Adriana Trigiani has created a world well worth visiting and revisiting in her Big Stone Gap series. Milk Glass Moon, the last novel in the trilogy, brings Ave Marie Mulligan’s story full circle.

Her family and friends in the small Virginia mountain community are facing changes and challenges. Etta, her daughter, is growing up, preparing to leave the nest and making choices worrisome to her mother. Theodore, her best friend, has seized the opportunity to move to New York. Jack Mac, her husband, continues to reinvent himself in ways Ave Marie could have never imagined. The unforeseen causes Ave to question her relationship with her mother in order to save her relationship with her child.

As in the earlier Big Stone Gap novels, Ave Marie is torn between her love for Big Stone Gap and the Italian Alps. Trigiani brings first-time readers up to date with ease and reminds long time readers that Ave Marie met and married Jack Mac in the first novel, Big Stone Gap, and overcame marital problems in Big Cherry Holler. While it isn’t necessary to read all three novels to follow the story line of Milk Glass Moon, each book adds texture and detail to the ongoing story.

Adriana Trigiani, who wrote successfully for television and the theater before turning out her first novel, is a terrific storyteller. She has created endearing characters with complicated, realistic lives. It’s a pity to see the series end, but fans of the books should eventually be able to see them on the big screen. Trigiana has written and plans to direct the film version of Big Stone Gap. Pam Kingsbury writes from Florence, Alabama.

<b>Her daughter’s keeper</b> Some psychologists say parents who feel terrible about every bad thing that happens to their child are suffering from something called omnipotent guilt. That concept is explored with sympathy and humor in <b>A Most Uncommon Degree of Popularity</b> by Kathleen Gilles Seidel, a wife and mother with a doctorate in English literature from John Hopkins. In this modern-day tale with echoes of Jane Austen’s work, Seidel pinpoints how certain social issues affect the lives of affluent people. The novel centers on four mothers who are unapologetic about not only feeling their daughters’ pain, but also fighting their daughters’ battles. In a world where old money collides with new money, parents compete fiercely to ensure their daughters attend the right school, appear at the right social events and make the right friends. However, these four friends quickly learn that when one gets involved in playground politics, kid stuff isn’t always fun.

When Lydia Meadows trades in her career as a lawyer in Washington, D.C., to become a full-time housewife and mother, she thinks her life will be less complicated. Wrong. Her first clue that life is about to change is the moment she sees her 11-year-old daughter, Erin, and her three best friends dressed alike on the first day of sixth grade at their private school. Lydia realizes together the girls have achieved something she could never reach as a preteen girl: popularity. This should have been good news, but instead, her daughter’s popularity, and what happens when it is threatened, causes Lydia to obsess over Erin’s social activities and nearly ruins Lydia’s relationships with her three best friends. Eventually, Lydia learns that sometimes it’s necessary to allow children to fight and win their own battles. <b>A Most Uncommon Degree of Popularity</b> is written with the tenderness, affection and insight that only a mother can muster. <i>Tanya S. Hodges writes from Nashville.</i>

Anna Fiore has a bad habit of finding those she loves in the most compromising situations. First her beloved Aunt Rose has an affair with Anna’s father. Then Anna finds her boyfriend of two years in bed her bed with her boss. Even Anna admits her life sounds like the script of some overwrought soap opera, which may be why she has spent the past 20 years wandering through apartments, jobs and dead-end relationships.

In Flight Lessons, a follow-up to the bestseller The Saving Graces, Anna makes a reluctant return to her childhood home on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where for generations her family has run a quaint Italian restaurant. The Bella Sorella is in trouble, the victim of poor management, an outdated menu and a truly crushing review in the local newspaper. It’s Anna’s task to turn things around, and it’s her intention to do it while sidestepping the messy anger she still feels toward Rose. In fact, Anna plans to leave town again as soon as possible.

But Anna finds herself drawn to the exhilaration of running a restaurant, and to the motley crew who work there. She hires and befriends a new line chef, Frankie, who has overcome an addiction and is desperate to win custody of her daughter. Then Anna meets a mysteriously scarred man, who wants to give her a reason to stay.

It’s easy to trace Flight Lessons to the author’s roots in historical romance, since Gaffney excels in deft plot twists and rocky relationships. But her recent novels have also proven Gaffney to be a compulsively readable expert on the essence of women’s friendships, in all their fits and starts.

Gaffney writes with wit and a sharp eye for detail. In fact, Flight Lessons offers an unexpectedly fascinating and authoritative peek inside the world of a restaurateur. In a novel with more subplots and surprises than any soap opera, the fate of the Bella Sorella becomes the main attraction. Amy Scribner is a writer and editor in Washington, D.C.

