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.

For Anne Rivers Siddons, who counts Up Island and Low Country among the 14 previous titles to her credit, Islands is her first since 2000. Interestingly, though the two books tell very different stories, Islands is also a novel with the theme of connection at its core. Siddons’ protagonist, Anny Butler, is 35 and devoted to her work as director of a “part federally, part privately funded sort of clearinghouse for services for needy children.” When she totes a frightened, clubfooted child through the pouring rain to Dr. Lewis Aiken’s Orthopedic Clinic, she’s unaware that this action will change her life. Siddons’ rich prose and trademark capacity for evoking time and place is evident as Anny describes that afternoon as “humid and punishing as spring can often be in the Carolina Low Country, when the air felt like thick, wet steam and the smell of the pluff mud from the marshes around Charleston stung in nostrils and permeated clothes and hair.” Anny eventually marries Lewis, and their union is a happy and fulfilling one, but it is being accepted into the “Scrubs,” a group of childhood friends (all of whom became involved in the medical industry in some way hence the name “Scrubs”) and their spouses who share a beach house on idyllic Sullivan’s Island, which gives her a true sense of family. Although each couple has their own additional residence, the beach house is where they all meet as often as they can, and where Anny feels she truly “lives.” Like the unpredictable storms that lash the island, life too unleashes tragedy and devastation on the group, challenging the remark by the group’s most faithful member, Camilla Curry, who vows “the center will hold.” Devoted readers and new fans alike are sure to appreciate these two Southern authors who have once again delivered, with their individually distinct flair and flourish, lush and engrossing tales. Linda Stankard writes from Nanuet, New York.

Kaye Gibbons, whose debut, Ellen Foster, was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club, Divining Women is her first novel since 1999. Darker than Gibbons’ previous novels, Divining Women evolves into an almost gothic tale as the somewhat na•ve and unsuspecting young Mary Oliver heads south from Washington, D.C., to Elm City, North Carolina, in the autumn of 1918 to be a companion for her pregnant aunt, Maureen. Because the war has interrupted Mary’s plans to study abroad, her mother thinks this experience will enrich her. “These next months of your life will always be a blessing,” she says, unaware that her brother, Troop, is a pretentious, cruel man who has not only abused his wife emotionally, but subjected her to excruciating “cures” for her “melancholy.” As a bond of trust develops between niece and aunt, Maureen begins to awaken from her self-protective stupor and realize the full extent of Troop’s crimes against her. The tension mounts as Maureen’s confidence builds, Mary becomes more outspoken, and Troop, in reaction to the threat to his power, attempts to tighten his stranglehold over the women even further. In spite of being isolated, Mary and Maureen become connected to other female family members and friends through letters, and that connection, that safety net, that encouragement to grab onto life, so skillfully handled in Gibbons’ lyrical style, renders the tortuous experience a blessing after all. “This house is full of women,” Maureen says cryptically. “They come and go like nothing you have ever seen.” Linda Stankard writes from Nanuet, New York.

<B>A young widow’s triumphant journey through grief</B> During the first few months of Sophie Stanton’s life as a widow, she goes to work dressed in her bathrobe, finds herself sobbing in the produce section of her local grocery store and is crippled with fear by the pattern on her shower curtain. It is safe to say she is deep in mourning over her husband, Ethan, who died of cancer, leaving behind a 30-something wife with no idea how to move past such a loss and the deep loneliness it has left in its wake. "Now I understand why rock stars wreck hotel rooms," thinks Sophie as she stands alone in her kitchen, contemplating smashing every dish she owns. "To shatter the relentless stillness of a room." <B>Good Grief</B>, the truly extraordinary debut novel by journalist Lolly Winston, trails Sophie through the first year of her widowhood. But this novel is anything but textbook Grief Recovery 101. It’s different, because Winston has the nerve to admit that recovering from the death of a loved one is a ridiculous thing to have to do, and that it often has moments of humor mixed in with all the bad stuff. In <B>Good Grief</B>, we see Sophie through every messy stage, from denial to anger.

