The Awkward Age

　　兩個互看不順眼的人擦出火花，竟會讓一個平凡的家庭，正面遭遇這混亂又複雜的不平凡選擇題。



　　五年前丈夫死於癌症之後，茱莉亞就一人獨力扶養女兒關長大。不可預期地，茱莉亞愛上她的鋼琴課學生：婦產科醫師詹姆士，隨後詹姆士就帶著17歲的兒子內森一起搬進茱莉亞的家。



　　關與內森，這兩個正值叛逆期的青少年，都對這個新家感到不滿。關無法接受母親不以她為重心，內森則是還在為父母親離婚這件事感到掙扎，兩個孩子也憎恨彼此。不過意外的是，經過一段時間相處，關與內森發現對方並不像自己想像中的那麼糟糕，在這個新組成的家裡，一段意想不到的戀愛關係正逐漸開始萌芽、發展。但他倆的關係曝光之後，不只茱莉亞與詹姆士感到惱怒，年僅16歲的關懷孕這件事，更讓這個家庭陷入一場風暴……。(文/博客來編譯)

　　A wry, tender novel about an ordinary family facing extraordinary choices.



　　Julia Alden has fallen deeply, unexpectedly in love. American obstetrician James is everything she didn’t know she wanted--if only her teenage daughter, Gwen, didn’t hate him so much. Uniting two households is never easy, but when Gwen turns for comfort to James’s seventeen-year-old son, Nathan, the consequences will test her mother’s loyalty and threaten all their fragile new happiness.



　　This is a moving and powerful novel about the modern family: about starting over; about love, guilt, and generosity; about building something beautiful amid the mess and complexity of what came before. It is a story about standing by the ones we love, even while they make mistakes. We would give anything to make our children happy. But how much should they ask?

Francesca Segal is an award-winning writer and journalist. Her first novel, The Innocents, won the Costa First Novel Award, the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction, the Sami Rohr Prize, and a Betty Trask Award, and was long-listed for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize).