A found family story is one where people who aren't related choose each other and become a family anyway. It's one of the most loved tropes in fiction because it promises something we all want: to be kept.
Here are six for adult readers, from cosy to life-or-death.
1. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
Six criminals and outcasts take on an impossible heist. They start as a crew and end as something closer to family, though none of them would say it out loud.
2. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
A young clerk joins the crew of a tunnelling spaceship and finds the warmest found family in science fiction. Low stakes, big heart.
3. The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
A rule-following caseworker is sent to inspect an island orphanage for magical children and slowly realises he doesn't want to leave.
4. The Last Lake of Ashen Stars by M.S. Elezzi
This one is mine, so read the description as the author's own. Under a dying sky, nine people flee a city that keeps them fed, watched and afraid. They cross the sea to a wild island and a crater lake that holds the stars. One of them is a half-drowned stranger with a flawless story, who begins to mean it. Then the company that poisoned their old world follows them.
At its heart is a hundred days of strangers building a home together on an island, and learning what they would risk for each other when the outside world arrives. Book One of the Ashen Stars Trilogy. Adult.
Read the first pages on Amazon
Why we love found family
Found family stories tell us that belonging can be built. You don't have to be born into it. For readers who've ever felt like outsiders, that may be the most hopeful idea in fiction.