Paige Dunn is smart, beautiful, loving, and, not incidentally, paralyzed from the neck down. Stricken with polio in the 1950s, she gave birth to her daughter, Diana, in an iron lung, and shortly afterward, her husband left her.

Paige is as honest with herself as others, and if such a terrible thing were ever to happen to you, she would be the kind of person you would want to become. She’s a memorable character in award-winning author Elizabeth Berg’s We Are All Welcome Here, but not the only one. Diana, the 13-year-old center of the story, yanked about by hormones, and Peacie, their black practical nurse and housekeeper, along with Peacie’s boyfriend LaRue, all help deliver a quietly keyed story reminiscent in places of To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a delicate, thoughtful tale of the growing up of a sensitive young girl in the Freedom Summer of 1964 in Tupelo, Mississippi. Diana yearns for release from her world, and writes to movie stars, letting them know that I, too, was an actress and also a playwright, just in case they might be looking for someone. A couple of unlikely things happen in the course of the story, but even a modest deus ex machina incident at the end does not spoil the reader’s enjoyment of this forthright, sometimes slyly amusing novel.

Creating a book based on a reader’s suggestion, no matter how loosely, is something of a no-no for writers, but in her 15th novel Berg has the self-confidence to take someone else’s idea and run with it, in this case a reader’s true story of growing up with a polio-crippled mother. Some authors, with all those novels behind them, plus a couple of other books, would have burned out by this time, but Berg still manages to toss off an image like this: our skies were inky black and so thick with stars it felt as though somebody ought to stir them. Gems like that can’t help but make you look forward to her 16th novel. Maude McDaniel writes from Maryland.

Although Marti Leimbach’s Daniel Isn’t Talking is fiction, the engrossing story reads like the real-life diary of a mom at her breaking point. The author, whose first novel, Dying Young, was made into a movie starring Julia Roberts, admits the story is taken in part from her own life. Her son was diagnosed with autism five years ago, and the reactions of her friends and family shocked, surprised and saddened her. That experience has infused this novel, which follows a funny and courageous mother fighting to give her child a normal life.

Melanie Marsh, mother of two, has become a shadow of her formerly confident, breezy self, reduced to begging her shrink for medication to cope with her constant anxiety and increasing desperation. The reason: her 19-month-old son Daniel is obsessed with just one toy, won’t stop crying, and, unlike his bubbly older sister Emily, doesn’t talk or play with other children. Melanie’s British husband Stephen is dismissive of her concerns. When Daniel is finally diagnosed, Mom wants the harsh truth and Dad prefers denial. Their beloved little boy has turned into a slightly alien, uneducable time bomb, and the blame and fear rip apart their marriage. Preferring work to the new reality at home, Stephen withdraws from his family and demands that Daniel be sent away to a special school. It is an interesting dissection of two divergent methods of coping. But while we see Melanie struggle with complex emotions as she learns to see her boy as more than different, Stephen is too easily reduced to a selfish two-dimensional character. The most intriguing character here is autism itself, the mysterious condition that cannot be cured, or even effectively mitigated . . . a genetic mistake for which we will forever pay the consequences. Fans of Mark Haddon’s A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time will appreciate the portrait of an autistic toddler, this time from the point of view of a mother who stuck around. Readers will laugh as Melanie gives attitude to the experts and cry as the exhausted mother struggles to survive the screaming fits and odd looks that accompany an ordinary trip to the supermarket. This novel is bittersweet, resilient and not to be missed. Former BookPage business columnist Stephanie Gerber writes from Louisville, Kentucky.

Eight-year-old Tessa Lee wakes to find her drug-addicted mother nowhere in sight in Firefly Cloak, a compelling multigenerational novel by Sheri Reynolds, whose previous works include the Oprah’s Book Club pick The Rapture of Canaan. Abandoned at a campground in Alabama when her mother, Sheila, runs off with her most recent no-good boyfriend, Tessa Lee and her little brother Travis are left with nothing but a firefly-print housecoat and a phone number written in Magic Marker on Travis’ back.

As the plot zooms forward seven years, we find Tessa Lee running away from her grandmother Lil (the owner of that phone number, with whom Tessa Lee now lives) on a quest to find Sheila, who is rumored to work as a mermaid at a rundown carnival on the Massachusetts coast. Tessa Lee succeeds only to be abandoned again when her mother runs after being discovered.

