(Ecco Press)
Lillian and Madison first met at a fancy girls’ school; they had vastly different backgrounds yet they forged an unlikely bond that was severely tested right from the start. We meet them again about 10 years later when Madison, married to a senator from Tennessee, offers Lillian, holed up in her mother’s attic working two dead-end jobs, an interesting opportunity — to be governess to her two step-children, the senator’s from his first marriage. The twins, Bessie and Roland, are 10 years old and they have the unsettling ability to occasionally burst into flames. Lillian is installed in a meticulously designed safe house, very close to a pool, and she spends the summer learning how to care for these extraordinary children. The premise of this novel — an old friend is hired to watch over small children that spontaneously catch on fire — belies the great heart and humanity that courses through it. Each character comes alive on the page, and their relationships, how they interact and react, is honest and realistic. Combine that with page after page of remarkably original writing and fresh social commentary and you begin to have some idea of just how fantastic this book is. I loved it.
— Reviewed by Jenny Lyons of The Vermont Book Shop in Middlebury.
 

Nine funny family fiction books
This Is Where I Leave You, by Jonathan Tropper
Parakeet, by Marie-Helene Bertino
Fleishman Is in Trouble, by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Sweet Sorrow, by David Nicholls
My Sister, the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite
I Was Told It Would Get Easier, by Abbi Waxman
The Nix, by Nathan Hill
Mrs. Fletcher, by Tom Perrotta
How to Behave in a Crowd, by Camille Bordas