Showing titles in Family Life

Our brains stay active for 10 minutes after our heart stops beating. For Leila, each minute brings with it a new memory: growing up with her father and his wives in a grand old house in a quiet Turkish town; watching the women gossip and wax their legs while the men went to mosque; sneaking cigarettes and Western magazines on her way home from school; running away to Istanbul to escape an unwelcome marriage; falling in love with a student who seeks shelter from a riot in the brothel where she works.

Anything Is Possible tells the story of the inhabitants of rural, dusty Amgash, Illinois, the hometown of Lucy Barton, a successful New York writer who finally returns, after 17 years of absence, to visit the siblings she left behind. Reverberating with the deep bonds of family and the hope that comes with reconciliation, Anything Is Possible again underscores Elizabeth Strout's place as one of America's most respected and cherished authors.

Years ago, Juliet left a little piece of her heart in Paris - and now, separated from her husband and with her children flying the nest, it's time to get it back! She puts on her best red lipstick, books a cosy attic apartment near Notre-Dame and takes the next train out of London. Arriving at the Gare du Nord, the memories come flooding back: bustling street cafés, cheap wine in candlelit bars and a handsome boy with glittering eyes. But Juliet has also been keeping a secret for over two decades - and she begins to realise it's impossible to move forwards without first looking back.

In a novel of extraordinary richness the whole sweep of British civilisation unfolds through the story of one place, Salisbury, from beyond recorded time to the present day. The landscape - as old as time itself - shapes the destinies of the five families....

Brisbane, 1975: Andie Tanner's world is small but whole. Her mum is complicated, but she adores her dad and the kennel of racing greyhounds that live under their house. Andie is a serious girl with plans: finish school with her friends, then apprentice to her father until she can become a greyhound trainer, with dogs of her very own. But real life rarely goes to plan, and the world is bigger and more complicated than Andie could imagine. When she loses everything she cares about - her family, her friends, the dogs - it's up to Andie to reclaim her future.

When the Templeton family from England takes up residence in a stately home in country Australia, they set the locals talking – and with good reason. From the outside, the seven Templetons seem so bohemian, peculiar even. No one is more intrigued by the family than their neighbours, single mother Nina Donovan and her young son Tom. Before long, the two families' lives become entwined in unexpected ways.

Café owner Frankie has been unlucky in love all her life. It's hard in a small town like Bunyip Bay to meet prospective partners. Her sister, Simone, lost the love of her life years before and is now devoted to raising their two teenage girls, leaving little time for romance. When Frankie is kissed by a handsome stranger who calls her Simone, it's a case of mistaken identity – but who is this man and how does he know Simone?

William Warwick is eight when he decides to join the police force. Resolute in the face of his prominent QC father’s objections, William graduates in Art History from university and immediately enrols as a constable in the Metropolitan Police. Gaining insight from his first mentor, an experienced, world-weary constable, his keen mind quickly takes him into a role in Scotland Yard’s Art and Antiques unit and his first case: the recovery of a Rembrandt stolen from the Fitzmolean Museum.

In a seaside suburb of NSW, housewife Theresa Howard takes up swimming. She wants to get fit; she also wants a few precious minutes to herself. So at sunrise each day she strikes out past the waves. From the same beach, the widowed Marie swims. With her husband gone, bathing is the one constant in her new life. After finding herself in a desperate situation, 26-year-old Leanne only has herself to rely on. She became a nurse to help others, even as she resists help herself. Elaine has recently moved from England.

Prickly. Stubborn. Terribly lonely. But everyone deserves a second chance. Missy Carmichael’s life has become small. Grieving for a family she has lost or lost touch with, she’s haunted by the echoes of her footsteps in her empty home; the sound of the radio in the dark; the tick-tick-tick of the watching clock. Spiky and defensive, Missy knows that her loneliness is all her own fault. She deserves no more than this; not after what she’s done. But a chance encounter in the park with two very different women opens the door to something new.

Jill, her three sons, their wives and children are driving in convoy on Christmas Eve. But something sinister is simmering behind their happy smiles. Mimi is struggling with her new twins, but at least a glass of wine smooths out life's jagged edges. Andrea's starting to wonder if her marriage is as happy as she'd thought. Darren is reeling from a surprise request and teenager Callie has become increasingly withdrawn.

Set against a background of political turbulence in Kerala, Southern India, The God of Small Things tells the story of twins Esthappen and Rahel. Amongst the vats of banana jam and heaps of peppercorns in their grandmother's factory, they try to craft a childhood for themselves amidst what constitutes their family - their lonely, lovely mother; their beloved uncle Chacko (pickle baron, radical Marxist and bottom pincher); and their avowed enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grand-aunt).

It’s 23 December 1971, and the Hildebrandts are at a crossroads. Fifteen-year-old Perry has resolved to be a better person and quit dealing drugs to seventh graders. His sister Becky, the once straight-laced high school social queen, has veered into counterculture, while at college, Clem is wrestling with a decision that might tear his family apart. As their parents–Russ, a suburban pastor, and Marion, his restless wife–tug against the bonds of a joyless marriage, Crossroads finds a family, and a nation, struggling to do the right thing.

On June 21st, the longest day of the year. You're home, alone, your baby is in nursery. Life finally feels calm again. And then you hear the breaking news alert - there's a siege taking place just down the road, and it's being live-streamed. Three hostages sit in three chairs, bags over their heads. Their shoulders are moving up and down, almost imperceptibly. Living, breathing, frightened people. And then you see the person who has taken them, who's standing in front of them, on camera, with a gun. It's your husband. Nobody knows it but you. What do you do?

When Kate was 22, she had an intense and passionate affair with a married man, Callum, which ended in heartbreak. Kate thought she'd never get over it. Seventeen years later, life has moved on - Kate, now a successful actress, is living in London, married to Matt and mother to little Tallulah. Meanwhile Callum and his wife, Belinda, are happy together, living in Edinburgh and watching their kids grow up. The past, it would seem, is well and truly behind them all....

Dakota Jones had a difficult upbringing, but he escaped to the military as soon as he could. Now, after several tours of duty he has finally been discharged. Refusing to return home, he arrives in Sullivan's Crossing, where his brother, Cal, and sister, Sierra, have found a home. Nestled at the crossroads of the Colorado and Continental Divide Trails, the area attracts those looking for answers or direction or a new lease on life. Dakota will come to terms with his less-than-perfect family and will plant the roots he's never had.

In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the "coolest girl in the world" moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all - beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn.

1959: Grace is a young mother with four children under four. All she ever wanted was to have a family of her own, but there are thoughts Grace cannot share with anyone in the months after childbirth. Instead she pours her deepest fears into the pages of a notebook, hiding them where she knows husband, Patrick, will never look. When Grace falls pregnant again, she turns to her sister, Maryanne, for help.

After being swept up in the magical world of Caraval, Donatella Dragna has finally escaped her father and saved her sister, Scarlett, from a disastrous arranged marriage. The girls should be celebrating, but Tella isn't yet free. She made a desperate bargain with a mysterious criminal, and what Tella owes him no one has ever been able to deliver: Caraval Master Legend's true name. The only chance of uncovering Legend's identity is to win Caraval, so Tella throws herself into the legendary competition once more.

Fred Scully waits at the arrival gate of an international airport, anxious to see his wife and daughter. After two years in Europe, they are finally settling down. He sees a new life before them, a stable outlook again, a fresh start, a cottage in the Irish countryside that he's renovated by hand. He's waited, sweated on this reunion. He does not like to be alone—he's that kind of man.The flight lands, the doors at the airport hiss open...Scully's life falls apart.