Admittedly, 12-year-old Tom Page is no Gulliver, but he’s way ahead of his time (late 18th-century England) in his belief that animals and humans can interact with respect—and even love—on both sides. So it is fortuitous that Tom’s sugar-merchant master puts him in charge of two Indian elephants, delivered on British soil as exotic curiosities and almost dead after a long journey by ship with little food or care.

In Christopher Nicholson’s remarkable debut, The Elephant Keeper, Tom nurses the elephants back to life. He names them Jenny and Timothy, and together, the three of them bond on the palatial estate of a wealthy local man. Later, the kindly Lord Bidborough buys Jenny, but Timothy, whose hormones often render him fairly uncontrollable, is sold away. Tom, now 17, accompanies Jenny, and the two of them live the best years of their lives together at Lord Bidborough’s Sussex manor. Lord Bidborough suggests that Tom write a “history of the elephant” and doubtfully Tom starts “a simple account of particulars.” Gaining confidence, he launches into a joint biography/autobiography so engaging that at least one reviewer kept forgetting to make notes and simply charged ahead to find out what happens next.

First-time novelist Nicholson has produced many programs for BBC World Service about animals and humans. Here he does justice to both, establishing an unexpected venue of British aristocratic whimsy, along with an unforgettable picture of an elephant/human relationship so close that, as the elephant learns to think like a human, she teaches her human to think like an elephant, too.

After a Bidborough heir returns home, things deteriorate fast. In the end, a clever abandonment of literal storytelling succeeds in persuading the reader that, against all odds, Jenny and Tom survive into health and happiness together. This is one of the best books of the year, and “the crinkled line of writing on the distant horizon” promises a bittersweet ending that eases the heart, though it may boggle the mind.

Maude McDaniel writes from Maryland.

Author Amy Tan created her own subgenre of popular literature back in the late 1980s (sweeping, semi-autobiographical stories of family, loyalty and love set in various Asian times and cultures), beginning with The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God’s Wife. More recently, Lisa See has carried the torch with Snowflower and the Secret Fan and Peony in Love.

Now, first-time novelist Eugenia Kim confidently enters the field with The Calligrapher’s Daughter, a bold, richly detailed story about the young daughter of a well-known calligrapher in turn-of-the-20th-century Korea.

Najin Han was born in a Korea already under Japanese occupation. Her father, Nin, clings to the traditions of a dynastic country he feels slipping away (even serving time in prison for his loyalty). He looks to marry his only daughter off to the young son of a respectable family, but Najin and her mother resist, wanting more for her life. They secretly arrange for her to serve on the royal court as a companion to the princess, a betrayal Nin only discovers later through a letter sent to his wife.

But when the king is assassinated, young Najin leaves the court seeking to further her education and find freedom amid oppression. After a thwarted attempt to join her husband in America, she remains in Korea as a teacher, but like so many of her countrymen, never stops seeking a better life.

The daughter of Korean immigrants, Kim grew up hearing stories of her family’s life before the Korean War. A dearth of literature about the lives of Korean women during the occupation led Kim to interview her mother. That, with other meticulous research, helped the Washington, D.C., resident paint this vivid, heartfelt portrait of faith, love and life for one family during a pivotal time in history.

Amy Scribner writes from Olympia, Washington.

In Sarah Dunant’s latest novel, the Bard’s “get thee to a nunnery” is an apt description of the destiny of 120 young women, for whom Ophelia-esque despair lurks behind the walls of the convent Santa Caterina. Set in mid-16th century Italy, Sacred Hearts takes the reader into the dank and dreary confines of a convent that serves as a virtual prison for those unlucky ladies bereft of a wedding dowry.

For Serafina, a passionate teenager whose romance is torn asunder when she is shipped off to Santa Caterina, living in the convent is torture; a spirited girl, she is not ready to go down without a fight. But when Serafina’s rebellion begins to influence even those who have reconciled themselves to the staid existence of convent life, tenuous relationships begin to fray and the peace at Santa Caterina is replaced with dissent and mistrust.

Dunant has populated Sacred Hearts with only women, yet interestingly it is the males of 1570 Ferrara who are clearly guiding the destinies of Santa Caterina’s inhabitants, as well as battling the incendiary Counter Reformation beyond the convent’s walls. The novel’s greatest strength lies in its ability to convey the intricate complexities of female friendship against the patriarchal rule of the times, with the sage Suora Zuana stepping in as a 16th century “frenemy,” the wise nun acting as both jailer and shaman, manipulator and surrogate mother to the woe-begotten Serafina.

Dunant is adept at writing the cliffhanging chapter, and also spares no details in explaining the painful, torturous rituals of penance followed by those who believe spirituality lies in leaving behind the temporal, and allowing the soul to seek wonderment in a higher power. Readers who have cherished The Birth of Venus and The Company of the Courtesan will embrace this latest addition to the triumvirate of Dunant’s Italian Renaissance novels.

Karen Ann Cullotta writes from Chicago. 

The bibliography tucked at the tail end of Philippa Gregory’s The Other Queen might come as a surprise to those who assume that only nonfiction writers are rooted to the rigors of scholarly research. For this best-selling author of novels such as The Other Boleyn Girl, The Queen’s Fool and The Virgin’s Lover, a passion for historical accuracy is the cornerstone of her abundant story-telling gift. Deftly weaving fact and fiction into a lyrical, literary tapestry that transcends the boundaries of the too-often predictable genre of historical fiction, Gregory has once again crafted a mesmerizing novel that will keep readers turning pages deep into the night.

Gregory’s legions of loyal fans are already well aware of the author’s aptitude for capturing the timeless pathos of 16th-century Englishwomen, royals and peasants alike. Perhaps never before has Mary, Queen of Scots, been portrayed in such a contemporary, complex manner: a beautiful, charming, headstrong and spoiled young woman who is both maddeningly self-absorbed and overwhelmingly courageous. The same is true for the novel’s anti-heroine, Bess of Hardwick, who transcends her hardscrabble childhood via a trail of calculated betrothals and consequent widowhoods. Proud and pragmatic, Bess harbors no illusions about romantic love, and instead, sets her heart on the comforts of rank and financial security, a coup she achieves with her final marriage, to George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury.

Nonetheless, after Bess and George Talbot are asked by Queen Elizabeth to provide “sanctuary” for the beleaguered Mary, Queen of Scots, the couple’s companionable marriage is jeopardized, with poor George smitten by the young queen’s winsome ways, and his once implacable wife reeling with jealousy and, worse, the discovery that she is once again on the brink of poverty.

In the end, which arrives after a series of riveting chapters alternating between the voices and perspectives of Mary, Bess and George, nothing is what it seems. This spellbinding tale of Elizabethan England adds up to a novel as sweet and thorny as a wild English rose.

Karen Ann Cullotta is a freelance writer and journalism instructor in Chicago.

Lisa See’s previous work has highlighted the lives of women in China from the 17th century to the present. Shanghai Girls opens in 1937 Shanghai, then shifts to the U.S., where See focuses her unique lens on the poverty and prejudice experienced by Chinese Americans until the late 1950s.

Pearl and May Chin, 21 and 18 years old, are working as models in Shanghai when their lives are dramatically uprooted: their father’s gambling debts have forced him to sell them into marriage to Chinese-American husbands. As they plan to elude this unacceptable fate, Japanese bombs begin falling on Shanghai; in their attempt to escape, Pearl is brutally raped by soldiers and hospitalized.

Their misfortunes continue after landing at Angel Island (“the Ellis Island of the West”), where the sisters are interrogated for months. Pearl realizes they are hopelessly stranded: “China is lost to the Japanese, May’s pregnant, and we have no money and no family.” The only officially married woman of the two, Pearl takes May’s place as mother of Joy, the baby born shortly before they leave for Los Angeles to meet their husbands. See astutely blends the struggle of this extended family with actual historical events: their attempts at distinguishing themselves as non-Japanese during the war, their reactions from afar as the Red Army pushes across China and the ensuing McCarthy-era bids at labeling them Communists.

Throughout her compelling family saga, See underlines the importance of ancient traditions for her characters, especially Pearl, whose mother-in-law instills “Chinese” into her “as surely as the flavor of ginger seeps into soup.” When Joy returns from her first college year in 1956 calling her family “wrong and backward,” it is Pearl who reacts most strongly, while May is the one who has adapted L.A.’s Hollywood mores quite easily. But as the novel ends, May tells Pearl, “Whenever our hair is white, we’ll still have our sister love.”

Satisfying on so many levels, See’s latest is above all a confirmation of unbreakable family bonds, as two Shanghai girls survive seemingly insurmountable setbacks, both at home and abroad.

Deborah Donovan writes from La Veta, Colorado.

“Regret” is the given name of the protagonist of Alan Brennert’s beautiful, sprawling novel Honolulu. Born in Korea, which was a rigidly Confucianist country under Japanese occupation at the beginning of the 20th century, she gets her name for no other reason than that she’s a girl, and women in her country are treated just slightly better, perhaps, than livestock.

When Regret asks her father to allow her to learn to read, he slaps her. But Regret learns anyway, in secret, with the help of a family friend, and her ambitions lead her to become a “picture bride,” one of many women sent to Hawaii to marry transplanted Korean bachelors. On the boat ride across the Pacific, Regret changes her name to the more appropriate Jin (jewel), and makes the acquaintance of several of the other brides-to-be. In a funny/awful scene at the dock in Hawaii, some of them are appalled when they finally meet their fiancés. The men had sent photos of themselves taken when they were much younger, posed next to swank American cars they didn’t own. One girl turns around and gets back on the boat, but Jin resigns herself to marry Mr. Noh, a plantation worker who at the time seems pleasant enough.

From then on Brennert puts his heroine through her paces: Mr. Noh turns out to be an alcoholic whose violence causes Jin to divorce him, an unheard-of act in her old society. But this is Hawaii, and Jin learns to make her own way as a seamstress and, at least once, as a chaste sort of courtesan. Daringly, Brennert links her to various historical figures, including May Thompson, whom Somerset Maugham rechristened “Sadie Thompson” and turned into a character in his story Rain; Joe Kalani, a young man lynched for a rape he didn’t commit; and Chang Apana, the real-life inspiration for Charlie Chan. Brennert’s realization of Jin, a character of so different a time, place and gender from his own, is an amazing accomplishment in itself. Honolulu is a delight.

Arlene McKanic writes from Jamaica, New York.

If you pick up The Book of Night Women, you might lose a little sleep. The second novel from Kingston native Marlon James will having you flipping pages, thirsty for more story, late into the night.

On a sugar plantation in Jamaica in the late 1700s, a slave dies in childbirth. But the baby, called Lilith, lives. As she grows up, it becomes apparent that a dark power lies within her, and she catches the eye of the leader of a group of women. They meet at night and practice magic—and make plans. Amid the events of the novel and Lilith’s tragic life, there are questions stretched taut across the background: can these women upend their dehumanizing lives—can they free themselves? Before it’s all over, we’ll find out how cruelty can break a person, fracture a soul. And we’ll find ourselves just as hungry for justice as the night women.

Lilith is one of the best characters in recent memory. She starts the book appropriately smart-mouthed and “uppity,” and as she grows into womanhood, she expectedly grows hardened, quieter. But her ability to hold on to her own soul, her ability to love, makes her not only endearing, but also a symbol of spirit and strength. James doesn’t spare anything in depicting the brutality of slavery. The violence is both horrifying and deeply saddening, but it spurs the reader to have hope in the characters and faith in the story—as well as the author.

Well-crafted and beautifully written in the patois of 19th-century Jamaica, The Book of Night Women seems likely to find itself on the short list for several literary awards (James’ first novel, John Crow’s Devil, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize). It’s certainly worthy of a book club read: nearly all of the characters are so morally complicated that they will inspire plenty of discussion. And with its unique rhythm, this book almost asks to be read out loud. The Book of Night Women is not an easy novel. But it’s one that’s rich and true, and it will stay in your mind for weeks to come.

Jessica Inman writes from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Britt Johnson, a newly freed slave at the end of the Civil War, moves with his family to the wild country of Texas, where he finds more dangers than the racism and violence of the Kentucky he left behind in Paulette Jiles’ gripping novel The Color of Lightning. The story hangs on what little is known of the real Johnson’s life, making the book feel as much a history as it is a novel.

When his wife and children are abducted during an Indian raid, Johnson decides he must retrieve them, and in that action he becomes a player in the much larger story of the relations between white Americans and “America’s great other,” the Native Americans who want to keep the land they have always known as the government tries to corral them on reservations.

A poet and author of two previous novels, including Enemy Women, Jiles is an adept and thoughtful storyteller who makes all of her characters sympathetic, allowing readers to see that there are no good answers to this historical conundrum. Her novel explores the feelings of settlers whose family members have been kidnapped; the Indians who took them; the captives themselves, some of whom have been with the Indians so long they starve themselves to death when returned to their original families; and the agents sent to deal with the Indian problem. Samuel Hammond, a Quaker Indian agent sent to oversee some of the most violent tribes on the southern Texas plains, beautifully illustrates the dilemma of religious Easterners charged with dealing with the tribes in a nonviolent way.

The Color of Lightning offers no easy answers or safe conclusions about this dark era of American history. It shows that people act in their own self-interest, always doing what is best from their point of view. This engaging story ably illustrates the consequences of trying to shift other people, en masse, to a different point of view, while telling the smaller story of a family trying to recover from the horror of an Indian raid.

Sarah E. White writes from Arkansas.

Readers who’ve seen the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid will remember Katherine Ross’ portrayal of Etta Place, Robert Redford’s pretty girlfriend. The real Etta Place turns out to be even more intriguing, for no one knows much about her—not even whether she was really Sundance’s girlfriend. In his rollicking debut novel, Gerald Kolpan imagines the life of this mystery woman, placing her in a time and place filled with colorful characters.

Kolpan’s Etta is from Philadelphia, the motherless daughter of a swindler who dies owing too many people too much money. Because some of those people are shady, her father’s lawyer changes her name from Lorinda Reese Jameson to Etta Place and puts her on a train to Chicago. She moves on to Colorado, where she becomes one of the celebrated Harvey Girls and befriends the extremely taciturn Laura Bullion, one of Butch and Sundance’s gang. Bullion helps Etta escape after she blows away a rich psychopath who tries to rape her, and it’s in Wyoming territory, at a place called Hole-in-the-Wall, where Etta’s romance with Sundance begins.

Kolpan clearly loves his wayward heroine, who’s incredibly beautiful, tall, smart and cultured. As with a number of works of new fiction, Kolpan’s Etta interacts with real historical figures. Charlie Siringo of the Pinkertons is out to get her; she saves the life of Teddy Roosevelt while impersonating Annie Oakley (“A bully adventure!” he crows); the president’s shy and insecure niece Eleanor becomes a friend. Kolpan is also good at taking the reader back to the sights, sounds and smells of the early 20th century. He describes the vileness of pre-Harvey Girls railroad food, the threadbare carpet of a dingy brownstone, the flowery but sincere way one lady or gentleman addressed another. When Butch and Sundance finally buy the farm in Bolivia in 1909, the resourceful Etta fades from history, but doesn’t fade away. Like Rose in Titanic, she goes on to lead a rich and eventful life. Etta is indeed a bully adventure!

Arlene McKanic finds adventure in Jamaica, New York.