Family Humor

At thirty-nine, Leona Accorsi is broke, single, back in school, and living in her sister Carly's basement. She's perfectly content being quirky Auntie Lee to Carly's four children. That is, until Leona's doctor tells her that if she wants to have a child, she'd better do it now. Leona does want a baby. She always has, but the circumstances have never been right. Now she has a huge decision to make: face motherhood on her own or risk missing out on its rewards.

Squashed among a bus full of strangers, mother-daughter duo Jessica and Emily Burnstein watch their carefully mapped-out college tour devolve into a series of off-roading misadventures, from the USA Today best-selling author of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill.

The wackiest road trip in history continues in book four of the New York Times best-selling Genius Files series, following twins Coke and Pepsi as they dodge villains and visit weird-but-true landmarks from Texas all the way to Roswell, New Mexico. With the real-kid humor that has earned him millions of fans around the world, and featuring all-new weird-but-true locations around America, From Texas with Love is absolutely batty!

Just when Joey Pigza's wired world finally seems to be under control, his good-for-nothing dad pops back into his life. This time, though, Carter Pigza is a new man - literally. After a lucky lotto win, he has a crazy new outlook on life, and he's even changed his name to Charles Heinz. He thinks Joey and his mom should become new people, too. Soon Joey finds himself bombarded with changes, including a new name, a new home, and a new family business: running the beat-up Beehive Diner.

When friends turn to lovers, the temperature’s going to soar… Tasha Wilde has spotted the perfect site for the chocolate and coffee shop she’s planning to run with her best friend, Maisey, in Doubtless Bay, New Zealand. The only trouble is that Maisey’s gorgeous brother, Kole, also wants the shop for his photography business. Their friends are convinced that Tasha and Kole have feelings for one another, so they invent a game – the two of them must do their best to get the other to admit they’re in love. They have eight days. The winner gets the shop. Both think their attraction ...

Andy Carter was happy. He had a solid job. He ran 5Ks for charity. He was living a nice, safe Midwestern existence. And then his wife left him for a handsome paramedic down the street. We're All Damaged begins after Andy has lost his job, ruined his best friend's wedding, and moved to New York City, where he lives in a tiny apartment with an angry cat named Jeter that isn't technically his. But before long he needs to go back to Omaha to say good-bye to his dying grandfather.

On the eve of Keith Jefferson’s retirement, Aliens invade the Earth with one demand, that they be worshipped. Keith worshipped no one. And having lost his pension and other financial instruments when the banks and other financial institutions exploiting the invasion kept everyone’s assets because they could, Keith vowed revenge and became a one-man resistance movement in a world that complacently accepted the alien leaders as, just some other people they didn’t vote for who now were in charge.

Author of over 80 books for children, Jonathan London has received numerous awards, including IRA and Children’s Book Council selections for his Froggy series. In Froggy’s Best Babysitter, Froggy’s parents are out for the night, and have left him with a brand-new babysitter. Froggy tries to make her job easy by feeding his little sister dinner and giving himself a bath - but Froggy has a way of causing mischief no matter how simple the task.

It’s been thirteen years since doctors declared Libby Ross-Velasquez a goner. Yet here she is - cancer-free. So why doesn’t she feel more alive? Sure, Libby’s husband, Shiloh, has been distant. One of their daughters has a serious health condition. And her father’s death hovers over Libby like a rain cloud. Still, this eternal optimist knows she’s the winner of the existential lottery. But when her forced cheer isn’t enough to keep her family from catching her blahs, she decides to fly them all to Vieques. The Puerto Rican island is where she and Shiloh fell in love.

On the Ides of March, our hero, Raleigh Whittier Hayes (forgetful husband, baffled father, prosperous insurance agent, and leading citizen of Thermopylae, North Carolina), learns that his father has discharged himself from the hospital, taken all his money out of the bank and, with a young Black female mental patient, vanished in a yellow Cadillac convertible. Left behind is a mysterious list of seven outrageous tasks that Raleigh must perform in order to rescue his father and his inheritance.

