Music for Wartime, Rebecca Makkai, Viking — Rebecca Makkai offers readers a treasure trove of literary work in her collection of 17 short stories in “Music for Wartime,” an intriguing blend of artistic imaginativeness and her Romanian ancestry.

The Kindness, Polly Samson, Bloomsbury Publishing 2015 — British author Polly Samson’s “The Kindness,” is not a compelling novel but rather a dramatized, ages-old story about a love relationship gone bad. Like a fisherman dangling a worm, the author teases the reader with a promise of an intriguing story yet to come.

Lord Fear, Lucas Mann, Pantheon — Lucas Mann’s memoir, “Lord Fear,” takes a different twist: Rather than relating his own personal life, Mann collates fragments about his drug-addicted brother’s life from interviews with family and friends along with the brother’s journal entries to fashion a haunting narrative.

The Book of Aron, Jim Shepard, Random House — Fiction is a world of imagination, yet Jim Shepard’s haunting novel, “The Book of Aron,” evolves around a real-world experience. In this case, Shepard retells the familiar horrors of Hitler’s genocide against Jewish people via invented personal experiences of a young boy, so vividly, the book is an agonizing read.

  Motorcycles I’ve Loved Lilly Brooks-Dalton Riverhead Books 2015 ISBN 978-1-59463-321-8 Buy This Book www.amazon.com     ". . . a joyful story." A young woman whizzing down the road on a motorcycle is no doubt a dangerous thrill, a challenge I’ve desired,...

  Safekeeping Jessamyn Hope Fig Tree Books 2014 ISBN 978-1-941493-06-9 Buy This Book www.amazon.com     ". . . offers up intriguing insights . . . " Jessamyn Hope’s intriguing debut novel, “Safekeeping,”evolves around a medieval brooch once owned by a Jewish...

  Leaving Before the Rains Come Alexandra Fuller Penguin Press 2014 Hardback ISBN: 978-1-59420-586-6 Buy This Book www.amazon.com     "It's where we are that really counts. " Alexandra Fuller says she writes “because the urge to do so collected the fuel of...

  There Once Lived A Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In Ludmilla Petrushevskaya Translated by Anna Summers Penguin Random House 2014 Paperback ISBN 978-0-14-312166-4 Buy This Book www.amazon.com     ". . . disturbing and depressing, yet...

  House of Coates Brad Zellar Coffee House Press Minneapolis 2014 paperback ISBN:978-1-56689-370-1 Buy This Book www.amazon.com     ". . . a well-written narrative laced with suspense, humor . . . " Journalist Brad Zeller and photographer Alec Soth have...

  The Idealist Nina Munk Anchor Books 2014 ISBN 978-0-7679-2942 Buy This Book www.amazon.com     ". . . an engrossing account of how good intentions can breed more problems. . . " Can we end poverty if we just toss enough money at the problem? Jeffery Sachs,...