The intersection of religion and science is crooked if not actually broken. In a way, this book tries to make that intersection whole and seamless. And the result is magnificent.

This is a short but monumental novel that has so much depth, so many profound thoughts, and a message so intricate and intense that I think I could read it over and over and still find something new in it each time.

Written by Yaa Gyasi, this is the story of Gifty, a brilliant 28-year-old woman—Harvard undergrad, Stanford PhD in neuroscience—who is deeply plagued by the death of her beloved brother, Nana, from an OxyContin addiction and overdose. Gifty was born in Huntsville, Alabama, but her parents and brother are immigrants from Ghana. The story begins when Gifty is a graduate student at Stanford, but seamlessly bounces around in time from her childhood and teen years in Alabama, college at Harvard, and back to the present in San Francisco. Gifty's suicidal mother shows up at her San Francisco apartment nearly comatose from grief—even though this is years after Nana's death. As Gifty valiantly tries to care for her clinically depressed mother, she struggles with the big questions of life, especially those revolving around her evangelical Christian upbringing and how God does—or doesn't—fit into the life of a neuroscientist who is researching the brain-based science of addiction.

This is a profound, elegiac examination of the human spirit after it has been crushed by grief and a powerful statement about the ravages of opioids. While parts of the book are absolutely heartbreaking, the ultimate message of hope and love is transcendent.

This book is bizarre. No, really (really!) bizarre. Each sentence is a little word explosion, a mind-boggling and manic amalgam of letters and punctuation that continue and continue one after another to form a book—a wildly bizarre, but incredibly creative, book.

Is it good? Yeah. Sort of. It's long. And breathless. And almost giddy. If a book could break into uncontrollable giggles, this one just might do that. So even though it is highly imaginative and even innovative, all of this makes reading it a bit exhausting at times. It's almost too much. Hence, four stars and not five.

Written by Pulitzer Prize finalist Chang-rae Lee, this is the convoluted story of 20-year-old Tiller Bardmon, an average guy in every sense of the word—from looks to accomplishments. He has finished his sophomore year at a small, elite college and is spending the summer at home in Dunbar, New Jersey, a Princeton stand-in, before his junior year abroad. While caddying for the first time ever, he meets Pong Lou, and Tiller's life changes practically overnight. Cue the bizarre. Because what happens to Tiller over the next few months is so unbelievable it's preposterous. But wait! Back up! There are two plotlines in the book, and one of them begins on the first page with what happens to Tiller after his adventures with Pong Lou. Tiller (still 20 years old) is living with an older woman named Val and her obese 8-year-old son Victor Jr. Val and Victor Jr. are in the witness protection program after Val squealed on her now dead (but then alive and very crooked) husband to the FBI. Whew. Did you follow all that? Never mind. Reading the book is better than a plot summary anyway.

This is a story about the American dream, about integrating with other cultures, about finding balance and love and goodness in life, about unexpected adventures, about sharing the riches, about the inherent dangers in cheating and dishonesty, and about growing up in a tough world.

While most of the plot is implausible, just run with it. Embrace those little word explosion sentences, and see where they lead.

Bonus: Chapter nine tells the story—through the adult recollections of then-five-year-old Pong Lou—of the beginning of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution in 1966. It is a harrowing and unrelenting account that offered me a whole new appreciation for the violence, degradation, and absolute societal upheaval that accompanied this movement.

This is a silly little love story, and sometimes a silly little love story is just the ticket! If you're looking for a distraction from the so-called real world, check out this quick-to-read ChickLit novel by Phaedra Patrick.

