Maddie Dawson writes a charming story about family in her new novel, The Survivor's Guide to Family Happiness. Readers are transported back and forth between a mother who gave up her baby for adoption and that daughter's eventual journey to know the story of her life.

It's 1979 and 17-year-old Phoebe Mullen is desperate. Her parents are dead and she lives with her newly married sister in a house that clearly sits on the wrong side of the tracks from her rich boyfriend Tilton O'Malley.

Phoebe had Tilton's baby two years ago and now they are expecting another child. His mother wants her son to go off to college and pretend all is right with the world.