After she steps off the roof of the Wellesley College library and dies, Maddy Starling refuses to move on to the next phase awaiting her until she knows her husband, Brady, and teenage daughter, Eve, have the right person looking after them. To that end, she chooses Rory, a local teacher with a terminally ill mother, as Brady's next wife. Able to plant suggestions in the minds of the living, Maddy maneuvers Rory into her family's orbit.

While the premise may sound like the setup for an oddball rom-com, the execution is far more profound. Brady and Eve can't function without Maddy, the hardworking, self-sacrificing homemaker who held the family together. Grief numbs Eve to her former life and relationships, while workaholic Brady has no idea how to step into the role of single parent. Both feel frustration over the lack of explanation for Maddy's suicide, as well as an oppressive guilt--perhaps if they had loved her better, appreciated her more, she would still be alive. Well-intentioned people, including Maddy's best friend, Paige, and sister Meg, often intrude when they mean to help. Through subconscious nudges and old journal entries, Maddy tries to help the people she loved most begin to live again without her.

Filled with deaths and myriad ways that human beings fight or surrender to pain, I Liked My Life nonetheless is an affirmation of love and the ability to survive grief and find joy again. Book clubs in particular will take delight in the wealth of emotion to ponder from this talented new voice. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Dark at the Crossing, decorated veteran Elliot Ackerman's second novel, after the acclaimed Green on Blue, follows Haris Abadi, an Iraqi American trying to cross the border from Turkey into Syria to fight with the Free Syrian Army. Haris is haunted by his time as a translator for an American Special Forces unit in Iraq, where he was "Iraqi in a war against Iraqis, and American in a war against Americans." Haris's ambitions are frustrated almost immediately upon arriving in Turkey, when he's robbed and forced to rely on the well-positioned Syrian refugee Amir and his wife, Daphne, a troubled, grieving couple who might be able to help him get across the border. Amir and Daphne are struggling with the slow disintegration of their marriage as they find drastically different ways to reconcile their experiences in Syria. Haris's search for a morally and spiritually redemptive "good war" is constantly frustrated by the region's messy reality.

Despite the despairing tone of the novel, Ackerman extends an impressive amount of empathy toward each of the characters. Everyone, he seems to argue, has a reason for doing what they do, even if it's an obscure, almost atavistic reason: "For Jim, maybe there wasn't a shred of meaning in any of this. Maybe for Jim, the whole war was just an impulse fulfilled." Instead of trying to make a grand statement about what war means, Dark at the Crossing illustrates how war can mean different things to different people. --Hank Stephenson, bookseller, Flyleaf Books

Adam Raine is born into the lowest social strata of a British Empire on the verge of irrevocable change. His impoverished childhood in early 20th-century London is marked by one misfortune after another: first the death of his mother, then his father's inability to find work. Adam's father gets a second chance when a relative offers him a job in coal-mining country, in the town of Scarsdale, helping the miners negotiate with the mine's owner, Sir John Scarsdale.

Adam comes of age in this new countryside home amid miners and their sons toiling in horrifying conditions deep beneath the earth. He is sent to a nearby school, in hopes that his intellect will earn him a scholarship to Cambridge or Oxford. He makes a few friends and enemies, develops a romantic interest in the local parson's daughter, and seems to be on a path that will send him above his father's social station. But then, like the rest of his generation, Adam's life is utterly upended by World War I.

Simon Tolkien (The Inheritance; Orders from Berlin), grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien, crafts an epic coming-of-age story in No Man's Land. He draws on some of his grandfather's experiences fighting in the Battle of the Somme to depict Adam's tribulations in the trenches. Tolkien hits all the resonant notes--class conflict, romance, family drama, war--that turn No Man's Land into a thoroughly enjoyable, if sometimes a little melodramatic, piece of historical fiction. --Tobias Mutter, freelance reviewer

In Days Without End, Irish immigrant Thomas McNulty and his love, beautiful John Cole, meet as homeless boys and share a lifetime of violence and deprivation, adventure and affection. In spite of their suffering, Thomas's first-person narration sings with wonder at the beauty of the world and their place in it.