In the British town of Upchester, there are a lot of romantic souls. In tribute to the local boy band's international hit song, "Lock Me Up with Your Love," lovers begin putting padlocks, many of which are engraved with initials or messages, on the town's four bridges. But the cumulative weight of the padlocks could seriously damage the bridges, and it's Mitchell Fisher's job to remove them. As he is doing just that one early summer day, he sees a beautiful woman in a yellow dress attach a heart-shaped padlock to the bridge and then with a smile on her face, fall into the raging waters below. Mitchell jumps in after her to try to save her. He succeeds, but then she seemingly disappears. Mitchell becomes a hero, but he doesn't feel like one. He's a curmudgeonly young man, whose life partner died three years ago and left him with their nine-year-old daughter, Poppy. As he and the missing woman's vivacious and flashy sister try to solve the mystery of her disappearance based only on the clue of the heart-shaped padlock, Mitchell learns a lot about himself and the meaning of love.

Bonus: This novel is also a tribute to the lost art of handwritten letters. You know, the kind that need paper, pen, envelopes, and stamps.

Sappy in parts and mildly profound in others, this is a sweet, feel-good book to be read quickly and thoroughly enjoyed, but don't expect it to haunt your thoughts for long. It's not that profound.

Elin Hilderbrand is known as the "Queen of Beach Reads," so I had certain expectations—as in, light, frothy, ChickLitty—for this first book I have read by her. Well, that was wrong!

While this is a wonderful novel for summer reading, it is really a magnificent, intelligent blend of historical fiction and a beach book. It's a beach book with brains!

This is the story of the (very) privileged Nichols-Foley-Levin family of Brookline, Massachusetts, who have spent their summers for generations on the tony Massachusetts island of Nantucket. The novel focuses on four of the women in what is a larger cast of characters: 48-year-old mother Kate Levin, 24-year-old daughter Blair Foley Whalen, 21-year-old daughter Kirby Foley, and 13-year-old daughter Jessica Levin. The story is told in alternating chapters from their four voices.

Kate is overtly distraught and drinking way too much due to excessive worry for her son Tiger, who was drafted and has just been deployed to Vietnam. Blair, who is pregnant and due any day with twins, is in a romantically complicated and unhappy marriage to Angus, an MIT professor who is working on the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. Kirby, a Simmons University junior, gets a summer job at an inn on Martha's Vineyard in Edgartown, while recovering from a romance with a married man and embarking on a new romance with a Black Harvard student. And Jessie, who turns 13 the day they arrive in Nantucket, is experiencing all those adolescent demons and joys as she, too, worries about her big brother fighting in Vietnam. Each of these four women mirror a major life event most women experience—from adolescence to college to marriage and motherhood to the nearly empty nest—but from a vantage of changing times for women's roles and expectations.

This is a book that grabbed me from the first paragraph. The plot simply buzzes and has enough surprises and small twists to keep the pages quickly turning. And, just as the title says, this is all taking place during that momentous summer of 1969—the first moon walk, the Vietnam War, race relations, Betty Friedan, and Teddy Kennedy and Chappaquiddick. Very cleverly, each chapter is titled with a song from the era, which gives just a whisper of a hint to the evolving plotline.

Read it! Take it to the beach or your own backyard. This is a summer novel that perfectly captures that tumultuous summer of '69.

Complex characters. An exhilarating plot. An incredible ending. This fascinating blend of fiction and history will not only keep readers turning the pages, but also pausing to really think about the inner meaning of what just happened.

Written by Maggie Shipstead, this is the totally fictitious story of pilot Marian Graves, who learned to fly in the heady days of the barnstormers, worked as an Alaskan bush pilot, flew with the Royal Air Force, and eventually did an Amelia Earhart-type turn flying the great circle in the Earth's longitude before disappearing forever. Marian's story, which begins in the 1920s, is alternated with that of Hadley Baxter, a modern-day scandal-plagued Hollywood actress who signs on to play the role of Marian in a movie. Marian's story is the crux of the book, and Shipstead doesn't waste any time in getting readers hooked on the action and adventure—from a sinking and burning ship in which an infant Marian and her twin brother, Jamie, are rescued to their quick dispatch to a bachelor uncle living in Missoula, Montana to their colorful childhood and dramatic adulthood. The story is peppered with bootleggers, drunks, prostitutes, and gamblers. A less talented author would be giving her poor readers whiplash, but Shipstead is always in control of both the plot and the characters.

