Christopher Tilghman's first novel, Mason's Retreat, introduced readers to the Mason family and their pre-World War II life at the Retreat, their legendary estate on Chesapeake Bay. In The Right-Hand Shore, Tilghman reveals the earlier family history.

In 1922, Edward Mason is called to the Retreat by then-owner Miss Mary Bayly. She is dying and wishes to leave the estate to the closest direct descendant of the original immigrant owner. Her ownership comes through her mother, Ophelia, who hated the Retreat and left her husband, Wyatt, to do with it what he would.

From Mr. French, who has been property manager for years, Edward hears the family story, starting with Boss Mason selling all his slaves before Emancipation, a shameful episode that separated families forever.

Wyatt Bayly was a passionate orchardist who envisioned miles of peach trees on the Retreat. He and his employees, black and white, planted, pruned, tended and harvested for many productive years, until a blight took all of them and left Wyatt a broken man. Abel Terrell, a black freeman, performed or supervised the grafting of most of the trees. Abel's son, Randall, and Wyatt's son, Thomas, were best friends, closer than brothers--until Thomas's blossoming affection for Beal, Randall's sister, threatened to tear apart the natural order of things of that time.

Miss Mary tells Edward that he may claim the Retreat and tells him what happened to Randall, Thomas and Beal. Tilghman, in stunning and evocative prose, has written a carefully explored and beautifully nuanced saga that is at once heartbreaking and hopeful. --Valerie Ryan

If you're looking for an early beach read, you'll gobble up this story of a rich Southern girl making good in Manhattan, much as you would keep watching a car crash (or Showgirls), because although it's shockingly horrifying, you still can't look away. There are so many parallels between Southern Charm and socialite Tinsley Mortimer's actual life, for readers in the know, it will seem like she's not writing tongue-in-cheek so much as drawing directly upon her personal experience. The heroine, "Minty," has the same middle name as the author, and designs handbags just like the author. They're both Virginian debutantes who relocated to New York and they both own tiny yappy dogs (Mortimer dedicates the novel to hers).

The guilty pleasure of Southern Charm comes from the extent to which Mortimer's story is out of touch with reality, as a questionably reliable protagonist gets fame and fortune handed to her on a platter and doesn't give a second thought to planning a dream wedding (with $300,000 of her parents' money), only to cancel it. Country clubs and wasting scads of cash: welcome to Tinsley's--er, Minty's world.

You can't take Minty's tale seriously. Then again, are you supposed to? Southern Charm is adorably clueless and enjoyably easy to read--pure escapism at its finest. --Natalie Papailiou, author of blog MILF: Mother I'd Like to Friend

Gabrielle Kimm's The Courtesan's Lover is an intricate tale of temptation, indulgence and sacrifice. Francesca Felizzi lives the sumptuous and extravagant life of a highly gifted courtesan in 16th-century Naples. She entertains wealthy and important men, reveling in the sensuous power that she holds over them. But when Francesca, disguised as a respectable widow, accompanies one of her patrons to a theatrical production, she meets the eminently honorable Luca della Rovere. The two experience an immediate and intense connection, and Francesca begins a dramatic reevaluation of her life.

Kimm (His Last Duchess) writes in dynamic and often elegant prose that is a pleasure to read, and her accurate evocation of the historic Neapolitan setting is vivid and engaging. The large and varied cast of characters can be a bit overwhelming early on, but all are well drawn and eventually settle into their individual roles. It is only in Francesca's sudden change of heart regarding her profession that the novel disappoints. Francesca's abhorrence of her disreputable past is a bit simplistic, removing a great deal of her agency as a character; though still appealing, she's somewhat diminished by the abrupt and absolute investment in a morality society had heretofore been unable to impose upon her. But if this is a weakness, it is at least an interesting and provocative weakness, and The Courtesan's Lover remains a thoroughly compelling read. --Judie Evans, librarian 

An English manor house in the middle of nowhere and in dire financial straits, a beautiful marriageable daughter, a brace of suitable suitors, a goofy little sister, a drip of a brother and a birthday party--Jones's The Uninvited Guests contains all the ingredients you need for several different concoctions.