At first, she functions at the most primary level, sleeping for days and stuffing herself with Oreos until her mouth hurts. From there, Sophie moves on to bargaining with God. Maybe there was a clerical error, she thinks. Maybe the angel of death grabbed the wrong guy, and Ethan will be returned as soon as they straighten things out Upstairs. Finally realizing this isn’t going to happen, and determined to make a fresh start away from the ghosts of the home she shared with Ethan, Sophie trades her soulless cubicle job in Silicon Valley for a fresh start in Ashland, Oregon, home of Shakespearean festivals and hippies of all ages.

Once there, she rents an overpriced but charming house and sets about her new life, which at first consists mainly of occasional panic attacks and a job prepping vegetables at a tony local restaurant. She spends her days at work and her nights cuddling with Ethan’s old clothes.

But slowly, she settles into her new life. She takes on a teenage girl in desperate need of guidance and works her way up the chain of command at the restaurant. Then she meets a possibly too-good-to-be-true actor who just has to go ahead and complicate her purposefully simple existence.

<B>Good Grief</B> is strikingly original and stunningly brave in its honest portrayal of moving on, warts and all. Winston acknowledges that the real mourning process is not a Jackie Kennedy photo: a perfect, brave widow wearing a wrinkle-free outfit as she says a final farewell to her husband. The details may vary, but in real life, mourning is sloppy and filled with setbacks and anger, too many calories and too little sleep. And, yes, full of humor. Winston gives us such a lively gift of a character in Sophie, who, after her grief-stricken stupor starts to dissipate, turns out to be a touchingly normal person, alternately neurotic and strong. She worries that she’ll betray her dead husband if she sleeps with another man. She finds the nerve to open her own bakery without ever having run a business in her life. In short, she gathers her life back together in a way that is both triumphant and unforgettable.

Good Grief marks the arrival of an exciting and ambitious new voice. Winston’s story sparkles with wit and sympathy, but her musings on what it means to really live even in the shadow of death are the true reward here.

<I>Amy Scribner writes from Washington state.</I>

Some novels leave you wishing you knew people as cool as the characters. Who didn’t want to slip back in time to befriend the wise and witty Elizabeth Bennett after reading Pride and Prejudice? But best-selling author Laura Zigman’s new novel Her will more likely leave you thanking your lucky stars that you don’t know anyone quite like the neurotic bride-to-be Elise.

Her is a sharp, hilarious chronicle of the months leading up to Elise’s wedding. The invitations are ordered, the caterer booked. Elise and fiancŽ Donald are steadily, if not entirely blissfully, working up to the big day. Then Donald’s impossibly perfect ex, Adrienne, moves to town and Elise’s inner jealousy invades. Elise finds herself scrolling through Donald’s cell phone calls at 2 a.m. and cruising past Adrienne’s apartment to peer at the shadows inside.

Most of this is understandable. After all, it is her, the trust fund uber-woman in designer clothes. With a flashy museum job and a brilliant Yale professor father who studied Albert Einstein’s brain, Adrienne is a formidable presence. And she does seem intent on recapturing Donald, whom she so willingly gave up years ago. But there comes a point in the novel when Elise’s incessant obsession with this other woman creeps close to going over the top. Instead of jolting her back to her senses, Elise’s friends go along for the ride, literally. When Elise decides it’s time to find out why Donald has been visiting Adrienne, she doesn’t simply ask him. She enlists her best friend Gayle to slump with her in a car and spy on the pair. Elise represents what women everywhere hope they wouldn’t become if caught in her position, but what we suspect we’re capable of in the end. She isn’t the embodiment of grace under pressure, but she is honest, as is Zigman’s writing. Her is as addicting as Zigman’s previous work (Animal Husbandry, Dating Big Bird). The story is so lively and funny that even when you want to shred Elise’s $500 sweater, you can’t help but hope she and Donald live happily ever after. Amy Scribner is a writer in Washington, D.C.