And what characters these are! I'm sure that many have Googled Marian Graves thinking she had to be real. She's not, but she brilliantly pops alive on the pages of this masterful book.

Oh, and the writing. It's exquisite. There is a reason this novel was longlisted for the Booker Prize.

Bonus: The ending is incredible. (No peeking!)

While this is a fascinating study and reflection on the history of women pilots, it is most of all a reflection on what it really means for any woman to have determination over her own life, her own decisions, her own fate. It's a tribute to the real meaning of feminism, while also being an intelligent, riveting, and romantic story.

This cautionary tale about the fragility of marriage begins as a page-turner that turns into a bit of a slog-fest before eventually redeeming itself. And that's disappointing because it's so good in the beginning!

Written by Sue Miller, this hybrid between ChickLit and literary fiction, is the story of a marriage and the heartbreaking betrayal of infidelity. Annie and Graham (second marriage for both) have been married for 30 years. They live in Cambridge in the shadow of Harvard University. A big man with an even bigger personality, he owns a thriving independent bookstore. She is a tiny little thing, who putters as an arty photographer. They live in a very small converted carriage house on a street of otherwise grandiose homes. Life is sweet. Because Graham has this habit, albeit one he has resisted for years, he embarks on an ill-advised affair with a friend of theirs. It's all about sex and nothing more. He ends it. And then Graham very suddenly and very unexpectedly dies. That's the page-turner part of the book.

After his death, Annie is understandably heartbroken and absolutely grief-stricken. While Miller portrays these emotions realistically, it just goes on seemingly forever. (And if she had skipped this part, we reviewers would blast her for taking grief too lightly. It's a no-win situation.) It's soon after Graham's death that Annie figures out he had the affair, which just sends her on a whole different kind of grieving—this time for her marriage. Eventually ("Finally!" says the reader), the book becomes an examination of all the characters' relationships and marriages—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and what makes a good marriage. This last part is much more readable, although not the page-turner it was in the beginning.

This is a very sad book. Deeply gloomy. There are several well-imagined minor characters, such as Graham's first wife, Frieda, and their son, Lucas, as well as Graham and Annie's daughter, Sarah. These characters add a lot to the story if only to give the reader a little break from all the grief.

Reader, beware. This is a book that can envelop you in sadness or, quite possibly, bore you because it just doesn't let up for so long. But most of all, it's disappointing. Sue Miller is such a good writer. This is not her best.

An old-fashioned fable at its heart, this extraordinary book by Margot Livesey is literary fiction at its finest. It's the kind of novel that on the surface is nothing more than a good read, but then it sneakily wormed its way into my brain so I found myself often thinking about it and its deeper meanings at the most unexpected times.

The setting is Oxfordshire, England. Three teenage siblings—Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan—are walking home from school one day when Zoe spots something in a field. They run toward it and realize it's a boy about their age, covered in blood and stab wounds. He is barely conscious. Their swift actions save the boy's life, but this act of violence forever changes the three. Matthew, 17, is determined to find the perpetrator. Zoe, 15, starts staring strange men in the eyes—and when they look back at her, things get interesting. Duncan, 13, who never before was concerned that he is adopted and looks very different from the rest of his family, decides it's time to find his first mother. Eventually, they individually meet the unusual boy in the field, and their interactions with him have a lasting impact. Meanwhile, the parents of Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan are experiencing their own heartbreaking and shocking crises.

This imaginative novel's greatest strength is the bright and bold characters. They are all distinct, filled with personality, and absolutely delightful. It is the characters—even the minor ones—who tie the threads of the plot together and turn this into the kind of book that is just so very special.

The ending is both tragic and perfect, as Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan each find what they are looking for, providing not only healing from the past, but also a path to the future.

This is a magnificent tale about love and loss, betrayal and reconciliation that astonishes and delights.

The first chapter in this novel is quite startling. It's weird. OK…very weird. But keep going.

When everything starts to make sense, this is a somewhat eccentric, albeit charming, story of an unlikely friendship between Daniel, a 101-year-old man, and Elisabeth, a 32-year-old woman. Best of all, they've been dedicated to one another since Elisabeth was eight years old and often left in his care by her party-loving and irresponsible single mother.

Written by Ali Smith, this finalist for the prestigious Booker Prize is a tale of friendship and love that is light on plot but filled with vivid characters. It's 2016. Daniel is in a nursing home, dying and slipping in and out of a deep sleep, and Elisabeth is the only one who regularly visits him. While the novel is primarily about Elisabeth's memories of their times together, it is also about the strife, anger, and political discord that envelops that summer and autumn of 2016 in England just after the Brexit vote was taken and politically split the country in two.

This is a literary novel that requires readers to pay attention and think. Some of the text is written in free form, even bordering on stream of consciousness. It is also rife with imagery, especially trees, which writers often use to represent life and growth. That is especially poignant in this book considering how and when Smith employs these images.

The life and paintings/collages of the only British female Pop artist, Pauline Boty, feature heavily in the book, which is quite a feat since the paintings are described in words without the actual images. Take a minute to Google these paintings/collages. It will make all the difference in your appreciation of the book.

In some important ways, the novel is the literary equivalent to Boty's rebellious and highly original artwork that juxtaposed disparate images together to create a startling whole. Just like the first chapter of this book.

If you want a charming and delightful book that is perfect for those cooler autumn evenings, bewitch yourself with this, the second in the four-part series, by Alice Hoffman, the mistress of the genre of magical realism. (And, yes, you should read them in order beginning with the "The Rules of Magic.")

"Practical Magic" picks up where "The Rules of Magic" ended. Sally and Gillian, who were orphaned and sent to live with their aunts in their 200-year-old house in Massachusetts, have grown up. But true to all the Owens women throughout the generations, love hurts them. Sally happily marries and has two daughters of her own, Antonia and Kylie, but tragedy strikes. She flees to suburban New York where everyone is the same and no one thinks she's a witch. Gillian flees to the desert southwest where she marries frequently, divorces quickly, and suffers greatly. And then the unthinkable happens, forcing Gillian to return to Sally's home. These two women, who both have weird connections to the supernatural, begin on a perilous quest to save each other and create a future for themselves where love doesn't hurt.

This book is magical—not because of any "witchy"—but because of the life wisdom sprinkled throughout the book, much like fairy dust. The storytelling is enchanting, the characters are vivid, and there is just enough magic to make the book delightful. It's a real celebration of the power of women—and love.

This is a deeply felt and poignantly emotional book about the coming of age of two teenage girls. The twist is that their father is a bigamist, but only one of them knows it.

Growing up in Atlanta in the 1980s, Dana Lynn Yarboro and Chaurisse Witherspoon are struggling with the usual teen angst—from acne to AP tests. But Dana's worries are more than skin deep. She and Chaurisse have the same father, James Witherspoon, a bigamist with a big heart and a complicated life who is married to both their mothers. But only Dana and her mom, Gwen, know. Chaurisse and her mom, Laverne, have no clue. Dana and Gwen live their lives with this giant secret shrouding their existence. Dana grows up knowing she always comes second in her father's life and heart. But when Dana gets into high school she is determined to meet and befriend her secret sister, who is only four months younger than she is. Of course, James is eventually busted, but how that unfolds and the ensuing fallout is brilliant—both heartbreaking and humorous—in the talented writing of author Tayari Jones.

The story is told in both girls' voices with Dana narrating the first half of the book from her point of view, and Chaurisse narrating the second half. With bright and bold characters and an unflinching plot that keeps the pages turning, this is an engrossing and impassioned novel that celebrates the meaning of truth and the boundaries of love.

This is a good book — just not a great book. And that's a shame, because it could have been a lot more.

