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Imagine a "Leave it to Beaver" in which June works as a grocery store clerk by day, a stand-up comic at night, and struggles to stay sober all the time. In addition, Ward likes to get high, Wally is gay, and Beaver is a heroin addict. That's Dina Kucera's life.

Called "the funniest book ever about addiction," Everything I Never Wanted to Be by Dina Kucera is the true story of a family's battle with alcohol and drugs. Dina's grandparents were alcoholics, her father was an alcoholic, she is an alcoholic and pill addict, and all three of her daughters struggle with alcohol and drug addiction--including her youngest daughter, who started using heroin at age fourteen.

Dina's household also includes her husband and his unemployed identical twin; a mother who has Parkinson's Disease; a grandson who has cerebral palsy; and other people who drift in and out of the household depending on their employment situation or rehab status.

On top of all that, Dina is trying to make it as a stand-up comic and author so she can quit her crummy job as a grocery store clerk. Through it all, Dina does her best to hold her family together, keep her faith, and maintain her sense of humor.

Any story filled with alcoholics and drug addicts is bound to include horrific events. But in the end, Everything I Never Wanted to Be is an uplifting story that contains valuable lessons for parents and teens alike, and a strong message about the need to address the epidemic of teen drug addiction in our nation. It's a book that can change behavior and save lives--and make you laugh along the way.

On a snowy Christmas morning, Holly Judge awakens with the fragments of a nightmare floating on the edge of her consciousness. Something followed them from Russia. Thirteen years ago, she and her husband Eric adopted baby Tatty, their pretty, black-haired Rapunzel, from the Pokrovka Orphanage #2. Now, at fifteen, Tatiana is more beautiful than ever—and disturbingly erratic.

As a blizzard rages outside, Holly and Tatiana are alone. With each passing hour, Tatiana’s mood darkens, and her behavior becomes increasingly frightening...until Holly finds she no longer recognizes her daughter.

A heartless judge appointed me to defend him. The hourly rate was a hundred bucks, about the same as a small-time prostitute's.

I disliked him as intensely as he disliked me. He'd lied to me dozens of times. He'd run me and my investigator all over east Tennessee following false leads and locating bogus witnesses. He whined constantly.