Kalisha Buckhanon, a protégé of acclaimed author Sapphire, has written a vivid but—be warned—surpassingly sad debut novel. Upstate explores the myriad trials that afflict the poor, especially the African-American poor: fatherlessness, abuse, drugs, homelessness and the appalling rate of incarceration of its young men ("upstate" is where most of the prisons are in New York). On top of this, there's the universal sadness of a young love that's doomed even though its young lovers, thankfully, aren't.

They are Antonio and Natasha, two teenagers from Harlem, New York, and Buckhanon wastes no time getting them in trouble. This epistolary novel opens with Antonio's first letter to Natasha from prison, which asks if she really believes he killed his father. She swears to be faithful to him, even though he faces 10 years in prison for the murder. Their exchanges are so passionate, so filled with declarations of steadfastness, that the reader almost believes they can pull this off.

In prose that vibrantly captures the way real kids from Harlem speak, Buckhanon reveals not only the lovers' Romeo and Juliet-like ardor, basic decency and innocence, but also their intelligence and ambition, especially Natasha's. She's a young teenager when Antonio is arrested, and her devotion to him begins to wane when she visits France on a student exchange program: the world opens up for Natasha at the same time it closes down for Antonio.

Buckhanon's depiction of prison as a system whose goal isn't rehabilitation but a stripping away of an inmate's humanity are brilliantly grim. But it's the promise of Natasha's love that allows Antonio to hold on to a fragment of his dignity while he's inside, even as he feels that love slipping away. "Your love made me feel like a human being in my darkest hours," he writes her when he's out and they're both grown up. Upstate, for all its sorrow, is a book worth reading.

Arlene McKanic writes from Jamaica, New York.

Marriage is often confusing. Sometimes, to find out if it is worth saving, you must crack it open like a Christmas chestnut and inspect it minutely. Or more often, a cure can be something as simple as struggling spouses getting away together. In Scott Landers' debut novel, Coswell's Guide to Tambralinga, Conrad and Lucy Shermer go the latter route, and embark on a lengthy journey through the politically unstable, exotically violent and depressingly tropical regions of Southeast Asia.

While salvaging their love and spending time together is the ostensible plan, the couple soon find that they are far more interested in striking out on their own. And they do so with a vengeance, exploring their dangerous and sensual new surroundings and the uncharted territory within themselves. Like the man going out for the proverbial pack of cigarettes, Conrad leaves a note and melts into the fringes of the Third World in a tiny fictional country named Tambralinga. Pretty sure that Lucy has cheated on him, he is half looking for a little adventure himself. But a life of American repression makes him little more than a comic bumbler in all sexual regards.

Lucy, the type of woman who underlines passages in guide books and makes copious lists, wishes only to follow her itinerary to the letter. But when she meets a younger female traveler who fuels her competitive nature, she finds herself in compromising situations beyond the pages of her books and notes.

This original, notably worthy debut ably toggles between farce, intrigue and tragedy while capturing the disconnection inherent to westerners in unfamiliar stretches of the planet. But it is Lucy's and Conrad's repeated boorish behavior that keeps this fine novel from soaring. As we're guided through Tambralinga by this selfish, dull and shallow pair, the reader can't help but hope the duo stay together . . . if only to avoid exposing others to their toxicity.

Denny Roman, the protagonist in Rachel Cline's honest, heartwarming debut novel, may seem like any other preteen in suburban Ohio, preoccupied with boys, bras and a part in the school play. But trouble lurks beneath the girl's bubbly exterior, as she struggles to communicate with her divorced mother Lily, a brilliant neuroscientist utterly devoid of maternal inclinations.

Presented in three distinct parts, What to Keep is a smart, wry commentary on "how easy it is to screw things up with the people you love." While Lily may be her biological mother, Denny's world revolves around a quirky agoraphobic named Maureen, the eye in the hurricane of her daily teenage life in the wake of her parents' separation. Fourteen years go by, and Denny, now an aspiring actress in Hollywood, returns to her childhood home to decide "what to keep" before her mother and new stepfather relocate to New York. Unearthing old memories fills Denny with both nostalgia and dread. "She pictures the denuded living room floor. . . . Though she learned to crawl, walk, skip, dance, and God knows what else in that very room, it will soon look like she was never there."

