Since Madame Bovary first left her stable marriage for the arms of Rodolfo in Flaubert’s classic, a basic adultery narrative has been repeated in countless novels, films and television shows: A woman bored with a prosaic marriage flees for the unknown, not because of who the new man is, but for what he represents. Kim Wright adheres fully to this model in her achingly honest debut, but updates it for modern America with such finesse that, remarkably, it still feels fresh.

In Wright’s iteration, Elyse Bearden is a distracted artist flying home to North Carolina from a conference when she meets Gerry Kincaid—a tall, easy conversationalist from Boston who seems to be as unhappy in his marriage as she is in her own. Though it’s been difficult for Elyse to point out the exact problems with her husband Phil, essentially a good man and devoted father, she feels something with the handsome stranger that she hasn’t felt for Phil in a long time. Elyse and Gerry strike up an intense relationship over the phone, eventually consummating it in several clandestine visits, and Elyse begins to fantasize about a new life for herself and her daughter.

Though the affair feels a bit clichéd at times, Wright sets her story apart with the very relatable ways that Elyse works through her problems—not with Gerry, but at home in North Carolina. She sits through increasingly competitive book club gatherings with patronizing women friends, many of whom are struggling in their own right; she submits to the humiliation of couples counseling at the hands of their pastor, also a family friend; she tries to spice up what has become a totally routine sex life with her husband. Wright gets the details exactly right, perfectly conveying the excruciating banality of modern suburban life. And Elyse, perhaps because of her flaws, is an incredibly relatable and likeable narrator and the consummate guide to this universal story.

Rebecca Shapiro is an assistant editor at the Random House Publishing Group.

Kyle and Klint Hayes are a freshman and junior in the high school of a slowly dying western Pennsylvania coal town. Tawni O’Dell’s latest novel set in that hardscrabble part of the country, Fragile Beasts, opens just after the sudden death of the boys’ father in a truck accident—leaving them virtually orphans, since their self-centered mother, lacking a single maternal skill, took their younger sister and moved to Arizona three years ago with “some guy we’d never heard of.”

Kyle is the quiet, thoughtful, studious brother—and artistic, a fact he tries vainly to hide from the school’s roughneck element, which considers “artistic” another word for “gay.” And Kyle is decidedly not gay—he spends much of his time dreaming about Shelby Jack, the daughter of Cam Jack, who owns the J & P coal mine where Kyle and Klint’s dad worked before an injury landed him in a dead-end janitorial job.

Klint, the gifted baseball star hoping to ride out of town on a scholarship, has little interest in much of anything except baseball for the last several years, and is devastated by his father’s death.

At this point O’Dell introduces her third central character—Candace Jack, Cam Jack’s aunt. She’s filthy rich, “old and mean” and “hates just about everybody,” according to most townsfolk. She has a sad, little-known history involving a love affair 47 years earlier with a Spanish bullfighter who died before her eyes—a tragedy from which she’s never really recovered.

Somehow O’Dell is able to meld these two unlikely plots into a coherent and compelling novel, as Candy Jack’s ancient loss and the loneliness and rejection experienced by Kyle and Klint seem to come together to benefit and enrich each of them. With acute perception and just a touch of humor, O’Dell touches on issues as disparate as the loss of love, unabashed greed, competitive sports and the complexities of aging. Candy Jack is now 77, and “neither impressed by [her] accomplishments nor hampered by regrets.” And after meeting Kyle and Klint’s mother, she believes keeping them away from her was “a noble cause tantamount to stepping between two baby seals and a club-wielding Canadian.”

O’Dell has once again delivered a marvelous cast of characters and a riveting plot that sweeps the reader along as secrets are revealed, and old wrongs set right.

Deborah Donovan writes from La Veta, Colorado.

In The Girl Who Chased the Moon, an elderly giant visits his clothes dryer for messages from beyond, moody wallpaper switches patterns and the town’s most privileged family declines to leave their house after dark. Welcome to Mullaby, North Carolina, a magical, mythical town where the ever-present scent of hickory-smoked barbecue hangs in the air, and where novelist Sarah Addison Allen casts her latest literary spell.

Readers who devoured Allen’s first two novels, Garden Spells and The Sugar Queen, will recall that both beguiling narratives served up mouthwatering sweets alongside a charming, albeit eccentric, cast of characters. While the divine healing powers of homemade cakes and pies are also featured in Allen’s third novel, her 17-year-old heroine Emily Benedict is neither an earth mother, nor a brokenhearted muse. Instead, Allen’s rendering of Emily is painfully realistic, capturing the gnawing loneliness and uncertainty of a grieving young woman who discovers her welcome in Mullaby—her late mother’s hometown—is lacking the usual Southern hospitality. Indeed, the town’s outspoken spinster sisters, Inez and Harriet, speak aloud what everyone is thinking.

“Her mother had a lot of nerve, sending her here,” Inez said. “What a thing to do to a child.” Harriet shook her head. They were both staring at Emily unabashedly. “She’s never going to fit in.”

An Asheville, North Carolina, native, Allen has embraced her Southern gothic roots, writing novels that are brimming with gossips and misanthropes, not unlike the bizarre townspeople who inhabit the works of Carson McCullers and Flannery O’Connor. But unlike McCullers and O’Connor, who never shied away from the bleakness and depravity of human nature, Allen seems unable to stop herself from weaving at least a few redeeming and preternaturally beautiful characters into her novels. Allen’s tendency to wrap her novels in redemption and romance is likely to be appreciated by fans who enjoy a happy ending, but it is worth noting that her most lyrical writing is marked by unadorned realism. As Allen writes of the Mullaby barbecue:

“It was at first a Sunday tradition, then a symbol of the community, and eventually an art form, the art of old North Carolina, an art born out of work so hard it could fell a hearty man. . . . Eventually the origin and the reasons fell away from the bone, and all that was left was a collective unconscious, a tradition without a memory, a dream every person in the town of Mullaby had on the same date every year.”

The Girl Who Chased the Moon is an enchanting look at life in a small town.

On the heels of her 2008 debut novel, Girls in Trucks, Katie Crouch’s Men and Dogs echoes with the familiar drawl of a discontented and displaced Southerner. The story’s protagonist is middle-aged, Charleston-raised Hannah Legare, who made a move to the West Coast to try and shed the baggage of her father-gone-missing family and the subsequent attempts to sugarcoat the mess. She is, however, continually plagued by the unresolved mysteries of her father’s disappearance and her mother’s quick remarriage to his filthy-rich replacement.

The semi-scandal surrounding her gay brother, coupled with a lack of closure in her relationships, are just fuel for the fire that burns Hannah’s bridges and drives her further and further away from home. But a life apart from her less-than-perfect family situation does not provide the answers she seeks. When her livelihood and marriage in San Francisco go south, Hannah falls from grace—literally. A traumatic injury, a failed business and the inconclusiveness of her family’s story line eventually land Hannah—somewhat unwillingly—back on the front stoop of her mother and stepfather’s Southern plantation home. Despite her self-destructive and escapist behavior, she realizes it is the very people and places of her childhood that beckon her to sit and visit with her own ghosts. She may not arrive at the end she desires, but Hannah will learn something by revisiting the place from which she so speedily fled.

Crouch’s writing quite clearly reflects her own history—she is a former Southerner who can’t shed the remnants of a sweet-tea-soaked past—but her perspective is thoughtful and multidimensional. Her protagonist demonstrates a real skepticism for a culture that hides rumors and ruckus behind sweater sets and pearls, while her prose exhibits both an understanding and a distrust of the syrupy-sweet culture in which she herself was steeped.

Cory Bordonaro is a freelance writer, crafter and barista in Birmingham, Alabama.

Following her successful novel Jane Austen Ruined My Life, author Beth Pattillo continues to capitalize on the recent Austen renaissance with Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart. Here she mixes academia and romance in a combination that will prove irresistible for chick lit fans and Austen aficionados alike.

Claire Prescott, recently fired from her job as an office manager, takes her sister’s place at a Pride and Prejudice seminar in Oxford, England, despite knowing next to nothing about Jane Austen. Initially feeling out of her depth and disgruntled about attending a stodgy conference, Claire’s overseas excursion becomes more interesting when she meets James, a dashingly handsome yet annoyingly aloof publishing executive attending the seminar. At the same time, she finds herself in the midst of a conflict involving Harriet Dalrymple, a slightly offbeat little old lady, and what appears to be a very early lost Jane Austen manuscript in which Lizzie Bennett chooses someone other than Mr. Darcy. When Claire’s somewhat lackluster boyfriend, Neil, unexpectedly arrives on the scene, Claire finds herself struggling to decide once and for all who she’ll cast as her leading man.

Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart succeeds for several reasons, but part of its charm is surely due to Claire. A truly accessible heroine, neither saccharine nor born with a silver spoon in her mouth, Claire has faced adversity—and is someone readers will easily and eagerly root for. The catharsis Claire ultimately finds is touching and real, and allows her personal growth at the novel’s end to feel genuine and well deserved.

With its successful blend of grand romance, piercing humor and deeply felt emotions, Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart is a worthy homage to Jane Austen. The mystery storyline involving a possible lost manuscript makes for a multilayered reading experience, and boosts the novel beyond a simple, if spirited, modernization of Austen’s own revered story, while also setting it apart from the host of Austen-inspired novels clamoring for attention. Both the romance and the mystery storylines have surprising and amusing conclusions that will make readers feel that, as with any of Austen’s own novels, their time has been well spent.

Linda White is a writer and editor living in St. Paul, Minnesota.

When 33-year-old Celeste Duncan receives a package of mysterious items from her late aunt Michiko—a non-blood relative she hasn’t seen in decades—it’s like receiving a puzzling gift from a stranger. Everything changes, however, when various items in the box, including a photo of six-year-old Celeste in a kimono, begin to rekindle long-forgotten memories from her childhood, such as vague recollections of an “Aunt Mitch.” Celeste had been shuffled through a series of foster homes as a child and never had a true sense of family, so when she learns that Mitch’s sister in Japan may know the identity of her biological father, Celeste says sayonara to California and gives a nervous but determined konnichiwa to Tokyo, where she embarks on a homestay situation that is fraught with misunderstandings and culture clashes. Not to mention a sexy homestay “brother” named Takuya . . . as if things weren’t complicated enough!

As Celeste’s crush on Takuya grows, so does her affection for the strange and wonderful world she has immersed herself in. Her search for clues about her family takes her in unexpected directions, and soon the unconventional help of Mariko, her potty-mouthed Japanese language instructor, and a newfound love for singing Japanese music change her life irrevocably.

Love in Translation is romantic, fun and frequently laugh-out-loud funny. Celeste’s inner monologues about the oddness of the places and people she encounters (including a viciously perky television hostess) are a riot, and the lanky Takuya grows more adorable—and their burgeoning romance more sweet—as Celeste’s infatuation intensifies. It’s not easy being a gaijin—foreigner—in Japan, what with all the gaping and gawking that takes place on trains or even just walking down the street, but Takuya provides Celeste with a refuge from all of that. A disapproving homestay mother who is not afraid to meddle and a surprise ex-girlfriend provide entertaining conflict for the would-be lovers. Meanwhile, the connections that Celeste makes as she searches for details on her past are touching, while the perspectives offered on Japan make for a fascinating and light-hearted cross-cultural study. Heartwarming in its takes on family, love and finding one’s voice, Wendy Nelson Tokunaga has written a book that will charm readers worldwide.

Sheri Bodoh writes from Eldridge, Iowa. 

Almost everyone is familiar with the classic story of Romeo and Juliet, but Robin Maxwell’s latest novel, O, Juliet, takes things to the next level, allowing us to experience the thrilling, all-consuming passion of first love all over again.

In Maxwell’s retelling of the famous Shakespearean tale, readers are introduced to some of the more famous figures of Renaissance Italy: the incomparable poet Dante Alighieri, the generous patron Cosimo de’ Medici and a rival merchant family, the Strozzis, fighting for control of Florence. Among these warring factions, Juliet Capelletti struggles to escape her impending marriage to Jacopo Strozzi, her father’s scheming business partner who intends to take over the family’s failing silk business. Much to her father’s chagrin, Juliet has her own dreams—dreams of freedom from convention, and dreams of expressing her own poetry inspired by her literary hero Dante. Quite unexpectedly, Juliet meets Romeo Monticecco, a young man with ideals of his own. Romeo, sent away to study, has returned to his home in the hopes of fostering peace. Naturally they are drawn to each other with disastrous consequences.

