One Big Happy Family is an entertainingly chaotic family Christmas house party--sure to make any reader feel better about their own unruly holiday gatherings. With the Parker family, author Susan Mallery (The Happiness Plan; Sisters by Choice) creates a delightful group of quirky characters.
Fifty-four-year-old Julie Parker, the Parker matriarch and owner of Parker Towing, adores her adult children, Nick and Dana. She's just as glad that they agreed not to have a big celebration this Christmas, however, since she is excited to be spending the holiday with her new beau, Heath, who is 12 years younger than her. But then Nick and Dana decide that they want to get together after all, to honor their father--Julie's ex-husband--who died 11 months ago. Julie doesn't want to cancel on Heath, which means Dana, Nick, and Nick's wife, Blair, are going to meet the boyfriend they don't know about. Thanks to several funny coincidences and unforeseen circumstances, the house party balloons even further to encompass a dozen people, including Blair's crabby mother, Heath's young kids, and more.
Full of love, laughter, and broken limbs, One Big Happy Family is a true-to-life novel of messy family. Nick and Dana have each been keeping things from Julie, just like she has been hiding Heath from them, and the final revelation of all their secrets, amid cookies and mistletoe, sweetens the story. It turns out that, in spite of their squabbles over the Christmas tree and reluctance to share hard truths, the Parkers really are one big happy family. --Jessica Howard, freelance book reviewer and former bookseller