"We were two wood-shavings of humanity in a rough world," Thomas reflects on their striking out together "in the enterprise of continuing survival." He and New England-born John find work in costume as saloon dancers for miners delighted to pay for a waltz or a foxtrot. They outgrow that job and join the army on the Oregon Trail, desperately seeking a secure future.

Sebastian Barry (Booker-nominated author of A Long Long Way and The Secret Scripture) balances gruesome depictions of massacres, near-starvation and Civil War battles with poetic phrasing and exclamations of joy at the wonders of nature and the gift of life. The duo crisscross the United States, from peace to strife and back, motivated by their commitment to Winona. Rescued during a Sioux massacre and sheltered at the army fort, she is put in their care as a servant but the men love and care for her as a daughter. Thomas's matter-of-fact tenacity turns humorous in Barry's narration; he describes the traditional family they make: Winona, John Cole ("the best-looking man in Christendom") and Thomas (who prefers a "simple hued housedress" to "dragging on the trews"). Happiness is tenuous, and Barry feeds the tension through to the end of this painful and beautiful novel. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, manager, Book Passage, San Francisco

Andrew Krivák (The Sojourn) paints indelibly rich scenes and relationships with The Signal Flame, an astonishing novel set in a small town in northeastern Pennsylvania's Endless Mountains. A strong tie to that setting is one of the elements that binds together a community and a family struggling with loss and continued life.

The people in Dardan mourn patriarch Jozef Vinich. He is survived by his daughter, Hannah, and her son Bo; these three generations have been touched by war. Jozef lost fingers in World War I; Hannah's husband survived World War II but returned in ignominy, a deserter later killed in a hunting accident; and Bo's younger brother, Sam, has been missing in action in Vietnam for some months. As they grieve for Jozef and Sam, Hannah and Bo must also navigate a lingering feud with another local family, the management of a business and a farm, a natural disaster and a legacy Sam has left behind.

The town of Dardan and its inhabitants are eloquently portrayed, both in the everyday and exceptional. Krivák's writing is beautiful, luscious but never overwrought; he recalls Norman Maclean in the understated loveliness and clarity of both language and meaning. He imbues his story with methodical pacing, a strong sense of place and a perfectly expressed sense of the quotidian: The Signal Flame takes place between Easter and Christmas of 1972, but encompasses a world of human experience. This is an extraordinary novel to be savored. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

The sprawling epic The Weight of the World, sequel to 2015's The Promise of the Child, is a tour de force of universe building and characterization. In a plausible far-future posthuman society, 14-foot-tall Lycaste the Melius tags along with Hugo Maneker, of an immortal race called the Amaranthine (after the mythical flower that never fades), and the tiny Huerepo, a clever little being with a flair for finding (and hoarding) treasure. Lycaste is invested in Maneker's quest to save the Solar Satrapy from hordes of the Prism, a loose alliance of hominids intent on overthrowing the rule of the Amaranthine. The immense war spans the galaxy, something Lycaste seems buffeted by without any real motivational compass.

The sequel also resumes the story of the immortal Jatropha, who must ensure that an infant heir assumes the Amaranthine throne. Meanwhile, Sotiris, another Amaranthine, continues his quest to find his long-lost, presumed-dead sister in a dimension that only he seems able to see.

The Weight of the World requires careful attention and frequent use of the glossary at the end of the volume to track its splendid, outrageous and brilliant speculations about the galaxy-spanning society of the 147th century. The characters may be highly evolved physically, but they retain the desire for wealth, fame, meaning and love that current humans do. The novel does not handhold, affording careful readers a complex tale of a possible far future. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor

Kate Hennessy examines the complicated and poignant relationship between Dorothy Day and her daughter--Kate's mother, Tamar Hennessy. Day's journey of conversion and religiosity began with Tamar Hennessy's birth, yet the same experiences that pulled Day toward Catholicism--the beauty of the sacraments and the discipline of the faith--turned Tamar Hennessy away from it. She instead endured a bad marriage and a tightly regimented life that allowed little room for self-discovery.