Emerald, whose 20th birthday it is, and her brother, Clovis, a year older, cordially loathe their stepfather, Edward Swift, who is a perfectly nice man. He just isn't their beloved father, who had the bad form to die. Imogen, the nine-year-old sister called Smudge, wants an image of her pony on her bedroom wall. Getting Lady up the stairs to create this work of art was do-able, with only one odoriferous accident, but getting her down is quite another thing.

As festivities begin with a few of Emerald's friends in attendance, about 20 people make their way up the drive talking of a train wreck from which they have luckily escaped. The Railway is called to fetch them, but they feel no urgency and insist that Mrs. Swift feed and lodge the poor stragglers until the next day.

One more guest arrives a bit later: a man from Mrs. Swift's possibly salacious past. Was he really part of the railroad accident? What does he know about Charlotte Swift? Will there be a deus ex machina at the end that will save the day, the manse, the uninvited guests and the reputation of the lady of the house? --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Oregon

Brian Evenson is an award-winning novelist and short story writer (Fugue State; The Wavering Knife) who has fallen between the cracks, so to speak. Horror, fantasy and science fiction readers all like to claim him as one of theirs, but Evenson is one of those writers who likes to blur the distinctions between genres. In the 25 stories collected in Windeye, Evenson shows himself to an imaginative writer first and foremost.

The title story is about a little boy who enjoys playing with his sister. One day, they try to get close to look into a small round window, the windeye, that they can never find inside the house. He holds her so she can look inside, and suddenly it was as if "she had dissolved into smoke.... She was gone." But where? Then there's "Baby or Doll," about a man who can't decide which is which. Other stories feature a transplanted ear with a mind of its own and a woman who keeps "falling out of time" and can't seem to fall back in. An Evenson tale is one laced with an ominous sense of ambiguity. Imagine Beckett's Murphy or Molloy lost, walking around in a Poe tale, then read these stories to find out why Jonathan Lethem calls Evenson "one of the treasures of American story writing." --Tom Lavoie, former publisher

Michelle Sagara's (Chronicles of Elantra) urban fantasy, Silence, is a story about necromancers, but not quite like others you may have read recently. There aren't any armies of the dead, insidious rituals or tête-à-têtes with Satan--instead, Sagara offers a thoughtful, slow-building narrative about friendship, loss and healing.

Silence is told from the perspective of a young woman as she discovers an unusual gift. The bereaved heroine, recovering both from the loss of her father and her boyfriend, is philosophical and often darkly hilarious. Sagara, a mother of two teenagers herself, knows how to create situations and dialogue that feel utterly genuine even when they are fantastic. The characters are all well drawn, but Sagara's depiction of Michael, a teen with autism, is the clear standout. She highlights both the difficulties and rewards of his condition with grace and sensitivity.

Silence probably isn't for everyone. It builds its suspense through painstaking restraint, and revels in the mundane as often as the extraordinary. This is a book for patient readers, especially those who prefer subtlety, to discover rather than to be told. That's not to say that there isn't plenty of action to be had; while not as bloodthirsty as, say, The Hunger Games, Silence has its fair share of violence. But, as the title implies, Sagara's novel is ultimately about the quiet moments that define both comfort and grief. It just so happens that some of those moments occur in a graveyard. --Katherine Montgomery, book nerd

Kate Bornstein started life as Albert, a Jewish kid on the Jersey shore who knew when he was four and a half years old that he wasn't a boy. Bornstein's path was predictably complicated from there, but the lengthy list of problems she lists in her prologue astounds: she suffers from leukemia as well as anorexia, borderline personality disorder, post-traumatic stress syndrome and a history of cutting; she's a sadomasochist, a transsexual and a former member of the Church of Scientology. Furthermore, A Queer and Pleasant Danger states from the outset its purpose of hopefully someday introducing Kate to her daughter and grandchildren, currently estranged.

