Six new paperback releases explore families and how they affect us.  Maybe you'll choose several of them to read and compare at your next book group get-together.
 
Publishers Weekly praises The Embers by Hyatt Bass as "a riveting narrative ... Bass's excavation of a complex familial labyrinth is an elegant testament to the beautiful mess that is family." The Aschers seem to have it all. Joe and Laura are the toast of New York, a wildly successful playwright and a wealthy, well-educated actress. Then one winter night, seventeen-year-old Thomas dies, and the Aschers lose everything. Ten years later, their daughter, Emily, is getting married, and the family must comes to terms with the guilt, the blame and past secrets that tore them apart. 
 
1-on-One with Hyatt Bass 
 
Hyatt Blogs about Writers & Readers 
 
An epic tale of intrigue, passion, and adventure, Heart of Lies by M. L. Malcolm heralds the arrival of a remarkable writer. Set in Europe, Shanghai, and New York before World War II and inspired by true events in the author's family's past, Heart of Lies tells the story of Leo Hoffman and his gift of languages that embroiled him in a international counterfeiting scheme. He must run with his lover, Martha, to Shanghai. Will Leo and everything he holds dear survive? Library Journal praises Heart of Lies as"a superbly crafted story, creatively capturing a slice of history with eloquence and realism." 
 
 Crossing Oceans by Gina Holmes is the unforgettable story of the power of love to change everything. Jenny Lucas swore she'd never go home again. But life and illness has a way of upending even the best-laid plans. Now, years after she left, she and her five-year-old daughter must return to her sleepy North Carolina town to face the ghosts she left behind. Sometimes love demands the impossible! 
 
It was bad enough that Rhoda's husband of fifteen years left her for Bob, a guy he met on Gay.com, but that same week a car accident left her injured. Rhoda returns to her quirky Mennonite family's home to pick up the pieces of her life. Written with wry humor and huge personality--and tackling faith, love, family, and aging--Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen is an immensely moving memoir of healing. 
 
In his acclaimed novels of Italian-American life, Peter Pezzelli explores themes of friendship, hope, and second chances. With Villa Mirabella, the author invites readers into the lives of an unforgettable family-and into the warmth of one very special bed and breakfast. After living and working in Los Angeles for three years, Jason returns home to Rhode Island to help run the family's bed and breakfast. Jason slowly begins to carve out a place for himself, rediscovering the people and places he was so eager to leave behind. Jason will learn that sometimes, you can go home again, and the answers found there may be the only ones you need. 
 
The delightful New York Times bestselling author, Mary Kay Andrews, returns with a hilarious novel about one woman's quest to redo an old house . . . and her life. Dempsey Jo Killebrew is left almost broke, unemployed, and homeless after a political scandal in The Fixer Upper.  Out of options, she reluctantly accepts her father's offer to help refurbish Birdsong, the old family place in Guthrie, Georgia. What started as a job of necessity somehow becomes a labor of love and, ultimately, a journey that takes her to a place she never expected-back home again.