Kate Hennessy follows in her grandmother's footsteps and peels away the layers to reveal the vulnerable Dorothy Day, a woman who possessed great love for her daughter. But it was complicated by Day's demanding role as social activist and leader of the Catholic Worker, the organization she cofounded with Peter Maurin to offer hospitality, dignity and hope to the poor and disenfranchised of New York City. And Tamar Hennessy competed with it for Day's attention: "That is the danger of holiness on your own doorstep, in your own family. Either you cannot see it for the view is too close, or if you do, you feel you haven't a chance of being the person she was. You feel it is a sad mistake you are related." Nevertheless, both daughter and granddaughter understood the project's enduring legacy, and both shared a love for it, no matter where their faith stood. In the end, Kate Hennessy finds peace with the two halves of her heritage, finding the beauty and spiritual sustenance so beloved by her grandmother. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant

In The Book That Changed America: How Darwin's Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation, Randall Fuller examines the explosive impact that Charles Darwin's 1859 On the Origin of Species had on the political and ideological landscape of the United States. The work of scientific theory triggered controversy in an evolving country already rife with divisions.

Fuller sketches scenes with buoyant prose. He breathes life into familiar names, humanizing historical figures with delightful descriptions of their personalities and quirks. Boston, Concord and Manhattan also come alive, abuzz with shockwaves from Darwin's ideas. Fuller cites leading scientists of the day and cultural icons such as Bronson Alcott and his daughter Louisa May, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Frederick Douglass. Not all accepted Darwin to the same extent--some esteemed thinkers found his ideas preposterous--but their engagement with the theory and whether it could be reconciled with Creationism helped shape the era's literature, attitudes and politics. Especially compelling is how Fuller explores the influence that Darwin's ideas had on arguments about race and slavery.

Darwin's ideas feel fresh in Fuller's recounting as the author quotes liberally from diaries and articles of the day, as well as from On the Origin of Species itself. Considering the scientist's findings on understanding interactions between organisms and their environments, Fuller delivers one of his best lines: "Such tiny relationships, such insignificant causes and effects, could be decoded; they were in fact the very warp and woof of nature, diverse threads woven together to create a beautifully complex tapestry of life." --Katie Weed, freelance writer and reviewer

Italian theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli takes readers on a fascinating adventure into the outer limits of space and into the smallest atom in Reality Is Not What It Seems. Expanding on the concepts described in Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Rovelli explores the evolution of the world of physics. He considers early Greeks like Democritus, who pondered what the heavens consisted of; Einstein and his brilliant deductions of general relativity and special relativity; and the most modern concepts of loop quantum gravity, the Big Bounce, spinfoam and other mind-benders.

Rovelli manages to break down complex, proven ideas into smaller, easily assimilated concepts so those with little to no scientific background can understand the fundamental ideas being used today to understand and create our technological world. About quantum gravity, which is at the crux of the book, he writes, "An elementary structure of the world is emerging, generated by a swarm of quantum events, where time and space do not exist. Quantum fields draw together space, time, matter, and light, exchanging information between one event and another. Reality is a network of granular events; the dynamic that connects them is probabilistic; between one event and another, space, time, matter and energy melt into a cloud of probability." Drawings and tables help readers visualize the complicated, multi-part mathematics and concepts presented, and Rovelli's infectious enthusiasm and excitement for his subject help carry readers over the more difficult aspects, allowing one to let the imagination soar. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer

In 2014, Sophie Sabbage learned she had incurable lung cancer. Doctors consigned her to a likely death and said that her remaining time must revolve around treatments to extend her life and reduce her suffering. But when Sabbage learned more about treatments for terminal cancer--how all-consuming and painful they would be, and how they would rule her remaining time--she decided to make living meaningfully her priority over treatment. This involved creating resources for herself that would support her physical, spiritual and mental wellbeing. At the core was how she could retain her personhood, something she felt that medical treatments had stripped from her--the difference between being a patient and being a person. In writing The Cancer Whisperer, Sabbage aims to reach people diagnosed with cancer who want to be treated as "dignified, empowered human being[s]."

Sabbage divides her book into nine sections, with topics that include dealing with the shock that accompanies a diagnosis; how to ask self-reflective questions for living with cancer; how to deal with the numerous suggested diets; and figuring out ways to stabilize one's body following aggressive treatments. Sabbage approaches the topic with a firm resolve to empower readers in establishing their own purpose and autonomy. She combats the idea that surviving cancer is the cornerstone of success, and argues that preserving personhood throughout one's life is more important. In this way, her goal is not to outrun her prognosis but rather continue to live consciously. The Cancer Whisperer does not purport to offer magical cures or miraculous recoveries; instead, it delivers to readers a greater gift, one of transformation. --Justus Joseph, bookseller at Elliott Bay Book Company

Sometimes a house is more than just a house, as 10-year-old Amelia Howling learns in The House of Months and Years by Emma Trevayne (Coda; Flights and Chimes and Mysterious Times).