Written by Ed Tarkington, this is the story of Charlie Boykin, born in the 1960s to a 15-year-old mother whose family disowned her when she wouldn't go away quietly to have the baby and give him up for adoption. So at 15, she ran away from her South Carolina home to live with an aunt in Nashville. They live on the wrong side of the tracks in what some cities would call the projects. Charlie's mom, Bonnie, works as a cocktail waitress in a somewhat seedy bar. When Charlie is about to enter high school, the unbelievable happens. He is admitted as a scholarship student at Yeatman, an elite boys' school. His entire life suddenly changes. Charlie becomes such good friends with one of the Yeatman cliques led by Archer Creigh that he and his mom are invited to live in the carriage house of one of his friend's estates. He is not only lifted up into this rarefied world where money is no object, but also he is fully adopted into it. However, all is not as it seems, and as Charlie eventually discerns the truth behind all the largesse that has been given to him, his world collapses.

This is the biggest problem with the book: It has the kind of slow-moving plot that absolutely depends on characterization to be fully realized. But the characters are all one-dimensional with their never-changing personality characteristics defined early on in the book. And so plot flops. Even as devastating family secrets are revealed, the reactions tend to be farcical. Either the author overplays his hand or shockingly ignores the obvious. It is very disappointing!

Oh, it could have been so much more.

This is a rich literary gem. The story, a gentle blend of magic and realism, is so so so good that you'll keep reading long after you should.

Written by Alice Hoffman, this is the intriguing story of people who lived in a very small town in the Berkshires in Massachusetts—from its founding 300 years ago to today. Even Johnny Appleseed and Emily Dickinson have roles in this town's history. This is a novel, but each chapter is really a short story with a distinct beginning, middle, and end, yet each is connected with the others through shared characters and a mysterious garden where sorrows are buried. In this enigmatic garden, which has distinctly red soil, only red plants will grow. If they're not naturally red, then they turn red.

This novel-short story hybrid is not the easiest format for a writer or a reader, but Hoffman is an expert, and each chapter seamlessly moves into the next for a compelling and engaging book. The story is held together with tall tales and legends of the past (but we readers know what really happened!) and secrets that are slowly revealed. There is love and heartbreak, births and deaths, struggle and survival, hurting and healing, evil and virtue, fear and courage, apparitions and reality. This is a powerful, compassionate story of life.

Meanwhile, the descriptions of the blizzards, the black flies, and the eels swimming in the river are so vivid you'll feel the cold, hear the buzzing, and see the black oozing in the water as it rapidly flows downstream.

If you're looking for a literary treat, indulge in this enchanting novel.

Oh, this book! Wow!

That said, it's not for everyone. You will appreciate it and understand it far better if you have a basic knowledge of Tudor history—and by that, I mean more than being able to list the names of all six wives of Henry VIII.

This, the second in the Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall trilogy by Hilary Mantel, continues the story of the life of Thomas Cromwell, who is arguably the most misunderstood and wrongly disparaged personage from this time period. (And, yes, you need to read the books in order, so begin with "Wolf Hall: A Novel.") Mantel brilliantly tells the events of a single year—summer of 1535 to the summer of 1536—entirely from Cromwell's point of view.

And what a year that was. Focusing on the rapid downfall and beheading of Anne Boleyn, Henry's second wife, the story is told afresh because it is all portrayed from how Cromwell viewed it, including his own masterful manipulations to do the king's bidding: Get rid of Anne so he could marry Jane Seymour. Even though we all know how the story ends, this book presents the tragic plot in a whole new way and shows not only the conniving Cromwell, but also the loving, generous side of the man that the history books tend to ignore.

The best and most brilliant part of this book is the writing. It is absolutely exquisite with an exceptional eye for detail that will seemingly deposit the reader into the middle of the sixteenth century and right into the volatile court of King Henry VIII. Think intriguing, seductive, and sophisticated—all in one. Descriptions of sounds, flavors, odors, sights, and even touch are so vivid, so perfect that it seems as if you can really hear, taste, smell, see, and feel them.

