Difficult Family

Norah has agoraphobia and OCD. When groceries are left on the porch, she can't step out to get them. Struggling to snag the bags with a stick, she meets Luke. He's sweet and funny, and he just caught her fishing for groceries. Because of course he did. Norah can't leave the house, but can she let someone in? As their friendship grows deeper, Norah realizes Luke deserves a normal girl.

Hawthorn Creely doesn't fit in, and that was before she inserted herself into a missing persons investigation. She doesn't mean to interfere, but Lizzie's disappearance is the most fascinating mystery their town has ever had. And she's pretty sure Lizzie'll turn up at any moment, which means the time for speculation is now. So Hawthorn comes up with her own theory for Lizzie's disappearance. A theory way too absurd to take seriously at first.

Martin Conway comes from a family filled with heroes and disgraces. His grandfather was a statesman who worked at the US Embassy in London during WWII. His father is an alcoholic who left his family. His sister is an overachieving Ivy League graduate. And Martin? Martin is stuck in between—floundering. But during the summer after 7th grade, Martin meets a boy who will change his life forever. Jimmy Harker appears one night with a deceptively simple question: Will you help?

A long-ago “accident”. An isolated girl named Aviva. A community that wants to help but doesn’t know how. And a ghostly dybbuk that no one but Aviva can see, causing mayhem and mischief that everyone blames on her.

Seventeen-year-old Abby Turner's summer isn't going the way she'd planned. She has a not-so-secret but definitely unrequited crush on her best friend, Cooper. She hasn't been able to manage her mother's growing issues with anxiety. And now she's been rejected from an art show because her work "has no heart". So when she gets another opportunity to show her paintings, Abby isn't going to take any chances. Which is where the list comes in. Abby gives herself one month to do 10 things, ranging from face a fear (three) to learn a stranger's story (five) to fall in love (eight).

Now that Franny and her newly sober mom have moved to a cozy apartment above a laundromat, Franny’s looking forward to a life where her biggest excitement is getting top grades in math class. But when Franny’s mom gets injured in a car accident, their fragile life begins to crumble. There’s no way her mom can keep her job cleaning houses, which means she can’t pay the bills. Franny can’t forget what happened the last time her mom was hurt: the pills that were supposed to help became an addiction, until rehab brought them to Mimi’s laundromat and the support group she hosts.

Mann is only 13, yet he has already had to deal with more than most go through in a lifetime. His family is still reeling from the tragic shooting death of his little brother, Jason, each person coping with grief in his or her own way.

Amina has never been comfortable in the spotlight. She is happy just hanging out with her best friend, Soojin. Except now that she's in middle school everything feels different. Soojin is suddenly hanging out with Emily, one of the "cool" girls in the class, and even talking about changing her name to something more "American." Does Amina need to start changing too? Or hiding who she is to fit in? While Amina grapples with these questions, she is devastated when her local mosque is vandalized.

Laylee can barely remember the happier times before her beloved mother died. Before her father, driven by grief, lost his wits (and his way) and she was left as the sole remaining mordeshoor in the village of Whichwood, destined to spend her days scrubbing the skins and souls of the dead in preparation for the afterlife. It's become easy to forget and easier still to ignore not only her ever-increasing loneliness but the way her overworked hands are stiffening and turning silver, just like her hair.

Through their love for people, yet ignorance of the unknown, the Finch Family has joined alongside their church and opened their home to an African refugee family who are moving to Connecticut. The Amabo family of four Andre, Celestine, Mattu, and Alake: father, mother, and teenage son and daughter arrive in great hope as they have escaped the tyranny of Africa. What the Finch Family doesnt know is that there are not just four refugees in this Amabo family, but five.

When Jingwen moves to a new country, he feels like he's landed on Mars. School's torture, making friends is impossible without speaking English, and he's often stuck looking after his little brother, Yanghao. To distract himself, Jingwen daydreams about making all the cakes on the menu of Pie in the Sky, the bakery his father had planned to open before he suddenly passed away. The problem is his mother's major rule: The brothers aren't to use the oven when she's at work. As Jingwen and Yanghao bake elaborate cakes, they'll have to cook up elaborate excuses to keep the baking a secret.

Courtney Cooper and Jupiter Sanchez (Coop & Jupe!) have been next-door neighbors and best friends since they were seven years old. She's his partner in crime and other half. But lately, Cooper can't ignore he might want something more than friendship from Jupiter. When Rae Chin moves to town she can't believe how lucky she is to find Coop and Jupe. Being the new kid is usually synonymous with pariah, but around these two, she finally feels like she belongs. She's so grateful she wants to kiss him...and her.

When Nina Faye was 14, her mother told her there was no such thing as unconditional love. Nina believed her. Now, she'll do anything for the boy she loves to prove she's worthy of him. But when he breaks up with her, Nina is lost. What is she if not a girlfriend? What is she made of? Broken-hearted, Nina tries to figure out what the conditions of love are.

Since the day her mother died, Jem has known about the numbers. Numbers that pop into her head when she looks into someone’s eyes. They’re dates, the numbers. Dates predicting with brute accuracy each person’s death. Burdened by such grim knowledge, Jem avoids relationships. Until she meets Spider, another outsider, and takes a chance. Maybe they can find happiness together, if only in the brief time that remains before his expiration date.

On the eve of Kyle's sentencing a year after Jamie's death, all the other "chosen ones" are coping in various ways. But our tenacious narrator is full of anger, stuck somewhere between the horrifying past and the unknown future as she tries to piece together why she gets to live, while Jamie is dead. Now she finds herself drawn to Charlie, Jamie's boyfriend - knowing all the while that their relationship will always be haunted by what-ifs and why-nots. Is hope possible in the face of such violence? Is forgiveness? How do you go on living when you know it could have been you instead?

Wherever the sharks led, Lucy Everhart's marine-biologist mother was sure to follow. She was on a boat far off the coast of Massachusetts, collecting shark data when she died suddenly. Lucy was seven. Since then Lucy and her father have kept their heads above water - thanks in large part to a few close friends and neighbors. But June of her 12th summer brings more than the end of school and a heat wave to sleepy Rockport. On one steamy day, the tide brings a great white - and then another tragedy....

Seventeen-year-old Jonah Daniels has lived in Verona Cove, California, his whole life, and only one thing has ever changed: His father used to be alive, and now he is not. With a mother lost in a deep bout of depression, Jonah and his five siblings struggle to keep up their home and the restaurant their dad left behind. But at the start of summer, a second change rolls in: Vivi Alexander, the new girl in town.

Some girls call their mother their best friend. Marisol Martin? She could never relate. She and her mom were forever locked in an argument with no beginning and no end. Clothes, church, boys, no matter the topic, Marisol always felt like there was an unbridgeable gap between them that they were perpetually shouting across, one that she longed to close. But when her mother dies suddenly, Marisol is left with no one to fight against, haunted by all the things that she both said and didn’t say.

For Lena, the upcoming year is going to be epic—one of opportunities and chances. Until one choice, one moment, destroys everything. Now Lena isn't looking forward to tomorrow. Not when friend time may never be the same. Not when college applications feel all but impossible. Not when Sebastian might never forgive her for what happened. For what she let happen. With the guilt growing each day, Lena knows that her only hope is to move on. But how can she move on when her and her friends' entire existences have been redefined? How can she move on when tomorrow isn't even guaranteed?

Meet Robbie, someone who’s lived a hard knock life until the day he met Donna, his adoptive mother. She set him up in life, but she kept a lot of secrets from him . . . to her deathbed. Meet Damian, someone who’s had it a lot easier overall, but made some costly mistakes along the way. His parents are alive, but have removed themselves from his life. It’s almost as if they’re saying, what goes around comes around. But everyone else has forgiven him. Meet a town with some quirky ideas that’s determined to love, support, and welcome all. Its name is Summer Breeze, an old lumber town...