This is Why I Came, Mary Rakow, Counterpoint – A woman waits to go into confessional after decades of being away. She carries a small volume of Bible stories as she has embellished them, filling in the blanks.

Esther, Rebecca Kanner, Howard Books – Esther is a teenage Jewish orphan when she is rounded up by King Xerxes’ Immortals and brought to the royal harem.

Mrs. Engels, Gavin McCrea–Lizzie Burns and her sister, Mary, were textile factory workers in Manchester when the owner’s son, Frederick, came on board. Of all the girls who were swooning over him, he chose Mary

After the Parade, Lori Ostlund, Scribner–Aaron Englund’s life is divided – before and after the parade, before and after his mother leaves and before and after he leaves Walter. Trying to make it on his own in San Francisco, he finds he has to make sense of his years of growing up in small-town Minnesota . . .

Kitchens of the Great Midwest, J. Ryan Stradal , Penguin Publishing — Lars Thorvald got teased a lot growing up, smelling like the lutefisk his family prepared for the Scandinavians in Duluth. His daughter, Eva, also was tormented by her classmates, but her passion was growing chocolate habaneros, powerful enough to be a weapon.

Bull Mountain, Brian Panowich — The Burroughs family controls its own kingdom on Georgia’s Bull Mountain through unbridled violence and supported by moonshine, marijuana and meth.

The Shore, Sara Taylor — The Shore follows The Lumsden/Day family and other inhabitants of the islands off the coast of Virginia for over a century from the 1800s and into the future. From the very rich to the barely scraping by, they all encounter hardships of survival, whether from a spouse, parent or the supernatural world.