Bonus: If you're reading this on the Kindle, the X-ray feature is incredibly useful in that it clearly and succinctly defines each character's role and title. This is an excellent tool for keeping straight the varied and large cast of characters. It's especially helpful when someone is called by his title and not his name, such as the Duke of Norfolk. Click on X-ray, and you'll be told the Duke of Norfolk is Thomas Howard, uncle to the queen, ferocious senior peer, and an enemy of Cromwell. (There is also a Cast of Characters at the front of the book with the same information for those reading the paper version, but for Kindle readers it is much easier to click on X-Ray than "flip" back to that.)

This is the rarest of books. I felt myself becoming the main character. The writing is so perfect, so brilliant, so masterful that I, the reader, became Lucy Barton. It was weird. I could feel it happening.

Oh yes, there is a reason Elizabeth Strout is one of my top three favorite writers. (Who can choose one favorite writer? It's like choosing a favorite child!) The sheer genius of this is that Lucy Barton's life is the polar opposite of my own life—yet, I still felt like I was inhabiting the character.

This is the third in the series about Lucy Barton, and you absolutely must read them in order beginning with "My Name Is Lucy Barton: A Novel" and then "Anything Is Possible: A Novel." In this book, Lucy is not only divorced from William, her first husband, but also she has been a widow for five years after her second husband, David, has died. William is almost 70 when the book opens, and is having a bit of a crisis. Since he and Lucy get along OK, he calls her. A lot. He then discovers something truly shocking about his deceased mother—the kind of thing that just turns your world upside down. He and Lucy take a road trip to Maine to try to figure out this life-changing development. While there, they also reveal much to each other about the secrets of their long-ago marriage, and Lucy learns much about herself.

That's the plot, such as it is, but this book is not plot-dependent. It is a story of self-revelation as Lucy begins to comprehend who she is and how pivotal events in her past shaped her personality. It's an intimate look at one woman's deepest, uncensored thoughts. Reading this book almost feels like surreptitiously reading another's journal and hoping you don't get caught in the act.

The literary genius of the Lucy Barton trilogy is how different each book is. The first is a novel. The second is interrelated short stories that together form a novel. And this third book is a memoir that becomes a novel.

This beautifully written book is a subtle but viscerally insightful look at one woman's soul and the meaning of her life written by a master of American literature.

This is a book about female empowerment set during a time when women were considered property and had no voice, no say, and most of all no power. Women were nothing. But in the hands of spectacular author Lauren Groff, these women—nuns in the Middle Ages—come alive with a story so strong, so resonant, so forceful, and so feminist in its telling that we readers are transported to inhabit their piece of the world where women are in charge and virtually all men are shunned.

This is the story of Marie de France, a real person who lived in the 12th century, albeit very little is known about her. Groff has filled in Marie's historical bare-bones story with pulsating life. Born as the result of a rape by a nobleman, she moved to the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine when she was 14, but was soon sent to a far-flung abbey in England to serve as the prioress (and eventually the abbess) of the convent even though she had no vocation. After Marie recovers from her considerable resentment and anger at being summarily banished from Eleanor's court, she comes into her own, rescuing the dilapidated abbey from a slow demise and its inhabitants from death. Marie has extraordinary organizational and management skills, but what truly sets her apart is her gift for writing poetry and her dramatic and striking visions of the Virgin Mary.

Lauren Groff's writing is absolutely exquisite. Every word, every sentence, every paragraph is superb. The descriptions of the rain and mud, the birds chattering, the eagles soaring, the human body odor, the icy cold stone floors…all of it is just so visceral and surprisingly passionate and sensual that it plunges the reader right into this Middle Ages' abbey.

Rich in historical detail, this is a deeply creative book with complex and vivid characters. It is a literary gift…a masterpiece of historical fiction.

This is a difficult book to read on several levels. Not only is the subject matter disturbing in the important story it has to tell, but also the many (many!) words and phrases written in Tagalog, Ilocano, and Pangasinan with no translation can just make it confounding to understand.

