Scarcely has The Carriage House, Louisa Hall's first novel, begun when patriarch William Adair suffers a stroke at the neighborhood tennis club. He awakes to find his three daughters--Elizabeth, Diana and Izzy--clustered around his bedside, along with his longstanding neighbor Adelia Lively. None of them, though, strike William as the "golden girls" he's adored all his life: Elizabeth is divorced; Diana has dropped out of architecture school one defense away from her Ph.D.; Izzy, who struggles with her mother Margaux's ever-progressing dementia, has become someone her father hardly recognizes at all. And while Adelia's management of the Adair family home and her efforts to save the family's historic carriage house from demolition provides a semblance of structure, the neighborhood sees her as a desperate, grasping spinster intent on installing herself in Margaux's abandoned position as William's wife.

Like Jane Austen's Persuasion, The Carriage House is a finely detailed exploration of human relationships amid the loss and rediscovery of oneself. None of the Adairs, in a sense, know who they are; they know only that everything they thought they knew about themselves and one another has collapsed--and, like the carriage house, must be rebuilt if it cannot be saved. Hall's writing is astonishingly clear and sure-footed, with turns of phrase that display her experience as a poet but never drag the reader out of the plot, and her compassion for her characters is profound. A warm and well-written debut. --Dani Alexis Ryskamp, blogger at The Book Cricket

In The Retrospective, A.B. Yehoshua uses an aging Israeli film director, Yair Moses, as a fictional stand-in for himself and his writing (A Woman in Jerusalem, Mr. Mani et al.). Moses is invited to Spain for a retrospective of his films. He and his muse, Ruth, who is frequently in his films, agree to attend. The movies shown, many of them early efforts, are reminiscent of stories Yehoshua has written.

Seeing his early films causes Moses to ponder his youthful choices. Were they his, or were they strongly influenced by Shaul Trigano, his scriptwriter, or the cameraman, Toledano?

In their hotel room, Moses sees a picture, entitled Caritas Romana, that shows a young woman breastfeeding her father. He is instantly reminded of the rift between himself and Trigano, which ended their collaboration. Trigano wanted Ruth, playing a young woman who has just given her child up for adoption, to encounter a beggar on the street and breastfeed him. Ruth refused to play the scene, Moses supported her decision and Trigano quit.

Now, Moses recognizes the richness of what Trigano was trying in the scene--with its erotic overtones, including the taboo of father-daughter sexuality. Returning to Israel, he seeks out Trigano in the hope of reconciliation.

Trigano is hostile and insulting, wanting nothing to do with Moses. Finally, he agrees to an uneasy truce, but first Moses must pay the price Trigano exacts. What follows is an exploration of memory, morality, friendship and creativity that brings Yair Moses to a fuller understanding of himself and his motivations--in sum, a retrospective not just of his work, but also his life. --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.

As in his fiendishly clever and biting The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid's How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia combines extremely lean prose and a wry sense of irony to create a dramatic monologue with a wickedly satirical vision of modern times.

None of the characters are named. The central character--who's writing a self-help book called How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia--gives the other figures in his story simple labels: pretty girl, leader, matriarch, master. His how-to-succeed guide turns out to be exceptionally rich in the savage ironies of poverty. The narrator's brother is slowly killing himself working without a mask as an assistant to a spray painter, while his schoolteacher really wants to be an electricity meter reader, because of the greater prestige, graft opportunities and higher wages.

Starting with a night job as a DVD delivery boy, the narrator makes his way up the economic ladder while courting the girl of his dreams with movie rentals. Hamid can be a biting satirist, but he also knows how to infuse his characters with genuine warmth and pathos, and never reduces them to mere symbols in a brutal capitalist fable.

Hamid's novel is a vision of a new, very modern kind of civilization designed for the have-plentys, where the have-nothings survive amid electrical outages and contaminated water in a society that accepts hugely divergent inequality as normal. Hamid has a vast compassion for the wretched, and his story, horrifying in its casual description of abject lives, is a cry for compassion cloaked in a savage smile. --Nick DiMartino, Nick's Picks, University Book Store, Seattle, Wash.