Can miracles occur? Is it possible to see the invisible or touch the intangible? Elizabeth Egan has never believed so. This 30-something single woman is an interior designer living in a small Irish town that she has always hated. Despite the fact that she loves to give things a good makeover, she hasn’t been able to rearrange her mundane life by filling it with color, laughter or adventure. She’s never tried because adding these qualities to her life could make her lose control. This organized woman deals only with facts and reality because dreams and wishes, hope and love, frivolity and spontaneity have only brought her heartache. They have caused each of her family members to fly out of her life in different directions, leaving her solely responsible for a six-year-old nephew even though she vowed never to have children.

Is there a reason for everything? Ivan certainly believes so. That’s natural, given that he’s an imaginary friend, only seen by children who need him. His work becomes more complicated the day he enters the life of Elizabeth’s nephew, Luke. Luke isn’t the problem. It’s Elizabeth. Not only can she sense his presence, she is also able to see him. And he is drawn to her in a way he can’t explain. Ivan can hear the pain and loneliness in her silence, so, like any good friend, he tries to show Elizabeth a way to be happy. But before she can accept his gift, she’s got to believe.

Cecelia Ahern, the daughter of Ireland’s prime minister, has written a romantic, whimsical and beautiful third novel. Her characters are warm and embraceable. If You Could See Me Now illustrates what can happen when we see with more than our eyes. Tanya S. Hodges writes from Nashville.

Honora Beecher collects sea glass off the coast of New Hampshire. Fragments of clear, blue and green bottles boat trash, she thinks to herself find their way to the sandy beach where Honora is making a life with her new husband Sexton Beecher. It’s the late 1920s, and they are buying into the American dream as deeply as they know how. He is a typewriter salesman. She works full-time to make their scruffy fixer-upper a home, while waiting, hopefully, to get pregnant.

Anita Shreve’s latest novel, Sea Glass, starts out in these idyllic terms. Loving husband, hard-working couple, a first home, a satisfying hobby. It’s a world infused with gadgets from the past, like a copiograph machine, the precursor of the photocopier, and with the habits of the past like making all your own dresses.

Sea Glass might, on the most superficial inspection, seem to be another one of those historical romances that view the past, especially the ’20s and ’50s, as the “wonder years,” a safer and more innocent time than the one we live in now. But Shreve’s novel steers well clear of that shoal. Instead, this intriguing novelist seems bent on showing us that the 1920s were just as scary and unpredictable as our own times. The headlines Honora reads every morning suggest a world just as close to spinning out of control as the one most readers are familiar with today. Dozens die over the Fourth of July weekend, many in fireworks accidents. Others drown or crash their cars. With no warning, a ship explodes in the harbor, killing half a town. Soon the fragile harmony of the Beechers’ perfect lives, seemingly unflawed by the kind of moral turbulence we experience in the 21st century, is blown apart by the stock market crash and a subsequent union strike.

The singular accomplishment of Shreve’s book is that she is able to capture a time gone by in authentic and believable detail without making her characters cute, quaint or unrealistically virtuous the hubris of the average historical romance writer. In the world of Sea Glass, people live together without getting married, cheat on their employers and think about having extramarital affairs, just as characters in a contemporary novel would.

Some readers may find the character of Sexton Beecher the most believable. Just as Shreve refuses to romanticize the past, she also refuses to put the 1920s American family man on a pedestal. Beecher is driven by a vast, unfocused hunger which, if viewed from the right angle, might appear to be the dark side of that American dream we talk so much about. Sexton is good with people, a look-you-straight-in-the-eye kind of guy, and he has no problem doling out the little lies that make up business relationships. He longs for his own home, and he’ll do some creative financing to get it. He loves his wife, but when they’re apart and he’s lonely, he’s not opposed to a little recreation with another woman. And yet, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that many readers will not despise Sexton; they will understand his hunger. Like that other famous traveling salesman, Willie Loman, Sexton makes the reader ache for his failure at the same time that he (the reader) clearly perceives the character’s many errors of judgment.

Just as sea glass offers hints of a lost era, so Shreve’s new novel is a perfect fragment of our past a fictional story, but one so true to human psychology and the mores of the times, the reader may feel it contains more truth than a diary or a newspaper archive.