The Family Department

Eleven-year-old Clara Bennett has a theory: families don't fall apart because people stop loving each other. They fall apart because people stop talking. Armed with handwritten letters, questionable plans, and an unshakable belief that every broken relationship can be repaired, Clara establishes the Family Department, a secret matchmaking service dedicated to bringing estranged families back together. From lonely neighbors and feuding siblings to a widowed father who has forgotten how to live and a little boy who refuses to speak about his mother, Clara takes on every case with the confidence of someone who has never paid a mortgage or experienced adult heartbreak. But when an old photograph reveals a woman her family has spent years pretending never existed, Clara's greatest case becomes her own. As she digs into the past, buried secrets begin to surface, old wounds reopen, and the adults she has been trying to reunite are forced to confront truths they would rather leave forgotten. With a guarded single mother, a grieving father, two children determined to fix what they don't fully understand, and a romance neither adult expected, Clara is about to discover that love isn't always enough to keep a family together. Sometimes, the truth tears everything apart before it can make anything whole. And sometimes, the smallest person in the room is the only one brave enough to ask the question that changes everything. Because families aren't always the people we're born into. Sometimes, they're the people we choose to find again.

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