Seventeen years ago, 28-year-old Eloise Hempel left a promising career at Harvard to move to Cincinnati to raise her sister's three kids after the deaths of their parents. Now that they're adults, Eloise feels that it's her chance to sell the house they were raised in and reclaim the life she gave up. But it's not going to be that easy. The grown kids, especially the eldest, 28-year-old Theodora, want to keep the house (despite the fact that none of them can pay the bills), and Eloise's trouble-making mother (who long ago fled south) refuses to sign the house over for Eloise to sell. An observant story of family dynamics and the trials of reaching adulthood, The History of Us will appeal to fans of domestic fiction.

Fiction A to Z newsletter February 2013.