The Red House introduces us to Angela and Richard, estranged siblings who reunite at the funeral of their mother; perfunctory greetings are exchanged, and that seems to be that. The following week, however, Richard invites Angela and her husband, Dominic, and their three children--Alex (17), Daisy (16) and Benjy (8)--to a big house in Wales for a week. Despite misgivings, they agree, since they can't afford a vacation on their own.

Richard is a wealthy physician who has recently acquired a new wife, Louisa, and her wretched teenage daughter, Melissa. The stage is set for all the long-held resentments between and among the parties to come to the fore. In the hands of Haddon (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and A Spot of Bother), we learn all about these eight people in a way that renders most of them sympathetic.

We grieve with Angela, who has been hallucinating about her first child, stillborn 18 years ago. Dominic is preoccupied, wondering whether to break up with his girlfriend. Melissa and Daisy are up to some extraordinary things that come to a head in Wales. Young Benjy is full of monsters and superheroes and worried about everything, while Alex lusts for Melissa.

In the best manner of first-rate storytelling, as the slowly revelatory tale unfolds, Haddon lets readers in on the fact that no one is quite what he or she seems to be. --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Oregon

Although sisters June and Isabel grew up with their cousin Kat, they've always struggled to relate to her and to each other. When Kat's mother calls them back to her Maine inn for a shocking announcement, the three young women find themselves sharing a room for the first time in years and spending Friday nights together, watching Meryl Streep movies as each tries to sort out her own baggage.

Stepford wife Isabel has discovered her husband is having an affair, even as she longs for children. June has begun searching for the father of her seven-year-old son, whom he has never met. And Kat is torn between running her mother's inn and marrying her lifelong best friend, or stepping outside her small, safe life to pursue bigger dreams.

March's love for Meryl Streep shines through in her characters, all of whom see their lives reflected in Streep's movies, from Out of Africa to Postcards from the Edge to the especially apt It's Complicated. Over popcorn, they find themselves confiding in one another, opening up about family secrets long buried and sharing the convoluted truths of their lives. A few plot elements are predictable, but others lead to unexpected places, and readers will enjoy following the characters' intertwined journeys.

Warmhearted and hopeful, March's tribute to good movies, family and new beginnings will motivate readers to invite their girlfriends over for a bowl of popcorn, a glass of wine and any movie starring the inimitable Meryl Streep. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

In the mid-1980s, 14-year-old Junie's beloved uncle Finn is the latest casualty of the AIDS epidemic. Finn, a prominent artist, introduced Junie to classical music and spent long Sundays taking her for outings and sharing secrets with her. With Finn gone, Junie soon learns her uncle also kept secrets from her, like his boyfriend, Toby, whom Junie's family blames for Finn's disease.

Bereft and lonely, Junie receives a message from Toby suggesting they meet--she's the only person who misses Finn as much as he does. At first, Junie is suspicious of the man her mother claims as good as murdered her uncle, not to mention jealous of his bond with Finn. However, she has no one to confide in--not her busy parents, and certainly not her older sister Greta, who has begun subtly vandalizing Finn's final painting, a portrait of the sisters entitled Tell the Wolves I'm Home.

The two strike up a friendship as heartwarming and poignant as it is unconventional and, at times, awkward. Rather than the monster she imagined, Junie finds Toby a gentle, hapless fellow, lost without Finn. Junie begins to unlock the missing pieces of her uncle's life, from his love for Toby to the root of the rift between him and Junie's mother. However, the friendship grows bittersweet when Junie realizes that Toby is also dying of AIDS.

Filled with lost opportunities and second chances, Tell the Wolves I'm Home delivers wisdom, innocence and originality with surprising sweetness. Its cast of waifs and strays will steal your heart as they show each other the way to redemption. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger, Infinite Reads

Matthew and Jenae Batt discover that what follows the eventual cooling of newlywed bliss isn't promising. Their best friends are divorcing, leaving them worried that a trapdoor might open under their own marriage. Then Matt loses his dad and grandmother in quick succession and, as Jenae stands by him and his family, he realizes that he still deeply loves her. Determined to improve their lives, Matt suggests getting out of their less-than-desirable apartment and buying a home.

