Family Sold Separately

Book excerpt: From internationally bestselling author Kate Long, a perceptive, vivid, and painfully funny novel about family ties and growing up On the eve of her eighteenth birthday, Katherine wants only three things: a smidge of social grace, the body of Courteney Cox, and two parents. What she has instead is an almost complete lack of friends, a pudgy figure, and one extremely eccentric, nearly blind grandmother named Poll. Since Katherine’s father died and her mother disappeared, Poll is her only family. And not only does Poll buy all of Katherine’s clothes, but she forbids her to leave the house unless it’s absolutely necessary. Would a chance to go to Oxford count? But the bigger question is: How can she abandon her grandma? Just when Katherine has resigned herself to a lifetime of watching daytime television, sparring with Poll, and visiting the town library for “fun,” along comes a handsome, magnetic young man named Collum, who claims to be Katherine’s long-lost cousin. But as Katherine is about to learn, when it comes to family, things aren’t always as they seem. Praise for Kate Long’s The Bad Mother’s Handbook “Kate Long manages to brilliantly balance equal parts heartbreak and hilarity in a novel that you will love unconditionally.” –Sarah Bird, author of The Flamenco Academy “There is a lovely sweetness to this heartbreaking/heartwarming story.” –The Seattle Times “Funny, touching and utterly winning.” –Publishers Weekly