Mason plays with the tone of his newest literary fiction, offering vast rural expanses, claustrophobic woods, childlike wonder, growing paranoia, sudden danger, haunting beasts, and the comfort of everyday familial patterns as a backdrop to characters' struggles to grow, adapt, and, in some cases, reimagine their paths. The world trembled in his nostrils. Some of this was new, and some familiar. Closing his eyes, he took it in, all in, and then he pricked his ears and stared

Cronin's heartwarming, charming novel about nonagenarian Eddie and his new, younger best friend offers hope after grief and loss and the possibility of redemption in second chances. Eddie Winston is a 90-year-old gentleman who has loved but somehow has never been kissed. He spends his days working at a charity shop, a benevolent recipient of others' unwanted items, sometimes garbage-level junk, and, often, beloved items with associations so painful, they must be removed from

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm back from a fanstastic Bossy break at the beach, and I've been reading some great books. I'm reading The Foursome, the newest historical fiction from a favorite author of mine, Christina Baker Kline, which is based on the real story of her distant relatives, in which rural North Carolina sisters marry famous conjoined twins; I'm reading light summer romantic fiction for one of my book clubs, Into the Blue by Emma Brodie, about teenage friends who

Brutality and Bravery in the American West These books explore the brutality of pioneer times, when indigenous peoples were killed and abused at the hands of white people who explored and settled in the West, while also offering characters of all stripes who show bravery and unbreakable spirit. Historical fiction set in the West also lends itself to stories of strong female characters in a time when the world around them didn't support women's abilities, independent thinking,

Stedman takes a remote Australian sheep farm and drops our main protagonists into agonizing scenarios that threaten to break their spirits and ruin them forever. This was a beautifully written tale of anguish, penance, and redemption. A light coating of death dusts any scene you care to observe in the bush.... Death twinkles in this landscape like mineral sand. A Far-Flung Life is an epic family story of generations carving out existence in remote Western Australia, ruled by

The premise of this novel is irresistibly cute as two writers find themselves living and writing about endless romance tropes, but the tone shift and the story's veering into poignant tragedy surprised me and felt out of synch with the beginning of the book. Katie and Tyler were childhood neighbors and friends, on the verge of young love, then devastated, bound together, and pushed apart by a shared tragedy. Years later, they are completely estranged. Katie is a ghostwriter f