Author Coleen Murtagh Paratore gives fairytale love stories a modern gloss through the eyes of 12-year-old cherry-cordial eater and classic-literature reader Willafred Haversham. What Willa wishes for most in the world is a father, but so far no luck. When she and her wedding planner mother, Stella, move back home to Cape Cod, Willa’s luck begins to change. With help from her best friend Tina and candy-making Nana, Willa decides wishing for a father isn’t enough - it’s time to take action.

Ramble Book is about parenthood, boarding-school trauma, arguing with your partner, bad parties, confrontations on trains, friendship, wanting to fit in, growing up in the '80s, dead dads, teenage sexual anxiety, failed artistic endeavours, being a David Bowie fan and how everything you read, watch and listen to as a child forms a part of the adult you become. It’s also an audiobook about the joys of going off topic and letting your mind wander. And it’s about a short, hairy, frequently confused man called Adam Buxton.

Tracy Flick is a hardworking assistant principal at a public high school in suburban New Jersey. Still ambitious but feeling a little stuck and underappreciated in midlife, Tracy gets a jolt of good news when the longtime principal, Jack Weede, abruptly announces his retirement, creating a rare opportunity for Tracy to ascend to the top job. Energized by the prospect of her long-overdue promotion, Tracy throws herself into her work with renewed zeal, determined to prove her worth to the students, faculty, and School Board, while also managing her personal life.

Back When We Were Grownups is about one woman's search for who she really is. Listen as a 53-year-old grandmother tries to recover her girlhood self and that dignified grownup she had once been.

Lord Fredrick Ashton may not feel ready to be a father, but with a little Ashton on the way he's sure about one thing: The wolfish curse on his family must end soon, before the child is born. Penelope willingly takes on the challenge; when Lady Constance's doctor prescribes a seaside holiday, Penelope jumps at the chance to take the three Incorrigible children to Brighton, where she hopes to persuade the old sailor Pudge to reveal what he knows about the Ashton curse.

Cedar Grove is abuzz with excitement as the Halloween Festival draws near, but for Lila Harrington, owner of the Harrington Inn, the holiday takes a chilling turn. Strange creaks echo from the empty upper floors, shadowy figures flit through the halls, and a mysterious history of tragic lovers haunts the property. When one of her guests is found dead under suspicious circumstances, Lila’s unease turns to determination. With her best friend Jane by her side and her clever beagle Barkley sniffing out clues, Lila dives into a mystery that blurs the lines between the supernatural and the all-...

Maddie, Avery, and Nikki first got to know one another - perhaps all too well - while desperately restoring a beachfront mansion to its former grandeur. Their latest project has presented some challenges they couldn't have dreamed up in their wildest fantasies - although the house does belong to a man who actually was Maddie's wildest fantasy once.

Lucy and Owen, ambitious, thoroughly-therapized New Yorkers, have taken the plunge, trading in their crazy life in a cramped apartment for Beekman, a bucolic Hudson Valley exurb. They've got a 200-year-old house, an autistic son obsessed with the Titanic, and 17 chickens, at last count. It's the kind of paradise where stay-at-home moms team up to cook the school's "hot lunch", dads grill grass-fed burgers, and, as Lucy observes, "chopping kale has become a certain kind of American housewife's version of chopping wood".

Holiday Recipe for Madcap Merrymaking in Jackrabbit Junction: Start with a bawdy night sprinkled with tinsel tassels and jingle balls, toss in a missing pair of underwear, and top it all off with plenty of sugary shenanigans. Serve with a side of naughty and nice. Claire Morgan and her sisters are a tad twitchy. Their father is on his way for their first Christmas in Arizona, but the tidings of joy are few and far between. For one thing, their mother is pissed about her ex-husband flying in to play Santa. For another, their mother is just pissed. Period.

Edgewood Rectory may be set in an ancient landscape, but the Grantly family are very much of their time. Caught up in the uncertain world that has emerged since the outbreak of peace, the Rector and Mrs Grantly are bewildered by the challenges facing their eldest children: Eleanor, longing for more excitement than can be found in the Red Cross Library; and Tom, struggling to readjust to student life at Oxford after his military service.