Much to Amelia's chagrin, the sudden passing of her aunt and uncle forces her and her parents to relocate to a strange new house to care for her orphaned cousins. But something is awry: "Since the moment she'd arrived, the house had given her the feeling it could think for itself." Determined to flush out the mystery, Amelia investigates, discovering Horatio, the house's builder, in her attic. Horatio is not a ghost lurking in the shadows but rather an immortal capable of transforming into shadow. The house, he says, "is a time machine" and Amelia his chosen apprentice: "I can teach you all I know. I can make you into what I am." With Horatio, Amelia can--and does--travel through time and space to Victorian England and pirate ships of old. All the while, Horatio promises grander adventures just beyond the horizon, yet Amelia can't help but be suspicious. How can she leave her own world behind if Horatio won't reveal the potential danger in being part of his?

Cousins aside, Amelia's loneliness and feeling of unease are striking, thanks to Trevayne's atmospheric prose. The "calendar house," with spaces representing the 12 months and four seasons, is a fascinating, inventive twist. Horatio, aloof and alternately enchanting and frightening, is a puzzle, much like the house he has built. Readers will agonize with Amelia as she weighs the cost of immortality. --Kyla Paterno, former children's & YA book buyer

Teens have ups and downs. But what 16-year-old Mel Hannigan has are no typical hormone-fueled mood swings. ("Trying to learn Portuguese overnight isn't a mood. It's someone else jumping into my head and grabbing the controls.") She suffers from a serious form of bipolar disorder that cycles rapidly through highs and lows. Heavily medicated after a brutal few years during which her brother died, her parents divorced, she and her mom moved south of San Francisco and she lost her two new best friends, Mel believes that her superpower is "the ability to not think about anything I don't want to think about." But when the grandson of a new resident at the nursing home where she works enters her life with an unflinching interest in her, Mel begins to question the sustainability of her denial-based approach to friendships. And when her former best friends reappear in her life, reminding her of raw memories, it becomes clear Mel needs to find a new superpower: "I've always thought I had the strength to avoid thinking about painful things. What if I actually can't think about them because I lack the strength?"

A Tragic Kind of Wonderful by Eric Lindstrom (Not If I See You First) is the funny and heartbreaking portrait of a hugely likable teen struggling to find her authentic self in a muddle of medication and mental illness. This beautiful, nuanced novel will speak to those who suffer from bipolar disorder, as well as to anyone who doubts they are worthy of love just the way they are. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor

A rainy vacation at home doesn't have to be a disaster if one has imagination. Harry and his big sister Clare have imagination to spare. On Monday they stay in and go to Mars (which "looked a lot like the family room, except for the volcanoes."). Tuesday they ride a fancy "Pasta Linguini" race car around the supermarket while Dad shops. The week goes on, and all would be well if only Clare would stop hogging the snacks and the rule-making rights. Clever Harry finally stops trying to share his ideas, and starts lining his pockets with pilfered treats. Thursday, when the two are avoiding "umpire bats" on their "Kimono dragons," Clare realizes they forgot food. Harry saves the day by quietly producing asteroid burgers (cookies) and volcano sticks (baby carrots), but lets his sister have some only when she agrees to let him lead some of the explorations.

Younger siblings are often at a disadvantage when it comes to calling the playtime shots. Resourceful Harry manages to work the big-sister system without ever resorting to tears or tantrums. Clare, to her credit, seems to recognize that sharing a little power doubles the creative possibilities. Ted Staunton (Morgan on Ice) is a masterful storyteller, capturing the magic of childhood play and sibling relationships with sly humor and understanding. Mika Song's sweet pen-and-watercolor illustrations blend the everyday (a plain staircase with pale blue wallpaper) with the fantastical (an "Abdominal Snowman" in fuzzy slippers chasing a golf-club-wielding Harry up a snowy mountain). Every rainy "staycation" should be this much fun! --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor