Happy Family Day!

In Ontario, Canada we have three holidays that we celebrate in February: Valentine’s Day and Groundhog Day, and “Family Day”. Since 2008, the third Monday in February is Family Day. It was created to give another holiday in February, but also to celebrate families. While I don’t typically do anything out of the ordinary on that day, I thought that for this newsletter, I would forego focusing on the other two more well-known holidays and make “family” the theme of this month’s newsletter.

My day job is working in a law firm and two of our major areas of law are “Family Law” (divorce/custody) and Estate Law. Both involve families at their worst moments, and as an assistant, it’s my job to help my lawyer guide these people through these difficult times. I have learned that people will fight both tooth and nail for and against their own families. It has made me appreciate my own family in all its imperfections.

I grew up in a what would appear on the surface to be a traditional nuclear family - two kids, a boy and a girl, two parents, and a dog. However, my father has two kids from his previous marriage who live across the country. Today, I live with my husband and two cats. We are childless by choice and happy. I bring this up because families come in a variety of sizes and shapes. In my extended family gatherings, we have people who aren’t really related to us, but we have adopted. In university, my friends who lived too far to go to their own homes on holidays were always welcome. Sometimes, not everyone gets along, but I’m lucky to have a big family I can turn to if I need to.

For this month’s recommendations, I’ll be suggesting shows/books that are about families of some sort - for better or for worse!

But First a Writing Update

This month has been busy! Each week since January 12, I’ve been producing a new short horror story for the Fright Club course I am taking, and it has been a bit daunting. Keeping up with the word count (about 2000 per week) is not the issue. The part I’m struggling with is coming up with a new plot and set of characters each week. It’s definitely pushing me creatively in a new way. This is not a complaint. This is why I took the course to grow stronger in my craft.

And on that note, I have decided to take another course later this year. I have signed up for Crystal Lake’s 2025 Author’s Journey, which is a novella writing course. I have had a novella idea bouncing around my head for a while now and this seemed like the push I need to get it done. It will be another new challenge for me: writing a novella with the help of editors and ongoing feedback. I’m a bit nervous, but also excited.

Monthly Posts and Reviews Round-Up

For reviews this month, I only posted on my own site, and inadvertently all my reviews are science fiction. First, a partial series review of Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin trilogy from my archives, a look at the unusual Attack of the 50 ft Trans Woman, and finally, the unsettling Cold Eternity by S. A. Barnes.

I also announced my status as an official influencer for the Small Spec Book Awards, and continued my now-annual tradition of looking at who sold the most books each year for Horror Tree.

Family-Focused Recommendations

TV Shows

Lately, and not because of this theme, I’ve been rewatching Parenthood on Netflix. I watched some of it when it was new, but didn’t finish it. It’s about a multi-generational family of two parents, four siblings, and their children. It follows them as they navigate the complications of life and family. At times the show can be frustrating, like a real family, but I enjoy how they are all there for each other and the variety of characters.

Two of my favourite shows are about two different kinds of families. Gilmore Girls is about Lorelai and her daughter, Rory, as they navigate life and reconnect with Lorelai’s estranged parents. The family dynamics in this show often get messy, but they all love each other and want what they think is best, even if the others don’t agree. The other show is Grey’s Anatomy, which is about found family. The doctors and interns do everything together and will often put each other above their own biological families.

For a less functional family, I suggest The Umbrella Academy, a series that ended last year. It’s about a group of adopted siblings, each with a unique power, who were childhood superhero stars, but became estranged from each other. They have to reunite to save the world (multiple times) and deal with their baggage.

Books

Good thing the shows I watch feature loving/happy families, because when I looked back at the books I read, I couldn’t find many happy families. So instead, here are a couple of books where the idea is central, but maybe not in a good way.

Aggie Blum Thompson’s Such a Lovely Family is about a family that seems perfect on the outside, but on the inside is anything but. When a party ends in murder, all of the family’s secrets start to come out. I previously reviewed this one for The Horror Tree.

Another book about family I reviewed for Horror Tree was Winter Harvest by Ionna Papadopoulou, a retelling of the Persephone myth from the POV of Demeter. This is a fantastic, rage-filled retelling about the lengths a mother will go to for her daughter.

Do you have any favourite books with happier families to recommend?

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