After much success focusing on Tudor and Elizabethan England in books such as Mademoiselle Boleyn, Virgin: Prelude to the Throne and The Queen’s Bastard, Robin Maxwell has now turned to Renaissance Italy, delving into one of the richest times and places in European history.

Fans of Maxwell, historical fiction and the Bard himself are certainly in for a treat; O, Juliet, is an enjoyable retelling of the ultimate love story, one full of luscious period descriptions and perceptive insights. Maxwell has written a novel that is sure to leave readers breathless with pulses racing, hearts breaking and pages turning as they hurry to discover the tragic story of these two star-crossed lovers that Shakespeare never told.

Joan Bryant holds an Art History degree in the Early Christian and Byzantine periods.

The engrossing debut The Murderer’s Daughters is a survival story, if ever there was one—a sturdily written book about the close-knit lives of sisters Lulu and Merry, whose father murders their mother when they are just young children. Yes, it describes the fateful day, but little by little, it also lets you in on a secret: life goes on after events like that, too, and what you do with every minute of it counts.

The book deeply inscribes the 30 years that follow the tragedy in a tightly written, unsentimental narrative that doesn’t let either the reader or the characters opt out. Luckily, it also allows everyone to reap the ample rewards of following this story through. Each step forward for Lulu and Merry is hard-won and ultimately uplifting.

Even though he’s been incarcerated ever since the crime, their father’s presence is deeply scorched into the lives of Lulu, the elder, who tries to build her life on top of the past without allowing her family to glimpse its shaky foundations; and Merry, who feels haunted into continued visits to her father in prison. Both sisters dread hearing news of their father’s parol, but in the end that event may be the only way for the two to break free from their long emotional imprisonment of an entirely different sort.

Just like real life, what happens is believable, and the changes are on a human scale we can understand. There hardly seems a word or thought out of place in this narrative, so true does it keep to our sense of how people really do behave when their lives seem constantly under siege.

First-time author Randy Susan Meyers spent a decade of her own life working with victims, attackers and others affected by domestic violence, and all her words ring true.Merry, for one, is looking for perspective on her recently released father: “I could only hope to learn how not to hate him immoderately or love him too much. I needed to make my father life-size.” It’s finally that sense of “making things life-size” that informs this book and offers a way for these two survivors to move on, as they begin to make sense of the intricate tapestry of their lives.

Barbara Clark writes from West Yarmouth, Massachusetts.

“Are there no nice people in this book?” this reviewer wondered, even as she avidly turned the pages of Kimberla Lawson Roby’s latest novel. The novel’s subtitle asks, “Does Alicia, daughter of the Reverend Curtis Black, finally have the perfect life?” and the answer is a definite “no.” She thinks she does, however. Alicia has married the up-and-coming pastor JT Valentine against the wishes of her famous zillionaire father—a character who resembles real-life megachurch pastor T.D. Jakes.

Alicia loves JT and he actually loves her, and since she’s been a spoiled rotten princess all her life, JT is prepared to spoil her some more. The thing is, both of them are people to whom a decent person would give a wide berth. A budding novelist who finally uses her dad’s literary agent when no one else will take her on (and gets a big fat advance to boot!), Alicia displays greed and shallowness that would have been repugnant even in the go-go ’80s. JT’s wickedness is breathtaking; he is a flat-out, hairy-hearted sociopath. Convinced that God is ever on his side, he sees no problem with cheating on his wife with one woman after another. He lies to his women, to his wife, to his business partners. He lies when he doesn’t have to lie. Basically, he lies to everyone about everything—all the time. Fortunately, one of his women, a minx named Carmen, is as crazy and evil as he is. But unlike JT, she’s patient.

Roby’s characters may not be admirable, but they cause the same chill and fascination you’d feel if you came across a den of rattlesnakes. A skilled writer, Roby knows just how to keep readers hooked; you know that somebody has to get their comeuppance, and you hope the very first somebody is JT. After him, whatever happens to the other miscreants in this tale will be icing on the cake. When the hammer finally comes down, it’s not quite as satisfying as the reader would like—there are no gruesome deaths or Shakespearean piles of vile bodies—but it’s enough.

Be Careful What You Pray For is an irresistibly nasty work.

Arlene McKanic writes from Jamaica, New York.