Thirty-six-year-old biology teacher Gal Garner's regimented life will never be the same after her estranged sister's teenage daughter Riley arrives one afternoon unannounced.

After she discovers her sister Tanya dead on the floor of her fashionable New York City townhouse, Letty Carnahan is certain she knows who did it: Tanya's ex; sleazy real estate entrepreneur Evan Wingfield. Even in the grip of grief and panic Letty heeds her late sister's warnings: "If anything bad happens to me--it's Evan. Promise me you'll take Maya and run. Promise me." So Letty grabs her sister's Mercedes and hits the road with her wailing four-year-old...

When Truman sends away the coupon for an ant farm given as a birthday gift by his Aunt Fran, he gets more than he bargained for when aunts start showing up and he must train them all.

Sometimes a family's deepest silences hide the most important secrets. For Mina, a London-based travel writer, the enigmatic silence surrounding her aunt Carmela has become a personal obsession. Carmela disappeared from her Italian hometown long ago and is mentioned only in fragments and whispers. Mina has resisted prying, respectful of her family's Sardinian reserve. But now, with her mother battling cancer, it's time to learn the truth.

Judy's big plans for the summer seem ruined when two of her best friends go away, and then her parents leave her and Stink with Aunt Opal, but a new "thrill-a-delic" plan has her racing toward fun.

Neela's aged aunt helps her to deal with her feelings of jealousy and self-destructiveness when her idyllic summer with boy friend Nick is spoiled when he gets a day job and acquires a female singer for his band.

Stunned by news of her sister's and her brother-in-law's deaths Sarah Cain journeys to Lancaster County to claim her five orphaned nieces and nephews, who have been brought up as member of the Amish community, and finds her life irrevocably altered by her encounter with the Plain people of the region.

In an old toy store near his great-aunt's home, twelve-year-old Evan buys a dusty can of Monster Blood he thinks will be fun to play with.

"Paige Watts is the ultimate stage mother. The daughter of Hollywood royalty, Paige channels her own acting dreams into making her daughter, Emma, a star. By the age of nine, Emma is playing a central role in a hit TV show. Then everything is shattered by unforeseeable tragedy. Now Emma is living with her aunt Whitney, who had chosen a very different path than her sister. Whitney was always the studious older sister, hating the cult of celebrity that...

While brainstorming ideas to improve his aunt's boring children's book, twelve-year-old Alex recruits his friends to act out new scenes that will make the plot more exciting--and dangerous.