Seth MacGregor, a young, half-feral faery, contends with the unfamiliar and dangerous world of 16th-century Scotland in Firebrand, the gripping first installment of Gillian Philip's Rebel Angels series. Unwanted by his mother, Seth comes to live with his father's clann, where he is greeted with an indifference that serves to feed his anger and resentment. When his half-brother, Conal, takes an open interest in his well-being, however, Seth begins to grow in the estimation of the clann.

The Sithe (as the faeries are known) are separated from the world of full mortals by a magical barrier called the Veil; to be exiled to the other side of the Veil is considered a grave punishment. Through a twist of fate and intrigue, that is just what happens to Seth and Conal. Although they attempt to live peacefully in exile among mortals, life is perilous for two supernatural creatures who stick out like sore thumbs to 16th-century witch hunters.

Much of the detail in Philip's writing is concerned with the business of building the worlds of the Sithe and 16th-century Scotland, and she handles this deftly, with a riveting, well-balanced writing style. While the backdrop is painted vividly for the reader, the overall action and pace of the story are not compromised by description. All this, combined with three-dimensional characters and the complexity of their relationships, makes for a well-rounded, meaty reading experience. Philip's exciting new series promises an engaging story with cross-genre and multigenerational appeal. --Sarah Borders, librarian at Houston Public Library

"This will be the map of your heart, old woman." So begins The Mapmaker's War--part legend, part romance, part fairy tale and part (fictional) memoir. Aoife, the narrator, tells the story of her life to herself--and thus to us as well--from the beginning, recalling a wild childhood spent adventuring in the forest and her unlikely apprenticeship to a skilled mapmaker. She recounts her first encounter with the Guardians, a peaceful people on whom she inadvertently brings a war, her discovery of a dragon--and a hoard of treasure with it--and her eventual exile from her own land. She also remembers her attempts to rebuild her life, reconstructing a person from the broken pieces left behind in her homeland.

The Mapmaker's War, Ronlyn Domingue's second novel (after The Mercy of Thin Air), is a testament to storytelling in its own right, placing epic fantasy at the heart of the everyday in a way that makes the magical seem as real as the mundane. Aoife's story is riddled with pain as she loses her family, her husband, her children and her sense of self, but it's also filled with resilience. The second-person narration may take some getting used to, but it ultimately succeeds in bringing readers deep into Aoife's story. The Mapmaker's War is, as Aoife writes in the beginning, the map of her heart as she tries to find her place in a world, persevering against all obstacles to understand who--and why--she is. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

Voyeuristic tales of addiction and woe with all the literary value of a classified ad seem impossible to escape. This book is an exception. Trust us when we say that there is nothing trashy or gratuitous in Domenica Ruta's memoir. Her energetic, graceful voice transforms a train wreck of childhood abuse, addiction, and recovery into a stylish, glittering metal sculpture.

Raised in a working-class Italian neighborhood in Danvers, Mass., north of Boston, Ruta grew up knowing she was an outsider. "In an extended family where people stumbled--and stumbled proudly--over three-syllable words," Ruta discovered she alone had an insatiable hunger for the written word. In no hurry to enter the phase of womanhood that requires makeup and hot rollers, Ruta didn't make a splash with her peer group, either. Finally, above all, no one else had a mother like Kathi Ruta. To say that Kathi, a drug user and dealer, parented her young daughter irresponsibly is an understatement. On the other hand, Kathi also fervently nurtured Ruta's interest in the arts and culture, laying the foundation for her future career as a writer.

Follow Ruta as she walks down the dark trail her mother blazed for her and comes to the realization that if she is to survive, she must travel her own road. Though sometimes the subject matter makes reading difficult, Ruta's talent makes putting the book aside impossible. The story of a vulnerable young girl's misadventures will open readers' hearts, but it is her eventual transition from darkness to hope that will steal them. --Jaclyn Fulwood, youth services manager at Latah County Library District and blogger at Infinite Reads

Like his most famous creation--Aslan, the Lion of Narnia--C.S. Lewis looms large in the popular imagination. An Irishman who spent most of his life in England, Lewis was also a literary scholar who gained fame as a popular theologian and writer of children's fantasies, as well as a confirmed bachelor who entered an unusual marriage late in life. Theologian Alister McGrath (The Twilight of Atheism) presents an accessible, clear-eyed portrait of Lewis and his contradictions, starting with his Irish childhood, his troubles at boarding school and his close relationship with his brother Warren ("Warnie"). He then concentrates on Lewis's time at Oxford University, where he spent most of his academic career.

