Family Drama Fiction

Celia Burrows thought she had it all - a handsome husband, two successful children, and a gorgeous beach house on the northern coast of Maine. But her perfect life cracks apart when her husband of 30 years informs her that he's leaving. In a note. And since problems come in threes, her adult children reveal they've both been struggling with issues of their own.

Meet eleven-year-old Dara Palmer. She loves dancing and dreams of being a world famous actress - which means she has to get the main part in the school play. When she doesn't get any part at all, Dara begins to wonder whether it's because of her looks rather than her acting skills. But Dara has big ideas - and is determined not to let prejudice stop her from being in the spotlight.

"I am always with you. I will always be here." This was the promise Ella’s mother betrayed thirty years ago when she walked into the sea, leaving her five-year-old daughter alone in the world. Ella’s been angry ever since, building up a wall to protect herself. But that all changes the day she opens a newspaper and finds those ten little words printed in a classified ad. Ella refuses to believe her mother could still be alive - that would mean she did want to live, just not with her daughter. So she throws herself into finding out exactly what happened all those years ago.

Cassidy can't wait to enrol at Dance and Drama Academy summer school! She's always dreamed of discovering her hidden talent - could she be a star in the making? But with auditions looming, Cassidy is gripped by stage fright. As big brother Liam keeps reminding her, she does have a knack for embarrassing herself. What if Cassidy's stage debut turns out to be an all-singing, all-dancing disaster?

Food stylist Sophie Crommelin has a beautiful life. Now that their two boys are grown up, she and her husband Matt—an acclaimed artist—are leaving London for a new start on England's fashionably boho south coast. But the day after the house is sold, a series of shocks leave Sophie reeling—and suddenly she's heading off to Hastings on her own.

The year is 1970. Emma Gable, a blind teenager coming of age in a small industrial town in Western New York, is about as far from the seismic cultural transformations rocking campuses and city streets across America as a person can get. Emma escapes the chaos of her dysfunctional family by dialing up random numbers on the phone in her bedroom, just to see who'll answer.

It's 16-year-old Edie who finds their mother, Marianne, dangling in the living room from an old jump rope, puddle of urine on the floor, barely alive. Upstairs, 14-year-old Mae had fallen into one of her trances, often a result of feeling too closely attuned to her mother's dark moods. After Marianne is unwillingly admitted to a mental hospital, Edie and Mae are forced to move from their childhood home in Louisiana to New York to live with their estranged father, Dennis, a former civil rights activist and literary figure on the other side of success.

Mary has raised a family in this house. Watched her children play and laugh and bicker in this house. Today she is getting married in this house, with all her family in attendance. The wedding celebrations have brought fractured family together for the first time in years: there's Phoebe and her husband Michael, children in tow. The young and sensitive Rosie, with her new partner. Irene, Mary's ex-mother-in-law. Even Emma, Mary's eldest, is back for the wedding - despite being at odds with everyone else.

Kenny Bond is finally out of prison after doing a long stretch for killing a copper and is determined to get back to life on the straight and narrow. Kenny’s son Donny might lack his father’s edge but his twin grandsons, Beau and Brett - well, they are Bonds through and through. Like him, they won’t let anyone stand in their way.

Sisters Cleo and Robyn may be close in age but their attitudes to life could not be further apart. While Cleo's a fully-fledged adult with a family, a business and a signature scent, Robyn is still waiting for the instruction manual to Adult Life and success is keeping her houseplant alive. Skating by at her job as an estate agent, she's adept at avoiding housework, ignoring admin, and evading her mother's anxious questions about her love life. But then Robyn's fired in the most publicly humiliating way imaginable - and her chaos catches up with her.

Fifteen years after graduating from Harvard, five close friends on the cusp of middle age are still pursuing an elusive happiness and wondering if they’ve wasted their youthful opportunities. Jules, already a famous actor when she arrived on campus, is changing in mysterious ways but won’t share what is haunting her. Mariam and Rowan, who married young, are struggling with the demands of family life and starting to regret prioritising meaning over wealth in their careers.

Seventeen-year-old Constance has had a privileged upbringing in Clapham, with staff to attend to her every need. But her parents have always been cold and distant, never showing her love.Craving affection, Constance falls into the arms of Albie Jones, the cook’s grandson. But one fateful encounter leaves her ashamed and pregnant, and she is soon shunned from the family home. Heartbroken and threatened by scandal, Constance is forced to wed Albie and moves to Battersea, where she suffers unforgiving stares and cruel whispers from the neighbours.

It’s the hottest day of the 1976 heatwave and there’s not a breath of fresh air in the labour ward at Lincoln County Hospital. Michelle is having her fourth child, a girl, while beloved husband Dean is sipping a cold pint in the pub. Their little house is already bursting at the seams, but Michelle is sure they’ll find a way to stretch their budget and continue life as a blissfully chaotic happy family. They name their new baby Donna.

When Lola moves from New York City to boring Dellwood - Deadwood - Falls she thinks her life is over. But she soon discovers a way to shake things up - and it involves taking on the high school's biggest bully, getting the lead in the school play, not to mention crashing a rock star's party!

Quinn Norton is starting over at a new high school and hopes that joining a D&D game will be the trick to making friends. The plan sounds even better when she’s invited into a group that includes Logan Weber, the cute and charming guy she met on her first day of class. But this isn’t your average D&D campaign—this group livestreams their games and enforces strict rules: no phones allowed, and no dating other group members.

These are the memoirs of ME, Holly Hopkinson, aged almost 10, except without any of the rubbish adults usually put in, thank you very much. My dad just lost his job, which means me and the rest of my family have to leave London and move to the middle of nowhere, which is a TOTAL DISASTER! There’s no Wi-Fi, the local kids are FERAL and there’s animal poo EVERYWHERE. But then for my birthday, my eccentric aunt gave me a magic pocket watch, which I can use to hypnotise and control people.

Breen Kelly had always been a rule follower. So when her father left when she was 12 years old, promising to return, she waited. Now, more than a decade later, she needs to move forward. She can wait no longer. A summer trip to Ireland seems like the perfect next step. She never dreamed it would lead her through a portal to another world.

One unbearable mistake at the edge of the forest. In a moment of crisis, Ellis Abbey leaves her daughter, Viola, unattended - for just a few minutes. But when she returns, Viola is gone. A breaking point in an already fractured marriage, Viola’s abduction causes Ellis to disappear as well - into grief, guilt, and addiction. Convinced she can only do more harm to her family, Ellis leaves her husband and young sons, burying her desperate ache for her children deeper with every step into the mountain wildernesses she treks alone.

Kathryn Brooker is the headmaster's wife. While her husband spends his days disciplining unruly teenagers in the grand halls of Mountbriers Academy, Kathryn spends hers baking scones for her son's cricket match in a beautiful cottage in the manicured school grounds. Anyone who peered through the downstairs sash window at the four figures sat easily around their scrubbed-pine kitchen table would see a happy family without a care in the world. They would envy Kathryn her perfect life. But they would be wrong. Kathryn is trapped in a nightmare.

My name is Harper Drew. I started this journal to write down all the mayhem happening with my friends and family. Is it just me or is it getting a whole lot more chaotic around here lately? My parents and my grandparents, Leslie and Weslie, have signed up for a TV house swap makeover challenge, and while my mum is decorating their house in calming tones, my grandparents have chosen leopard print wallpaper for ours...wait until mum sees it!