The tale shifts perspective from Tessa Lee to Sheila to Lil, following them on separate quests: Lil’s to find Tessa Lee, Tessa Lee’s to find Sheila and Sheila’s to find whatever it is she needs to turn her life around. The story of addiction and tragedy (Tessa Lee’s brother Travis has died; the details of his death are threaded out slowly) is presented plainly with a na•ve and frank narrative voice, but the simple tale is cushioned with exquisite and unexpected metaphors. A hungry Sheila is empty as a straw. A bush has honeysuckle vine so sweet that it made the made the ants too drunk to bite her. Tessa Lee describes her mother’s laugh as as strong as cheese. It’s hard to resist being charmed by plucky Tessa Lee, and the shifting perspective highlights the fortitude shared by all three generations of women. Reynolds’ ruminations on redemption are so fleshed-out over the course of the book that the feeble ending feels slightly unsatisfying. But like the firefly coat Tessa Lee cherishes, this ordinary-looking novel has something truly magical inside. Iris Blasi is a writer in New York City.

Abby Randolph’s life is forever altered by a chamber pot in Mameve Medwed’s How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life. Reeling from a breakup and her mother’s death in an earthquake in India (where she was vacationing with her late-in-life lesbian lover), antiques-dealer Abby inherits the chamber pot without realizing there is anything unique about it. But a colleague’s inkling of its worth leads Abby to Antiques Roadshow, where an expert identifies it as belonging to the poetess of the book’s title. What Abby initially envisioned as an old pot is actually appraised for $75,000 and potentially could be sold for much more.

Inevitably, such a fortuitous windfall comes with complications. Shortly after being informed of her good fortune, Abby is sued over the ownership of the chamber pot by her mother’s lesbian lover’s children, one of whom just happens to be her ex-best friend and the other the ex-true love who broke her heart. Of course, the battle over the chamber pot becomes a struggle over things much larger as Abby wrestles with her past and fights for what she believes to be hers. Medwed touches on the pressures of being reared in an academic family (Abby’s father was a prestigious Harvard professor, and both academia and the Cambridge social circle surrounding it figure largely into the story), the deep wounds left by young love tainted by betrayal and our often profound relationships with inanimate objects. Nicely threaded through are literary allusions from Browning and others. What’s also particularly delightful about Medwed’s writing is her pace the story connects in a series of nodes before coming together in a satisfying conclusion. Though Abby herself can occasionally be grating (the novel is peppered with a few too many rhetorical questions and self-indulgent whining sessions for the protagonist to be wholly likeable), the story surrounding her is a lovely chronicle of the quest for ownership both of an object and of the self. Iris Blasi is a writer in New York City.

In an age of whiny novels about 30-something singletons whose sole goal in life seems to be snagging a decent man, Must Love Dogs is a refreshing antidote. Yes, 40-year-old Sarah Hurlihy is edging back into dating after a particularly nasty divorce, and yes, she wants to meet the right man. But author Claire Cook flips the same tired story upside down, serving up a hilariously original tale about dating and its place in a modern woman’s life.

Sarah’s life centers around two things: her job as a preschool teacher and her family. Her overbearing Boston Irish siblings walk into her house without knocking to grill her on her love life and grumble about their own. But their efforts to set her up yield consistently gloomy results. A blind date to a family lobster bake ends in an exchange of profanity after her dopey date, all dressed up for the occasion in a sailor hat and shiny loafers, gets a little too familiar.

So sister Carol goes proactive, placing a want ad on Sarah’s behalf. Sarah halfheartedly juggles the responses, furtively donning a pink boa to boost her confidence before she calls a potential candidate. In truth, Sarah admits, she’d rather be watching Brady Bunch reruns and eating macaroni and cheese prepared with wine (a surprisingly good dish discovered after she runs out of milk).

Some of the men she meets are losers, a few aren’t bad and one is quite promising, but Sarah still must decide what it is she’s looking for in a relationship. Is it really as simple as placing an ad and insisting that her soul mate must love dogs? Cook’s previous novel, Ready to Fall, was well-received, partly for its innovative construction: the story was told completely through the main character’s e-mails. Must Love Dogs relies on no such device and doesn’t need it. Reading about Sarah Hurlihy’s travails is like talking to a comedic self-deprecating friend. Cook’s humor breezes through the pages as she details the perils and perks of plunging back into the dating scene. Amy Scribner is a writer in Washington, D.C.

Edie Boyd’s three children are finally grown and living on their own. She should be thrilled, but instead finds herself mooning around her too-quiet, too-tidy house on the verge of a serious funk. On the other hand, Russell Boyd (who loves their children just as much) is exhilarated by the luxury of finally having his wife to himself.

