Added to the list of things one shouldn’t judge a book by: page count. Daniel Woodrell’s ninth novel, and his first since 2006’s Winter’s Bone (which became an award-winning feature film in 2010), is less than 200 pages long. But thanks to Woodrell’s rich storytelling, this slim novel has the feel of an epic.

The story centers on a real-life incident—the explosion of a Missouri dance hall in 1929—reimagined as fiction. One by one, in alternating and sometimes overlapping scenes, those who survived the blast recall those who were lost in it. Adding another few layers of intrigue and perspective, the novel is narrated by Alek, a young man remembering the story as he heard it one summer in 1965 from his grandmother, Alma, whose sister was among those killed in the disaster.

Alma fascinates and scares her grandson equally: She’s a stern, reserved woman with a “pinched, hostile nature,” “dark obsessions” and a “primal need for revenge,” Alek says. Her story is essentially a ghost story, and it has a strong hold on the boy. She doles it out slowly, in bits and pieces, with many satisfying digressions. “She would at times leave the public horror and give me her quiet account of the sad and criminal love affair that took her sister Ruby away from us all,” Alek recalls.

The novel has the feel of someone going through an old family photo album, dredging up odd facts and anecdotes about this or that person. The mystery at the center of this storytelling mosaic is, of course, just what caused the dance hall to explode: Who is responsible? And why? And how is it that the truth has not come out, even after all these years? By the time we learn the answer, or at least Alma’s answer, it feels somehow both inevitable and entirely unexpected.

But it’s not the mystery that keeps the story moving. It’s the gossip. As ever, Woodrell is a master of exposing to daylight the darkest corners of the human psyche. His miniature portraits of the local characters, even those that are only a page or two long, make the town vivid and real, and the result is a larger sense of loss. We know these people, not just the main players but the rest of the town; any one of them could have been at the heart of the story. This small book holds a wide world.

Writing a sequel to a popular novel is a risk, especially when the first one was a national bestseller, like Robert Morgan’s Gap Creek, an Oprah Book Club selection.

The Road from Gap Creek will please this gifted storyteller’s legions of fans—as well as those who missed Gap Creek when it was published in 1999. The books need not be read in chronological order. On the contrary, the plaintive and plainspoken poetry infused in both novels allows them to stand alone as separate stories about the same family: Hank and Julie Richards and their four children.

While Gap Creek was narrated by the family’s matriarch, Julie, The Road from Gap Creek is safely in the hands of her youngest daughter, Annie, who has inherited her mother’s indomitable spirit and courage in the face of an endless stream of adversity.

After beginning their married life in South Carolina in Gap Creek, the Richards family has returned home to North Carolina, where the duality of incredible beauty and abject poverty continues to define Appalachian life. From the first pages, Morgan tugs readers into the pathos of a personal tragedy experienced by countless families during the World War II era, heralded by the arrival of a telegram at the family’s doorstep. Still, Morgan does not linger long on grief; instead, by chapter two the story has skipped back to happier days, with the arrival of the family dog, Old Pat, a wise and lovable German Shepherd who is devoted to Annie’s brother Troy.

For teenage Annie, a talented actress in her high school’s theater productions, the allure of life beyond the sleepy and God-fearing Green River community is tempting. Still, her family ties and loyalty are stronger than her dramatic ambitions, and thus, she finds herself post-high school working as a store clerk in a nearby town to help support her struggling Great Depression-era family. Unlike her parents, who plunged into an early and turbulent marriage, the cautious Annie is stubbornly unwilling to acknowledge her lifelong attraction to the devout and idealistic young Muir.

Morgan has crafted another painfully luminous portrait of rural American family life: honest, captivating and resplendent in all its messy glory. Readers will find themselves bereft upon saying goodbye to the Richards clan—and hopeful that Morgan might consider a trilogy.

If Thomas Keneally’s expansive and brilliant novel The Daughters of Mars doesn’t remind you of an Australian version of “Downton Abbey,” I don’t know what would. This isn’t to disparage either work—especially not one from the author of Schindler’s List—but the similarities jump out from the opening pages. We have two sisters who don’t get along. We get the soldier with half his face blown off; the manor house converted into a hospital; the Spanish flu sweeping off otherwise young and healthy people; the upstanding bloke thrown in jail for no good reason and the faithful woman who’s willing to do whatever it takes to get him out; the deaths of loved characters that make you gasp for their sheer unfairness.

In The Daughters of Mars, the Durance sisters—chilly Naomi and somewhat more biddable Sally—sign on as army nurses at the beginning of World War I. We follow them on the long boat trip from Australia to the Mediterranean, where they nurse the soldiers coming in from the disaster at Gallipoli and endure the torpedoing of their hospital ship, the Archimedes. The sinking, depicted with hair-raising vividness by Keneally, will impact the sisters, their friends and lovers for the remainder of the war. For one thing, Naomi and Sally (who, it should be said, are not the daughters of an earl but of a dairy farmer from the Australian bush) finally begin to deal with a sad secret they thought they’d left behind in Australia.

Given the devastating nature of what was then known as the “war to end all wars,” Keneally’s touch is surprisingly nimble. He gives us only glimpses of the horror, but that’s sometimes enough. What he’s interested in are the ways the war affects the life choices of those who are caught up in it, and how ordinary folks rarely know they’re living through—or even making—history. The Daughters of Mars is a masterpiece that is sure to rank among Keneally’s best works.

From 1929 until 1975, North Carolina sterilized more than 7,000 of its citizens, targeting inmates in mental institutions, epileptics and others whose sterilization was considered “for the public good.” Diane Chamberlain has based her latest novel on this controversial procedure, the Eugenics Sterilization Program.

It is 1960, and Jane Forrester has just been hired as a social worker for the Department of Public Welfare and is newly married to Robert, a pediatrician. They live in a wealthy neighborhood in Raleigh.

Ivy Hart is a 15-year-old who lives in a small tenant house on a tobacco farm in rural Grace County. Her father died when she was small; her mother was committed to a mental hospital; and her older sister, Mary Ella, left school at 14 when she became pregnant with baby William. Mary Ella, labeled “feebleminded,” has been sterilized without her knowledge, told she was hospitalized for an appendectomy.

In the alternating voices of Jane and Ivy, we learn how Jane becomes immersed in the Hart family’s dire circumstances, raising doubts in the minds of both her boss and her husband that she’s tough enough for the job. Robert is embarrassed by the fact that Jane is working rather than fitting into the Junior League role embraced by the wives of his colleagues, but he’s especially bothered by her sincere attachment to these poor families, which is starting to make her question the Eugenics Department’s plans for the Harts.

Chamberlain weaves an element of suspense throughout this emotional story as these differing views eventually collide in a powerful denouement. Necessary Lies is a poignant and perceptive novel zeroing in on a hidden social issue—reminiscent of the work of Jodi Picoult and A. Manette Ansay.

Philippa Gregory continues her Cousins’ War series with The White Princess. The year is 1485, and as alliances fail and the York reign comes to an end, the loyalty of the York women to King Henry VII is tested. Elizabeth of York, the oldest York princess, was prepared to marry her lover Richard III, whom she assumed would win the battle of Bosworth and become the next king. Devastated by the news of his death, Elizabeth finds her life drastically changed. Alongside his ambitious, plotting mother, the Red Queen, Henry Tudor plans to marry Elizabeth to unify the warring Tudors and Yorks and create peace in England. Elizabeth finds herself reluctantly betrothed to her lover’s murderer, in an attempt to bring peace to her country. Soon, her loyalties are tested as she is torn between the family of her past and her alliance to her new husband.

Despite their gradually strengthening bond, Henry continues to question Elizabeth’s commitment, since the one thing that could threaten his reign is a challenge from a member of the House of York. And lurking in the background is the memory of the two missing York princes. Henry and the entire kingdom know that as long as there are still living males of the York line, his position as king is not safe. Are they out there?

The White Princess is a story of honor, politics and loyalty. Deception and rumors whisper through the damp and drafty halls of dark castles, creating a story full of intrigue. The pace remains consistent as the story careens down a maze of hallways, each ending in the discovery of another veiled lie. By attempting to explain the mystery of the two missing York princes, Gregory has created a tale of the choices we make and the consequences we cannot imagine. 

Charles Frazier uses reverse psychology to great advantage in his debut novel, Cold Mountain, a Civil War saga with blood on its bayonets and romance in its gentle soul. The author takes some creative risks by reshaping the true battle tales of his great-great-grandfather into an epic story that accumulates power and purpose with each turn of the page.

Our hero, Inman, much like the sensitive lead character in Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, is sickened by the wanton waste of young lives on the battlefield and torn between the traditional conflict of valor and cowardice. In the field hospital, the injured Confederate private witnesses the brutality of both sides in the most bloody of American armed struggles, the War Between the States. 

Emotionally shaken, Inman realizes that he will be returned to the front and possible death as soon as he is well. He watches men on both sides ordered to charge into lethal barrages of gunfire and cannon shot, only to fall after a few precious steps. The author makes some disturbing cultural and social commentary as Inman considers the war philosophy of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, who felt armed conflict was "an instrument for clarifying God's obscure will," a view not shared by the youthful soldier who dons new clothes and decides to reclaim his old life regardless of the consequences.

So the eventful journey back to his sweetheart, Ada, begins. Frazier takes us into the life and mind of Ada, a young girl stunned by the sudden death of her consumptive father. Despite the man's standing in the community as a preacher, no one comes forward to help her until another fatherless young woman, Ruby, appears. Together they team up to put Ada's farm back into operation, trading and bartering for the goods and services they need. It is the emotional bond betwee these two sturdy souls and their startling evolution as characters which lift this novel above and beyond the usual offerings in historical fiction.

Lyrical and magnificent in its narrative power, this is one of the most promising literary debuts in some time. And we are truly glad that Charles Frazier remembered all those marvelous Civil War yarns his great-great-grandaddy passed along.

In a novel that is rich with evocative language and fascinating historical detail, author Paulette Jiles has created a hero, a heroine and a remarkable love story that resonate with remembered childhood tales of brave warriors, resourceful women, hardships overcome and love triumphant.

In 1996, while horseback riding with a cousin, Jiles discovered a lost graveyard which inspired her to uncover a forgotten episode of Civil War history: the unjust incarceration of Confederate women in southeastern Missouri. Further research revealed a virtual ethinic cleansing, with towns torched and widespread murder of male and even female prisoners, all perpetrated by units of the Federal army. Each chapter of Enemy Women opens with excerpts of harrowing accounts of suffering, torture and murder taken from the coroner's records, military letters and other historical documents.

Onto this carefully researched background, Jiles layers the story of Adair Colley, a teenage girl from the Missouri Ozarks who first loses her family and then her freedom. In jail in St. Louis, she meets Major William Neumann, a Union army jailer from the judge advocate general's department. After months of sparring, the two develop a reluctant trust, and Neumann sets in motion plans for Adair to escape, promising to come for her on his release from the army. The remainder of the novel follows Adair's long journey through the martial law countryside of Missouri, which Jiles herself retraced on horseback, and Neumann's equally horrifying trek from the battlegrounds of Louisiana to his post-war search for Adair.

Jiles, winner of the Canadian Governor General's Award for poetry, uses her poetic and narrative skills to draw the reader deep into the emotional lives of Adair and Neumann. Many passages read like prose poems and yet move with the pace of a thriller.

The reader who enjoys discovering new historical territory will love Enemy Women, which combines a little-known chapter of the Civil War with a fresh, unsentimental, yet age-old romance in the love story of Adair and Neumann.

Mary Carol Moran teaches the Novel Writers' Workshop for the Auburn University Outreach Program.

Sarah Dunant has visited the turbulent beauty of the Italian Renaissance before, in rich historical novels like The Birth of Venus. With Blood & Beauty, she returns to this fascinating era, but this time she’s trained her acute storytelling eye on real historical figures: one of Europe’s most infamous families, the Borgias.

Turning the lives of people who actually inhabit the pages of history into a compelling, dazzling fictional narrative is a new challenge for Dunant, but she rises to it beautifully. Filled with rich detail and page-turning drama, Blood & Beauty is an ambitious and bravura new work from a powerful voice in historical fiction.

Beginning with the election of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia as Pope Alexander VI in 1492, Dunant charts 10 years of turbulent, romantic and often chaotic Borgia rule in Europe. As a Spanish clergyman surrounded by Italians, famous as much for his wealth and the love of his illegitimate children as for his statue in the church, Alexander knows he must be shrewd and smart if he is to bend Europe to his will. To satisfy his unceasing desire for power amid the ever-turbulent politics of a divided Italian peninsula, he turns to his two most famous children, the warrior Cesare and the charming Lucrezia, key to the future of his dynasty.

The most striking thing about Blood & Beauty is how unreservedly Dunant luxuriates in the pageantry and drama of the period. She labored to strip away some of the centuries’ worth of propaganda and rumors surrounding the Borgia family with this novel, and she succeeds in that, but she also never shies from draping the work in gorgeous prose. The bombast and the high stakes of this story come to vivid life with every word. It’s a refreshingly unrestrained treatment of the genre, and it makes the tale all the more engaging.

Perfect for readers who love danger, romance and lots of palace intrigue, Blood & Beauty is a triumph on an epic scale. Dunant takes us deep into this gorgeous but often deadly world, and we never want to leave. Lucky for us, the epilogue notes that she’s already planning another Borgia book.

In his 15 novels, Chris Bohjalian has delved into a potpourri of weighty topics, including environmental activism, medical malpractice suits and interracial adoption. Some of his more recent novels are injected with an element of mystery, and he continues on that track with his latest—a brilliant blend of historical fiction and a chilling serial killer story.

This gripping novel opens in Florence in 1955 with the brutal murder of Francesca Rosati, daughter-in-law of Antonio and Beatrice Rosati.

Serafina Bettini is part of the homicide unit investigating Francesca’s murder, and she first interviews Cristina, the Rosatis’ only daughter, who discovered the body. In only a few days her mother, Beatrice, is murdered in the same manner, and it becomes clear that a serial killer is methodically eliminating the Rosati family one at a time. Wondering if the motive may trace back to the war years when the villa was occupied for a time by supporters of Mussolini, Serafina questions Cristina about her family’s involvement with either the Nazis or the local partisans trying to sabotage the Nazi efforts, bringing up painful memories.

Bohjalian deftly ties together the stories of these two young women as the killer is identified and the long-harbored revenge is revealed. He succeeds in turning a historical novel into a page-turner that the reader will not soon forget.

A novel about terse men with guns will inevitably summon comparisons to Hemingway. One set in the South will likewise invoke Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy. The Son by Philipp Meyer has its Hemingway-esque motifs; scenes of scalpings and general rapine do recall McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. Meanwhile, Meyer’s decision to write using different voices riffs on Faulkner’s stylistic experiments.

At times Meyer does seem to be aping these predecessors, but his latest book is no mere homage. This talented young writer—one of the New Yorker’s “20 under 40”—has his own voice, and it owes as much perhaps to Virginia Woolf as to the male American canon.

The Son concerns several generations of Texans: Eli McCullough, his son Peter and Peter’s granddaughter Jeanne Anne. Eli’s tale, told in straight narrative, is set before and during the Civil War. Peter’s, told in diary form, centers on the Great War. J.A.’s, told in interior monologue, spans the latter 20th century.

The most compelling of these characters is Eli, who watches Comanches murder his family and then is taken captive by them. Years pass, and he becomes accustomed to their independent ways, so that even after his so-called liberation, Eli pines for his adoptive people.

Peter’s main struggle is with the Mexicans who once owned the Lone Star State. He witnesses Mexicans being massacred, and when one survivor calls him to account, he must choose between his love for her and his duty to a family who scorns the “wetbacks.”

For J.A., the problem is how to carry on the family name in a completely masculinized culture (women, Eli had said, “had no common sense”). She also struggles with her Texan pride, given that her nation, rather than being grateful for the state’s once indispensable oil production (“life as they knew it did not exist without Texas”), treats her kind with chilly Yankee superiority. On top of that, J.A. is a McCullough, and her ancestors’ enemies remember.

Meyer writes with grace, if not economy, and always with great sympathy, only occasionally careening into the saccharine. His knowledge of Comanche folkways is admirable, and, unlike Hemingway, he can write convincing women.

The novel’s epigraph is from Gibbon, and so its overarching theme is ephemerality—the decline of families shadowed by the decline of empires—a theme evident as well in the title of Meyer’s previous work, American Rust. The Son is a shining second step in a promising career.

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Read a Q&A with Philipp Meyer for The Son.