In the Sugarhouse district of Salt Lake City, they find a dilapidated former crack house whose owner's attempts at renovation have done more harm than good. Hoping to make a renovator's nightmare into the house of their dreams, Matt and Jenae buy the house and hop on the DIY ride of their lives, an uproarious journey of amateur power-tool operation, stripping floors with the equivalent of stabilized napalm, and developing a man-crush on an "artisan concrete worker."

Along the way, Matt grapples with his dysfunctional family, especially his grandfather. A wealthy and incurable womanizer, Grandpa has coped with his wife's death by parading his girlfriends in front of the shocked family. Readers will laugh and cringe as Matt tries to strike a balance between convincing Grandpa to rein it in and not upsetting their relationship. (Grandpa holds the loan on their fixer-upper.)

Anyone who has tackled home renovation or dysfunctional family blues will chuckle and nod knowingly at Matt's experiences. Everyone else: get out your belt sander and prepare to laugh along with this witty, lighthearted memoir. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger, Infinite Reads

Rebecca Stott's Darwin and the Barnacle covered an eight-year period of Charles Darwin's life, during which he conducted research on a single, though unusual, species of barnacle found in Chile. That well-received book is the perfect precursor to Darwin's Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution, a wonderfully written and thoroughly researched accounting of the men who influenced Darwin in his quest to define the concept of natural selection and the process of evolution. Interestingly, the first printing of On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection contained no acknowledgment of predecessors; Darwin eventually created (and subsequently modified) a list of those who influenced him for later editions of the book. Stott has expanded on this list to create a well-rounded and chronological survey of opinion regarding evolutionary thought.

Stott's subjects range from the diverse writings of the self-educated Jahiz during the Abbasid Empire in 850, to the curiosities investigated by Leonardo da Vinci in the late 1400s in Milan, to the naturalist-philosophers who debated at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris in the early 19th century and ultimately to the fevered dreams of Alfred Russel Wallace, who pushed Darwin to publish his masterpiece. Though the topic might seem intimidating at first glance, Stott has a novelist's gift for storytelling (as previous novels such as The Coral Thief demonstrate). Darwin's Ghosts will make a fantastic addition to your summer reading list. --Roni K. Devlin, owner, Literary Life Bookstore & More

Many parents who looked forward to an empty nest when their kids became adults are finding themselves in a different stage, one Sally Koslow experienced as a mother. She didn't just write Slouching Toward Adulthood; she lived it as well. Interviewing more than a hundred "adultescents" and their families, Koslow reveals how baby boomers' empty nests are re-populating, becoming way-stations for adult children boomeranging back home to gain financial stability and job-hunt--or simply because they have nowhere else to go.

Are these 20-and 30-somethings victims of the economy or spoiled? Did helicopter parents raise kids with a heightened sense of entitlement? And how do families cope with the progeny living with the 'rents while following adult social norms (but often strewing wet towels and dirty dishes like, well, kids)?

Koslow balances candid stories shared by parents and their dependents with statistics and analysis from dozens of experts, softening hard facts with humor. In one passage, she cites bad news from a Charles Schwab study, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and FinAid.org, before concluding that "plenty of adultescents have little choice but to seek bailouts from the Bank of Mom and Dad."

Slouching Toward Adulthood also speaks directly to adultescents themselves, with a look at the trend towards late marriage and childbearing. Without judging, she suggests "gentle attitude adjustment" to all parties under any roof sheltering multiple adult generations. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, bookseller

Flash sales. Online coupon codes. Outlet malls stuffed with discounted merchandise. These are the hallmarks of the 21st-century American fashion landscape--and, as Elizabeth Cline found, falling for them can fill consumers' closets to bursting with cheap, ill-fitting, foreign-made clothing.

Dissatisfied with her own overstuffed closet of shoddy, generically trendy pieces, Cline wondered: Is there a more stylish, thoughtful and socially responsible way to dress? Why has the U.S. garment industry all but disappeared? And what is the cost--not only monetary but human and environmental--of our voracious appetite for "fast fashion?"

In Overdressed, Cline researches the history of fashion (both couture and mass-market) and traces the decline of department stores and home sewing skills. She visits factories in China, the Dominican Republic and New York's Garment District, learning about the industry's often deplorable working conditions and the difficulty of staying current and maintaining quality without sacrificing the bottom line.