If this list of disorders and minority statuses sounds alarming, never fear. Bornstein is funny, flippant, irreverent and witty. We follow Albert as a child in Jersey, a student at Brown, post-graduate studies in theater at Brandeis and the search for meaning that brought him to Scientology; then on his journey to become Kate, through a new life in San Francisco, Seattle and finally New York, with a series of relationships of every arrangement imaginable (and unimaginable). She generally has a good time, especially after becoming Kate, and her story ends on a positive note. Her tone is most serious in discussing the world of Scientology, which she presents as decidedly distressing and wacky, but her voice overall is impertinent and great fun. A Queer and Pleasant Danger is not for the faint-hearted, for reasons that  become fairly evident (see: sadomasochism), but is ultimately uplifting, hopeful, even joyous--and always droll. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pages of julia

Frank Deford's candid, often self-deprecating memoir, Over Time, has the flavor of a congenial evening spent hanging out at one of the Manhattan watering holes he frequented with his Sports Illustrated colleagues in the '60s and '70s. Interspersed with brief profiles of sports legends like his close friends Arthur Ashe and Billie Jean King are snippets of autobiography--from Deford's days growing up in Baltimore to his college years at Princeton to his rise as a sportswriter.

After covering the NBA in the '60s, Deford realized he'd rather be writing about sports personalities than about the games that soon would be ubiquitous on television. That decision launched him on an odyssey along the back roads of American sport, into the twilight world of roller derby and tractor pulls. Deford also includes wry glimpses of his role as a participant in the Miller Lite ("Tastes Great! Less Filling!") ad campaign and of his trip with SI swimsuit models.

He ruefully describes the 18 months he spent in 1990 and 1991 as editor of the ill-fated National Sports Daily, when he helped burned through $150 million of the fortune of a genial Mexican billionaire trying to start a USA Today-like sports paper. "We went out of business on our own before the Internet could do it to us," he writes.

As free of illusion as it is rich with wit and insight, Frank Deford's memoir reveals the life of a man whose talent is every bit the equal of the great athletes whose stories he's revealed to us. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer

A turning of the tables and charming artwork set this warm and funny bedtime book apart from its kin.

In the beginning, the tale seems familiar, both to the narrator and to readers--but don't let that fool you. "My dad is big and strong, but every night it's the same old story," says a child sporting a cornflower-blue crewneck. The boy's father towers over him in a white collared shirt, black tie and wool hat. A clock says 9:00. "I don't want to go to bed!" reads a message taped onto the wall.

We might assume that's the boy's sentiment, but we would be wrong. "At first, I try to be nice: 'Dad, I say, it's already quite late.' " A clock on the table shows 9:45. Father swaps roles and adopts a childish rant, "No no no, I won't go to sleep!" The boy's promise of a story brings Dad down from the chandelier where Di Giacomo shows him hanging by one foot. As the man begs for "One more story pleeease" on bended knees, readers will erupt in giggles while Dad holds his son captive, high in the air, then lays prostrate on the floor. Saudo gets the inflections just right in her parent-child turnabout, and Di Giacomo exploits the situation's comic possibilities. The limited palette of gray teals, warm browns and bare whites play up the nighttime contrasts and the father's vulnerability: children discover that even big, strong dads can be afraid of the dark. A guaranteed bedtime winner. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness

Struck starts with an unusual paranormal twist: Mia Price's powerful attraction to lightning. Add to that a more familiar "girl meets boy" theme, and set it against a backdrop of two warring factions that want to exploit Mia's extraordinary abilities, and debut author Jennifer Bosworth offers a novel with plenty of action.

Mia is not your typical heroine. She enjoys being struck by lightning, feels it in her blood when a good storm nears. Living in a future Los Angeles ravaged by disaster and choked by food and medicine shortages, Mia struggles to keep her family together. Her brother is keeping secrets, and her mother is growing increasingly distant as she becomes obsessed with watching a religious cult leader on television. And then there's the mysterious new boy who catches Mia's attention.

Mia is instantly likable, a strong character who doesn't back down easily. Bosworth's visual imagery makes each scene come alive, and Mia's growing frustration with her family palpable on the page. Although Struck appears to be a stand-alone title, there are enough loose threads that a sequel could connect. Even without some of the questions being fully answered, this debut will certainly resonate with readers looking for something different in the paranormal world. --Sherrie Petersen, children's book reviewer and blogger