A decade later, Denny has moved to Manhattan, where she's taken to writing plays rather than auditioning for them. Days from the opening of her first production on Broadway, she receives news that Maureen has died. When Maureen's 12-year-old son, Luke, appears at her door, Denny ponders the possibility of adopting the young man to honor the memory of the most pivotal person in her life.

Writers are often instructed to write what they know; Rachel Cline has followed that lesson to the letter. Born to a brainy, distracted mother, she herself did time in the trenches of Hollywood before returning to New York on what she calls "the dark side of thirty-five." Her brisk, refreshingly candid novel will ring true to anyone whose family doesn't quite fit the mold.

The sprawling, multigenerational debut novel by Ingrid Hill deftly arcs back and forth between past and present to explore the hidden connections in our lives and the fragility of human life. When two-year-old Ursula Wong falls into an abandoned mine shaft, a community is galvanized in a dangerous rescue effort that has far greater significance than anyone present can possibly imagine.

As the only child of a woman of Finnish descent and her Chinese-American husband, Ursula is the modern-day culmination of the dreams and struggles of two disparate lineages. Ursula's birth was nothing short of a miracle, given the crippling pelvic injuries her mother sustained in a childhood accident. But in one horrible instant, the gift of Ursula's life is almost extinguished as arbitrarily as it was granted. While Ursula's fate hangs in the balance, we travel back in time to trace the extraordinary lives of her ancestors, many of whom also came into being against incredible odds. We encounter a Chinese alchemist in second-century B.C. who fathers a child at age 79, a 16th-century Finnish widow who bravely escapes a leper colony to go in search of her orphaned son, and a host of immigrants struggling for a better life in America, including Ursula's great-grandfather, who dies in a mining accident eerily presaging her own fall. Each of these links in the chain of Ursula's genetic lineage is bound together by countless little twists of fate to which her own existence is tied.

The great beauty of this novel lies in the hauntingly resonant voices of Ursula's ancestors and the author's skillful weaving of their individual stories into an integrated family history spanning 2,000 years. This vast and prismatic narrative technique shows us that life, indeed, is a miracle, and that history is alive, embodied in the individual triumphs and tragedies that make up the collective human experience. A powerful meditation on origins, Ursula, Under poetically demonstrates how centuries-old connections can reverberate into the present.

The story of Noah and the flood is so entrenched in our culture that most people at least know the basics: God visits a pious old man and instructs him to build a huge boat that will withstand the storm to end all storms. While you're at it, He says, fill it up with every type of animal you can get your hands on. And then be prepared to be adrift at sea with only your family for company for the foreseeable future. When the floods recede, it will be your duty to repopulate the planet.

The power of this tale is why David Maine's outstanding first novel, The Preservationist, a fantastically original take on the classic Old Testament story, is a treat both for believers and those who consider themselves devout only when it comes to discovering good books. Much as Anita Diamant's best-selling The Red Tent did for the biblical story of Jacob and his wives, The Preservationist breathes new life into ancient characters while illuminating the tremendous faith they had in their families and their god.

The 600-year-old Noah brings together his wife, sons and daughters-in-law to build the ark and collect the animals. Onlookers gather to jeer as the mammoth hull takes shape, but Noah never waivers in his conviction that this is God's plan. His family is another story they are by turns exasperated and awed by the old man's steadfast determination. Each member of the group takes a turn narrating events, giving readers a vast range of perspectives on this unusual quest, and on the nature of faith.

According to the Old Testament, God brought about the storm to wash the earth clean of rampant sin that had become unbearable. Maine paints a vivid picture of a world run amok, of a culture of violence, greed and lust. Perhaps The Preservationist is so compelling because of its hard-to-ignore parallels to modern times of violence and an increasingly sensational popular culture. It's impossible to miss the similarities between the ancient place Maine describes and the present-day experience, and this book conjures very relevant questions about how traditional notions of God's plan fit in modern society.

Then again, you can ignore all that mess and enjoy the book simply for its rich retelling of an epic battle of man versus nature. This is not a book aimed solely or even mostly at Christians. It's just a great story, told remarkably well.

John Dalton's debut novel, Heaven Lake, is an ambitious compilation of a coming-of-age tale, a travelogue, and a probe into the role of fate in individual destiny.

