ago family tragedy that impacts the characters' lives for years after. Beginning with a young college student haunted by her own choices and ending with the surprisingly serene image of an aging woman looking back on her turbulent life, the story encompasses a panorama of events set against the changing social backdrop of the middle years of the 20th century.

After twenty-three years of marriage to Zack Ronan - and after raising the widower's three kids - Chris finds himself facing an uncertain second act. Seeking refuge in North Carolina's Outer Banks, Chris has to come to terms with his own empty nest and challenge himself to move forward with a new relationship. This is a subtle depiction of the meaning of family and motherhood, and of the search for your true soul.

In The Boomerang Kid, Maura Ostryder is coming into her own, professionally and privately, as she begins her 51st year. Maura has always been the master of her own life and has reared her son, Kai (named for the Hawaiian word for sea) to be the same way. But now a grown Kai has come home, having fled emotional attachments to both a young man and a young woman, bringing with him his addiction to painkillers.

In The Beloved Son, one family must cope with life's ever-changing moments as two sons are faced with the issue of their aging parents. Karl Preston lives an ideal American life with his wife and daughter in an affluent North Carolina suburb. At his father's request, Karl travels to Florida for a weekend visit that starts a roller coaster of family drama and heartache. Not only does Karl have to deal with his gay brother Sven, who is the primary caretaker of their parents, he must also confront his mother's growing dementia.

In The Good Neighbor, Rory Fallon is walking his dog along the streets of the exclusive Venetian Vistas neighborhood when he notices activity at the house next door. New neighbors have arrived in the form of Austin and Meg Harden, along with their two children. Before long, the Hardens and Rory and his partner Bruno have formed a strange, sometimes symbiotic relationship, bringing up questions of love and marriage, trust and temptation.

It's September 1939, and suddenly everyone faces an uncertain future, especially the children who are evacuated from the East End of London to faraway Norfolk. Billy and Jeannie Curtis, two waifs who have had to raise themselves, are billeted in the sleepy village of Little Asham, but the evacuation is destined to have a profound effect upon both them and the troubled adults whose lives they change.

Told with the storytelling power and emotional fidelity of Wally Lamb, this is a searing drama of a modern American family on the brink of dissolution, one that explores adoption, gay marriage, and love lost and found. For years, Matthew Greene and Daniel Rosen have enjoyed a quiet domestic life...

All it took to destroy Andy Nocera's seemingly perfect life was an anonymous tryst at an Interstate rest area. Sentenced to probation and thrown out by his wife, he spends his week as a traveling salesman, and his weekends at his mother's house where no questions are asked - and no explanations are offered. To clear his record, the State of North Carolina requires Andy to complete one year of therapy without another arrest. He attends his sessions reluctantly at first, struggling to comprehend why he would risk everything.

In 2000, Douglas A. Martin burst onto the American literary scene with his sexy debut novel, Outline of My Lover. Following up with three more books, including Branwell, a novel of the Bront brother, Martin has established himself as an acclaimed and distinctive American writer of the new century. His semi-autobiographical novel Once You Go Back is about growing up in a strained working-class household transplanted to the South.

Nora and Fern's relationship as mother and daughter is a tumble of love and distrust. To Nora, her daughter is an enigma - at the same time wonderful and unfindable. Fern sees her mother as treacherous - for busting up their family to move in with her lover, Jeanne. As their lives become complicated by the arrivals of a skateboarding boyfriend for Fern, a shadowy affair for Nora, a baby in need of a family, and by the failing health of Lucky, their beloved dog, this mother and daughter find their way onto a fresh footing with each other.

From the author of the beloved novel Three Junes comes a rich and commanding story about the accidents, both grand and small, that determine our choices in love and marriage. Greenie Duquette, openhearted yet stubborn, devotes most of her passionate attention to her Greenwich Village bakery and...

"Ci sono loro, e ci saranno sempre. Una specie di famiglia. La chiamerei la famiglia X, come l'incognita di un'equazione, che non sai quanto vale finché non la risolvi. E io quanto vale l’ho capito eccome: infinito all’infinitesima potenza". Michael ha 13 anni e ama la matematica, per le sue regole chiare. Di chiaro c'è ben poco nella sua vita, in cui, dopo l'arresto dei suoi genitori, irrompono assistenti sociali, un'anziana signora, l'affascinante e ribelle figlia del sindaco e infine i suoi genitori affidatari, una coppia di papà.

Con reminiscencias tanto de Kipling como Melville y de la mejor literatura erótica, Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa regresa al continente africano en esta novela para contar la historia de una familia destrozada por el alcoholismo del padre, cuyos excesos empujan a la madre al lesbianismo y obliga a escapar a su hijo Jonathan. Pronto Jonathan se embarcará en un viaje en pos del mítico elefante Abdullah, un periplo que lo llevará al corazón de África para encontrarse a sí mismo.

Mit einer Pistole in den Händen und der Leiche des Vaters auf dem Rücken des Pferdes sind die chinesischen Waisenkinder Lucy und Sam auf der Flucht durch die Prärie. Es ist ein unbarmherziges Land, von Bisonknochen übersät und dem Goldrausch verfallen. Die Geschwister wollen den Vater gemäß dem chinesischen Ritual begraben - mit zwei Silberdollars auf den Augen. Nur auf diese Weise kann Ba nach Hause finden. Doch wo in dieser fremden Welt ist für Lucy und Sam das Zuhause, das so unerreichbar scheint wie das versprochene Gold in den Hügeln?

Satellite Street is woven through with the theme of transitions. Paul Marden is grappling with the way that a sudden, devastating illness and his slow recovery have made him reevaluate what "normal" is for a man in his 60s who grew up in a time of change that promised better days than the ones he is now living through. Another character's transition involves both gender and spirit; Lelee was born male and wanted to transition to female, but the process has been hindered by heart issues. Lelee also believes that she can speak to the dead, although she is skeptical.

Cynthia is 21, bored and desperately waiting for something big to happen. Unemployed and living with her father, her existence is self-absorbed yet meaningless; her days absorbed by reality TV, social media and an obsession with her striking fitness instructor Anahera. When Cynthia suggests they run away together, it’s not long before Anahera arrives at her door, ready to throw in the towel on her job and her marriage.

James Ramsay is twenty-one years old and he has just inherited a building in New York City. After the death of his estranged mother, he finds that he is now the owner of No. 1 Dutch Street - a five-story brownstone near the World Trade Center. As James takes up residence there, trying to figure out his next move, he gets to know the only other tenant: an elderly black woman named Nellydean. Under a mounting tide of taxes, James finds himself faced with a stark choice.