Some fans may already be familiar with the highlights of Lewis's life, including his conversion to Christianity, his friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien and the wartime radio broadcasts that later became Mere Christianity. However, McGrath's extensive research into Lewis's correspondence provides fascinating detail, as well as a slightly altered timeline of his faith conversion that will be most interesting to Lewis scholars but is still compelling for the casual reader.

McGrath veers enjoyably into literary criticism with two chapters devoted to The Chronicles of Narnia, asserting, rightly, that these novels, Lewis's most enduring work, embodied many of his key ideas about the nature of the universe. The last chapter provides keen observations on the continuing popularity of Lewis's books and the man himself, half a century after his death. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Sonali Deraniyagala was enjoying the day after Christmas 2004 surrounded by her family; her parents were in a nearby hotel room, her two young sons playing with new toys, her husband in the bathroom. Suddenly, they were running for their lives as the devastating tsunami of 2004 swept across the Sri Lankan landscape. Deraniyagala, awash in a whirlwind of water and mud, surfaced to find herself utterly, incredibly alone--her entire family wiped out.

Wave is the visceral, frank and gut-wrenching tale of the aftermath, as Deraniyagala struggles to cope with the emptiness and chaos that is her new reality. "For three years, I've tried to indelibly imprint 'they are dead' on my consciousness, afraid of slipping up and forgetting, of thinking they are alive," she writes. "Coming out of that lapse, however momentary, will be more harrowing than the constant knowing, surely." Afraid at first of the memories that will surface if she returns to their London home or revisits old haunts in Sri Lanka, the author drinks herself into oblivion each night. As the years pass, however, Deraniyagala notices that simple things like a certain angle of light or a sarong or the sound of a child's laugh allow her access to her memories without so much pain, enabling her to provide readers with an intimate look at the people she holds so dear. Wave is a potent, unforgettable testament to the extraordinary powers of love and grief. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer

In this sequel to The Name of the Star, Maureen Johnson raises the stakes for Rory and the Shades.

Following the Ripper's defeat, Rory's parents have taken her to Bristol (and who can blame them?). Rory has been told by the government never to contact her friends in the London ghost police squad (the Shades) again. She's in therapy, but she can't tell anyone the real story of her attack, and she can't even befriend any ghosts because she has been turned into a human terminus (with the power to eliminate ghosts on contact). What's a girl to do?

When Rory is offered a chance to return to Wexford, she eagerly takes it, thinking that even if life can't go back to normal, at least it can be better. Instead, she sets off a chain of events that bring new villains out of the woodwork, and puts Rory and her friends in serious jeopardy. As in the first book, Johnson balances out the grisly details and extreme peril her characters face with impeccable comedic timing and a surprising new love story. But nothing is sacred and no one is safe, and the ending is a cliffhanger that will have fans on the edges of their seats yet again. --Jenn Northington, events manager, WORD bookstore

Betsy Lewin (illustrator of Click, Clack, Moo) uses a limited vocabulary to deliver a resounding tale of confidence-building with dynamic illustrations.

Part of the "I Like to Read" series, the story opens with two alligator friends, one wearing a pink ribbon, looking up at a sign posted on a tree announcing, "Big Race on Sunday." One of the alligators takes up the challenge: "I can win," says a speech bubble, supported by his beribboned friend. A larger alligator in a red baseball cap tells our hero he won't succeed: "No you can't," says he. "Yes, I can," the first gator responds. His friend reiterates, "Yes, you can." Our hero begins his swim training with vigor and motivation, repeating the mantra, "Can so. Can so. Can so." After intensive training, doubts creep in: "Too slow. Too slow. Can't." His supportive friend offers him a book, How to Win, that provides a regimen of exercise and positive encouragement, even as the bullying larger gator grows more emphatic ("CanNOT!").

Lewin exploits the possibilities of simple, repetitive language to show the effect of changes in emphasis with punctuation: the hero's chant, "I can do it," versus, in the middle of the race, his self-doubt, "Can I do it?" Her pen-and-inks capture the movement and determination of the hero, with a palette as limited as the words, to keep him in focus. Young readers will soon build confidence along with the dedicated hero, to tell and retell the story. --Mollie Welsh Kruger, graduate faculty, Bank Street College of Education