But before you can say "empty nest," the Boyd offspring begin making their way back home. First it’s eldest son Matthew, whose longtime girlfriend buys a fancy apartment that he can’t afford to share. Then Rosa loses her job and her place to stay, neither of which she cared for anyway. And somewhere in there, Edie takes in the vulnerable young co-star from the play in which she’s appearing. Youngest son Ben has moved in with his girlfriend and her mother, but it seems only a matter of time before he’s home, too. Suddenly, the house is once again filled to the rafters, and Edie is left wondering if perhaps she should be more careful what she asks for.

Joanna Trollope’s Second Honeymoon is another wonderful dispatch from the British novelist, who reports from the front line of home and family like no one else. Trollope manages, book after book, to keep her unique take on modern living not just fresh, but intriguing. She is at her most sublime when writing about the most conventional details of and musings on daily life. Consider Edie’s meditation on, of all things, eating breakfast: "He ate like Ben, with that peculiar combination of indifference and absorption that seemed to characterize hungry young men, consuming two bowls of cereal and a banana and four slices of toast as if they were simultaneously vital and of no consequence at all." 

Henry loves Tilly. What’s not to love? She’s beautiful, elegant, does everything to perfection. Henry has lived with her for the past 10 years. But he won’t commit. And Tilly is getting desperate.

Ever wonder why the most irresistible novels often have the most despicable characters? Kimberla Lawson Roby’s latest, Changing Faces, features one of the nastiest creatures this reviewer has encountered in a long time. She’s Charisse Richardson, one of a trio of girlfriends who’ve known each other since school. Charisse is married, a mother and a regular churchgoer who revels in the word of the Lord. She’s also a psychopath: violent, judgmental, hypocritical, sadistic and pathologically dishonest. She wishes that her lovely daughter had never been born and that her husband was dead; as it is she can’t tolerate the fact that he’ll no longer allow her to micromanage his life. Her insistence that their marriage be run her way and her way only is so monstrously childish that it fascinates. Her mother is just about as hateful as she is, and Charisse is tormented, as far as she can be tormented by anything, by memories of dear mama Mattie Lee tossing a pot of boiling water on her father because he came home a little late. Charisse’s friends, the sweet, overweight Whitney and the brilliant Taylor, still love her, sort of she can be generous when she wants to be but even Whitney is running out of patience.

Whitney and Taylor have other problems, of course, almost all of them to do with men, and, in Whitney’s case, food. She falls hard for a handsome chap from her health club, but we know there’s going to be trouble when she sleeps with him within hours of their meeting. Taylor has a fibroid that puts her in the hospital and spooks her already skittish boyfriend will she have to have a hysterectomy and ruin their sex life? And is the partner at her law firm who used to give her such a hard time really changing his tune with those flowers he sends her when she’s laid up? Roby finds much sport in having these people treat each other horribly; her writing is infused with a sort of morose glee. At least one scene of amazing cruelty had this reviewer laughing out loud, guiltily. Changing Faces is vicious, compelling fun.

Reminiscent of Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe and Billie Letts’ Where the Heart Is, Catherine Landis’ debut novel is a sweet, sassy and tart story about the intersection of two women’s lives.

At 20, Ruth Ritchie wants more from life than she can find in her small-town Southern home. Her goal of leaving without looking back seems realized when she meets Chuck Allen Pirkle at a funeral. She elopes with the stereo salesman, settling into a domestic routine of loud music, beer for breakfast and a steady diet of peanut butter nabs. When Chuck develops a devout attachment to the preaching at The Little White Church nearby, Ruth decides it’s time for her to move on.

After loading up her car and leaving her husband behind, she sets out on her journey, stopping in Lawsonville, North Carolina, for gas, junk food and a nap. In town, she meets Rose at the local five-and-dime. Feisty but compassionate, the aging Rose is a generous companion for the floundering young woman. Rose takes Ruth in, gets her a job and helps her find a place to live.

Rose’s children would like to see her retire from the local newspaper and face the reality of her lung cancer. Rose believes she has time to write one more exposŽ about the way big businesses poison the environment, particularly in poor communities in the South.

With empathy, subtlety and humor, Landis intertwines the stories of Ruth beginning a life of her own, while Rose comes to the end of a life lived on her own terms. The narrative voice is warm, gentle and funny, with just enough bite to keep the story’s sadness at bay.

Landis, a former reporter, has created a memorable novel of friendship based on love, yet free from expectation, obligation or a shared history. The fried pies at the local hardware store are a mouth-watering metaphor for the surprises of life in a small Southern town. Pam Kingsbury writes from Florence, Alabama.