Cline interviews workers, designers, industry executives and the heads of charities and textile recyclers (who, like the rest of us, have more clothing than they know what to do with). Educated consumers may find her naïve at first, but readers will appreciate her thorough approach. Cline urges shoppers to stop slavishly following the latest trends and instead look at clothing with a critical eye, learning to buy sustainably made, high-quality pieces and maintain them with care. This approach, while not a cure-all, proves more satisfying and ultimately less expensive--and may even create space in those crammed closets. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Anthony Heilbut (The Gospel Sound) is a Grammy-winning record producer famous for his work with gospel artists like Mahalia Jackson and Marion Williams. The eight essays collected in The Fan Who Knew Too Much reveal Heilbut's polymath talents, as he meditates in surprising ways on a wide range of topics.

The leadoff essay, "The Children and Their Secret Closet," is a fascinating, revelatory history of the significant role of gays in the gospel church. To Heilbut, they are the "unacknowledged arbiters of the culture," from early key figures such as Little Ax and Norsalus McKissick, Mahalia Jackson (who preferred the company of gay men because the other kind only brought her "grief"), James Cleveland, the "king of gospel music" who would ultimately die of AIDS, and James Baldwin, the "greatest writer to come out of the gospel church."

Heilbut follows with an insightful, penetrating profile of Aretha Franklin, successfully arguing that the history of black America "could be divided into pre- and post Aretha." Another essay updates the role of emigrés from Hitler's Germany in the U.S. (the subject of Heilbut's 1983 book, Exiles in Paradise) while "The Emperor of Ambivalence" praises the writings of Joseph Roth. From there, Heilbut moves on to the "fascinating phenomenon" of the soap opera, focusing on Irna Phillips, an unwed mother who "helped domesticate Freud for the masses" as the creator of As the World Turns and The Guiding Light.

With an essay on male sopranos, one on the blues and finally the essay that gives the collection its title, Heilbut completes his breathtaking trip through American culture. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher

Alternating chapters in prose and graphic novel scenes tell a haunting tale of two sisters who allow a boy to come between them.

Fifteen-year-old Tessa, her best friend Celine and Tessa's 13-year-old sister, Lulu, go to the summer carnival, where they run into football player Charlie Evans and his buddies. Tessa likes Charlie, and Celine likes boys in general, so the girls join the guys. When they pair off to enter the curiosity sideshow tent, however, Charlie winds up with Lulu instead of Tessa, and Tessa gets thrown together with Jasper Kleine. Tessa finds herself strangely attracted to Jasper, but what would people think if they knew she felt drawn to the class "weirdo?" Lulu and Charlie emerge from the tent hand in hand, which ignites Tessa's anger. Lulu and Celine bond over their boy talk, and Tessa withdraws, stealing away to meet Jasper in the woods. Tragedy strikes, and Tessa believes that her feelings of envy somehow triggered the events.

Castellucci's (Boy Proof) prose brims with wise observations about the all-consuming feelings of adolescence. Tessa loves her sister and wants to be happy for her, but her jealous feelings leak out in toxic ways. Powell's (Swallow Me Whole) graphic novel chapters cast Tessa as Medusa, who turns her onlookers to stone. Teens will see that his scenes of the mythological characters take on a chilling truth in light of the tragedy at the story's core.

Yet there is redemption in this page-turning tale, and an acceptance that feelings alone cannot determine humans' fates. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness

Those of us who grew up tormented by siblings dreamt that everything would be perfect if they'd just disappear one day. Which is just what happens to 13-year-old Egg.

Ignored by his father and harassed by both his sister and brother, Egg watches all three fly off in a hot air balloon. He misses them, but finds his life so much improved on beautiful Sunrise Island (where the family takes their twice-yearly vacations) that he doesn't mind--until someone tries to kick him off a cliff. From there, this highly enjoyable book picks up speed and doesn't stop until the last page.

Egg grew up across the bay on Deadweather Island, populated by pirates. But nothing could have prepared him for the world he suddenly faces, full of ancient legends and double-crossing businessmen. As he tries to figure out who wants his family dead and why, he finds that the only people he can trust are a one-armed cabin boy (who tried to kill him when they first met) and a girl he has a crush on (and whose father wants Egg dead).

Rodkey's smart, fast-paced writing is a great match for fans of the Mysterious Benedict Society books who crave a little more danger. Though parts of it might be a little violent for some younger readers, older readers, especially boys, will be delighted by the author's quick wit and the story's twists and turns. They will anxiously await the next installment in The Chronicles of Egg. --Stephanie Anderson (aka Bookavore), manager of WORD bookstore