Written by Elaine Castillo, this is the story of Hero De Vera, a 34-year-old woman who illegally immigrates to the United States from the Philippines. We very slowly learn the details of Hero's life, and those details are horrific in places. Born to a wealthy and politically influential family, she studied to become a physician. Along the way she joined the New People's Army, an armed group of the Communist Party, until she was captured and tortured. Now she is starting a new life in San Francisco, living with her aunt, uncle, and young cousin, Roni, for whom she serves as caregiver. Hero eventually makes friends and begins a real life of her own, but the torture that was done to her hands—and soul—
will forever remind her and others that she has a past.

Castillo takes a bit of a literary leap in the writing style. When the book is about Hero, it's in the third person. When the book is about another character, it's in the second person. It begins this way, and I found it quite disconcerting until I got accustomed to the awkward style.

That said, the story is quite imaginative and an important one that should be told about the immigrant experience. While it is emotionally searing in parts, at other times it's hard to stay interested because the story is so unnecessarily drawn out.

Bonus: The novel is packed with Filipino myths, superstitions, legends, stories, and food. Lots and lots of food. It's a fascinating journey through a country's culture.

Published in 2009 just a few months after John Updike's death at age 76, this collection of 18 short stories is a magnificent look at the world past and present. The keen observations—from the quotidian details of life during the Great Depression to doomed love affairs—are what make these stories of faith, infidelity, and the small choices we make in everyday life so resonant and powerful.

Some of my favorites:
• "The Walk with Elizanne": The high school class of 1950 is holding its 50th reunion in 2000, and David Kern encounters his first girlfriend—but doesn't immediately recognize her. Then all the thoughts! All the memories!

• "Varieties of Religious Experience": This is the story of 9/11 told through the viewpoints of a New York City survivor, someone trapped high in the World Trade Center, two of the hijackers, and passengers on one of the doomed flights, but they are all wrapped up in one man's loss of faith because God let it happen.

• "Delicate Wives": The story of a couple who had an illicit affair, break it off, and then reunite years later.

• "Kinderszenen": Life during the Great Depression as told through the viewpoint of a little boy, an only child living with his parents and grandparents in an old house that may have a ghost or two.

Beautifully written with distinct characters, but sometimes overlapping settings, this masterful collection is one to be savored. It is storytelling at its finest.

This is a novel about many things, but most of all it's about the power of forgiveness. The kind of deep-seated, soul-searing forgiveness that heals deep-seated, soul-searing hurts.

And what a book it is! This novel just grabbed my heart and wouldn't let go. I devoured it.

Written by Mary Beth Keane, this is the story of two families: the Gleesons and the Stanhopes. When they first joined the NYPD in the early 1970s, Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope were assigned as partners. Francis and his wife, Lena, buy a home in a leafy, small-town suburb north of the city. Brian and Anne buy the house next door. Francis and Lena have three little girls in quick succession; after a stillbirth, Brian and Anne have a little boy, Peter, who is six months older than the youngest Gleeson girl, Kate. Peter and Kate become best friends…and in their early teens, they fall in love. One night, one horrific night, something so horrible, so tragic, and so bone-chilling happens that utterly shatters the worlds of both families. And this is where the story really begins, as chapter after chapter follows each of the characters—parents and children—as they first fall apart but slowly recover and reclaim their lives, finding forgiveness for the unforgivable.

Powerfully written, this almost magical novel brilliantly and realistically captures these two families' pain and suffering, as well as their joy and love. But the reason the story is so powerful is that it is suffused with vital human truths—not only for the characters, but also for all of us. There are valuable life lessons in these drama-filled pages.

Just know that once you start reading, you won't be able to stop.

Reading is magical. It transports us to places we can't visit on our own and drops us smack into cultures and lifestyles we would never otherwise experience. Reading can be a little like eavesdropping—being that proverbial fly on the wall. That is exactly what it felt like to me reading this book by Etaf Rum in which we readers become part of a conservative Arab-American family living in New York City.

That said, this is a sad book. Very, very sad. And the sadness never lets up. Just know that before you start reading.

Forget the melting pot. Khaled and Fareeda Ra'ad have been displaced from their homeland of Palestine, and even though the United States is a safe haven from the refugee camps, they are doing everything they can to keep their children from becoming Americans. Traditional Arab culture is king of this house, which means the men rule the women and the women submit, which means regular beatings and physical abuse by fathers and husbands.

It's 1990. Isra is 17 and living in Palestine when she marries Khaled and Fareeda's eldest son, Adam, in an arranged marriage and the next day leaves all she has ever known to live with Adam in the nearly windowless basement of his parents' row house in Brooklyn. Isra has one purpose: bear sons. Her domineering mother-in-law, Fareeda, makes her life miserable, while Adam's father and brothers ignore her. Only Adam's sister, Sarah, pays her any attention. But Isra fails. She only has daughters. Four of them. And she suffers greatly for this, both physically and emotionally as she lives a life shrouded in silence, violence, and fear. Isra's tragic, horrific story alternates in time with that of her daughter, Deya, a senior in high school who is being pushed by Fareeda into an arranged marriage against her will, as well as Fareeda's devastating, gruesome backstory. But secrets—awful, horrifying, unspeakable—secrets lurk beneath the surface and eventually bubble up. There is a little hope: Deya does something truly daring and that could change the trajectory of her life's planned path.

Note: The ending gave me chills, but it only makes sense if you recall the events that occur on pages 218-220.

This is a story about women who are discarded, women who are little more than the day's trash, women who are daily abused, women who are invisible, women who have no life beyond serving men who are ungrateful and brutal in return. This makes it a hard, albeit profound, book to read because it just never lets up. It is absolutely relentless.

According to the Etaf Rum (and do read the excellent interview with her at the end of the book), this is all real. She confesses to feeling "constantly swallowed by fear" for breaking the code of silence. This is a novel, but it's based on her life; she calls the book semi autobiographical. It is a true depiction of how women are actually treated in conservative Arab-American communities. And that makes this book even more dreadful and shocking.

There is one bright light: The book is also a love letter to books and the power or reading.

On the cover of this charming book by Madeleine St John, there is this quote by Hilary Mantel (author of the acclaimed "Wolf Hall" series about Thomas Cromwell, so really serious stuff!): "The book I most often give as a gift to cheer people up." Well, that's enough for me!

Hilary Mantel is right. It is a book that will cheer you up. Taking place in the late 1950s, this delightful ChickLit novel is about four very different women, who have one thing in common: They work together in an upscale department store in Sydney, Australia, selling beautiful, expensive cocktail frocks. They dress in black at work to distinguish them as the sales team, hence the title of the book.
• Patty Williams, who desperately wants a baby, is unhappily married to Frank, a clueless, bumbling, and selfish man who always wants to eat steak for dinner and then spend the rest of the evening in the nearest pub—without Patty.
• Fay Baines, who is all alone in this world, can't seem to find Mr. Right. In fact, it's only Mr. Wrong she manages to date. Over and over and over.
• Magda ("no one could even try to pronounce her frightful Continental surname") is a Slovenian immigrant, who is stylish, sophisticated, and ambitious with plans to open her own dress shop someday.
• Lisa Miles is a very smart, albeit shy, recent high school graduate who loves to read. She has big dreams to become a poet, but her grumpy father doesn't think girls should go to college.

This is a delightful, tender, and occasionally humorous story about how all four of these women find love, hope, and happiness despite their problems and challenges. It is a tribute to the power of friendship among women. Best of all, it's a wonderful life lesson for us all: keep trying!

If you're looking for a quick read to boost your spirits, this is it.

A Fun Note: The dress (er…frock) sizes in this novel are odd letters combinations, such as XSSW or OW. Google "vintage Australian dress sizes" for a fascinating explanation!