Showing results for "The Happy Family" in Coming of Age

Minnie and Bert are over the moon to have their three grown-up children home for the first time in a decade. But having Lizzie, Jess, Owen and the grandchildren under one roof isn’t without its dramas. Lizzie is off the alcohol (although emergency gin doesn’t count), Jess is juggling a toddler and a newborn, but it’s Owen who has the power to throw a grenade into everything.

Smarting from her recently cancelled wedding and about to turn 40, Laurie Sassalyn returns to her Maine hometown of Calcasset to handle the estate of her great-aunt Dot, a spirited adventurer who lived to be 93. Alongside boxes of Polaroids and pottery, a mysterious wooden duck shows up at the bottom of a cedar chest. Laurie's curiosity is piqued, especially after she finds a love letter to the never-married Dot that ends with the line "And anyway, if you're ever desperate, there are always ducks, darling".

Ottila McGregor is 30 years old and has decided it's time to sort her life out. She's going to quit drinking, stop cheating, and finally find true happiness. Easy, right? Of course not. For a start, there's Grace, her best friend, who believes self-improvement is for people in their 40s. Next there's Mina, her sister, who is mentally ill, and it might even be Ottila's fault. And then there's Thales, the Greek guy who works in the hospital cafeteria. He's probably the best, most dangerous person Ottila's ever met.

Asta Fung is sixteen and sulky. Her parents have moved the whole family to take over the Yau Sum takeaway in another town so Grandpa Charlie can be closer to the big hospital. She's had to give up her dog, her friends, her familiar teenage life. All too soon, she has to give up Grandpa Charlie too. What was the point? When the builder's son, Josh, hands her a bundle of love letters he found under the floorboards, Asta realises they were hidden there by Grandpa Charlie as a young man.