Recent college graduate Vincent Saunders leaves his small Illinois town to serve as a missionary in Taiwan. He manages to convert one of his rooming house boarders, but strikes out with the other, a Scot with a fondness for both smuggling and smoking hashish. Vincent's troubles begin when he moves to his own rent-free ministry house in the small town of Toulio. For extra cash, he teaches English to small groups, including a class of high school girls; his brief, guilt-ridden affair with one student leads to his brutal beating, and the need for his immediate departure. Consequently, Vincent takes up the offer of the wealthy Mr. Gwa to travel to the mainland, marry Kai-Ling, the young girl he covets, return with her to Taiwan, and then divorce her, leaving Gwa free to marry her himself. Travel restrictions prevent Gwa from carrying out his dream, and he is willing to pay Vincent $10,000 to do it for him.

Vincent sets out on a half-year odyssey to the northwest corner of China a journey proving to be as personally fulfilling as it is culturally and geographically edifying. He endures countless delays and endless train rides, but gradually realizes this adventure might actually become "the one exceptional undertaking of his life." He begins to soak in every detail, from the vast tenements of Lanzhou to the indescribable beauty of Heaven Lake, in the mountains near the home of his bride-to-be. He deals with corrupt ticket-hawkers, thieves, and eventually the duplicitous Kai-Ling, who can't seem to decide whether to marry Vincent or not.

Like Vincent, Dalton spent several years in Taiwan, where he gained insight into the Chinese habits and mores he perceptively infuses into his vivid characters. After adding his ruminations on marriage, commitment, and self-enlightenment, the end result is this auspicious and compelling first novel. Deborah Donovan writes from Cincinnati and La Veta, Colorado.

Janis Hallowell's mystical and emotionally charged debut novel is both an unusual coming of age story and a modern-day parable about the seductive powers of belief. Chester, a homeless schizophrenic, envisions 14-year-old Francesca Dunn as the Virgin Mary incarnate, thus igniting a religious frenzy that engulfs many in its powerful wake. Through the use of four narrators who embody distinctly different views on belief, we see how faith can take various forms, all of which can be damaging in their extremes. The multiple narrative voices allow us to observe events from many perspectives as they swirl around the easily suggestible Francesca, who resides in the eye of the storm.

After a purported healing seems to substantiate Chester's vision, Francesca is besieged by legions of followers searching for salvation and desperate to believe in the miraculous over the mundane. As they make her the unwitting repository for all of their needs and desires, she becomes dangerously convinced of her own divine powers. The inattentions of her preoccupied, recently divorced parents and the self-centered opportunism of the people charged with protecting her succeed in fanning the flames to a fever pitch. When the tide begins to turn against Francesca, the passion of her followers turns murderous, and events unfold that force her to face her own very human limitations.

In Francesca and Chester respectively, Hallowell perfectly captures the fragile vulnerability of adolescence and the precarious divide between the delusional and the visionary. Her inventive hands create a world of clever ambiguity that casts a hypnotic spell on the reader, mesmerizing us with its delicate, delicious dance between the possible and the improbable.

Beautifully written and brimming with strong, appealingly eccentric characters, this magical and modern twist on the story of the Virgin's Annunciation raises intriguing questions about the nature of contemporary faith and religion.

Joni Rendon writes from Hoboken, New Jersey.

It sounds like a familiar story: twin sisters, different as night and day, start relationships with the same man that end in disaster. But Jincy Willett’s first novel, Winner of the National Book Award, is anything but predictable. This darkly comic tale, set in a small Rhode Island town, opens on the eve of a storm. As librarian Dorcas Mather reluctantly reads the just-published “true” story of her sister Abigail’s murder of her husband, Conrad Lowe, she compares the written account with her own version of events. Abigail’s preoccupation with the physical stands in stark contrast to Dorcas’ cerebral world, and the two sisters have opposite responses to Lowe’s charm. Lowe is equally fascinated by Abigail’s capacity for self-abasement and Dorcas’ inviolate honor, and turns the images the sisters have of themselves—and of each other—upside down.

Willett is a favorite of David Sedaris, and her sly, humorous writing style is reminiscent of his more serious pieces. But it’s hard to draw comparisons for such an original work of fiction.