The Family Tabor is an evocative family saga that explores hidden secrets, repressed memories, and ultimately, the power of atonement.

Harry and Rona seemingly have the perfect marriage and are still passionately in love after 44 years. Their three children are a success in each of their respective fields—Phoebe is an entertainment attorney in Los Angeles; Simon is also an attorney and has recently been made partner; and Camille-the most adventurist of the lot—is a social anthropologist whose research takes her to remote places. Rona is a noted child psychologist, and Harry has devoted the last 30 years to resettling Jewish immigrants. The nonprofit he founded in the Palm Springs, California desert—where he and Rona live—has helped countless people build new lives.

When the book opens, the reader meets Harry the night before he is to receive an award—Man of the Decade—for his service to humanity. But there is a foreshadowing of danger at the end of that chapter. “I am a very lucky man,” Harry thinks as he falls asleep. But another voice tempers the thought: “…Luck is a rescindable gift.”

“In 1945 our parents went away and left us in the care of two men who may have been criminals.” Thus begins the novel, Warlight, by the Booker Prize winning author of The English Patient. Set during and after World War II, Warlight captures the lasting impact of war on those individuals who worked behind the scenes in British intelligence. Ondaatje focuses on the effect of secrecy on the children of those operatives living double lives.

The narrator of the book is Nathaniel--first introduced as a 14-year-old boy, and later, as a 29-year-old man.  Seen through his eyes, the first 180 pages introduce us to unfamiliar people and places and seem to lead nowhere. Ondaatje brilliantly mirrors the sense of confusion that Nathaniel and his sister Ruth feel after their parents disappear.

 All I knew, Nathaniel reflects, was that the political maps of [my father’s] era were vast and coastal and I would never know if he was close to us or disappeared into one of those distances forever, a person who, as the line went, would live in many places and die everywhere. (p. 180)

Rice Moore is the caretaker on a private nature preserve in the Virginia panhandle. Moore is the sole human inhabitant in this pristine 7,000 acre wilderness. One sweltering summer day, he discovers a mutilated bear carcass on his property. He sets out to find the lowlifes who did this and put a stop to them. It’s going to be dangerous work that puts him square in the sights of disgruntled hillbillies, vicious motorcycle gangs, and ex-military poachers. He’ll have to be extra careful, because any scrape with law enforcement could ping his location to the deadly cartel mobsters he’s been hiding out from (these bad hombres are a big part of the reason he took the job in the first place). Rice’s skills will take him only so far; he’ll have to become a force of nature if he wants to come out in one piece.

Bearskin would be good enough if it were a typical tough-guy potboiler, but a few things make it stand out from a crowded pack. First, it’s surprisingly ecologically-minded. Rice deeply cares about all creatures great and small on his preserve, and the reader will learn much about the ecosystem of old-growth Appalachian forests. These forests also make a unique setting for this kind of story. We’re accustomed to seeing hardboiled anti-heroes carry out investigations in big cities, and it’s refreshing to see the story beats play out in depressed rural areas. Finally, McLaughlin is a first time author. It’s exciting to see a new talent debut so strongly, and I’ll be looking forward to what he does next.

Readers of thrillers, Southern Gothic, and rural noir will find much to like about Bearskin. Hikers, campers, and other outdoorsy types will appreciate it as well. I think it also may appeal to fans of more literary genres, as long as those readers can handle occasional bursts of bone-crunching violence. At any rate, I think it’ll be one of this summer’s hottest reads with lots of cross-genre appeal. 

I am absolutely surprised by how much I liked this debut novel. Surprised because We Own the Sky is about a child who dies, and whose father who drowns his sorrows in alcohol. Not my usual cup of tea, but I literally could not put this book down, can’t stop thinking about it, and would be glad to read it again.

The setting is contemporary London, and the main characters are Rob Coates, his wife Anna, and their son Jack. Rob is a talented computer programmer who has sold his business to a large company, and he no longer has to work very much. He met his wife Anna, an accountant, when they were at Cambridge together. After a great deal of difficulty, they have a son, Jack, who is the light of their lives. When Jack is just five years old, he begins having health problems, and tragically he is diagnosed with a brain tumor. Surgery only offers a temporary respite to his symptoms, and when problems return, Jack and Anna are told that there is nothing else that can be done for Jack.

Rob turns to an on line support forum called “Hope’s Place” to learn more from other families in similar situations. On the site, parents gather to talk about their children’s illnesses and their frustration at ineffective treatments. Through Hope’s Place, Rob reads about a controversial clinic in Prague that might offer a cure. Anna, the rational, data driven accountant, is dead set against anything that has not been proven, researched, and documented.

Horn is a contemporary writer of note and author of five novels. She wrote her first novel, In the Image, while studying Hebrew literature at Cambridge University. Her second, The World to Come, was published in 2006--the same year that she completed her Harvard Ph.D. in comparative literature. She is also the mother of four young children.

Horn’s scholarly background, as well as her experience as a mother, play a large role in her most recent book, Eternal Life. When we first meet the main protagonist, Rachel, she is a 16-year-old girl in ancient Israel. The book recounts her life—and the lives of the Jewish people—during the next 2000 years.

Horn, in an interview for Publishers Weekly, notes:

Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday (Sara’s Picks)

Halliday’s debut novel is comprised of three seemingly unconnected stories.

The location is Tangiers, Morocco, and the time period is the early 1950’s. Our two main characters, Lucy Mason and Alice Shipley, met as roommates at prestigious Bennington College in Vermont. They were very close, living together all four years.  Alice came from a long line of blue bloods, and always had lovely clothes and jewelry. In contrast, Lucy was a scholarship girl, from the wrong side of the tracks, had there been tracks in the tiny town where she grew up. Really the only thing they had in common was that they were both orphans.  

Their senior year, a tragic accident occurred in a car in which Alice was riding. Alice and Lucy barely spoke after that.

Three Floors Up by Eshkol Nevo (Sara’s Picks)

Eshkol Nevo is a best-selling Israeli author whose books have earned top literary prizes and been translated into many languages. His latest book, Three Floors Up, is a psychological study of the residents of an apartment building in Tel Aviv. The building provides the structure of the novel and is comprised of three interconnected stories whose narrators live on the first, second, and third floors respectively. Each story takes the form of a confessional.

Improvement, by Joan Silber

Improvement is a collection of interwoven short stories about the choices we make when young and the impact of those choices on our lives. The book’s main characters are Reyna, a young single mother living in Harlem, and her free-spirited aunt, Kiki, who is now in her 60s. Forty years earlier, Kiki lived in Turkey with Osman, a Turkish rug-seller who was then her husband. What Kiki and Reyna have in common are the recklessness of their youth and their exotic taste in men.

The Friend, by Sigrid Nunez

The Friend is less a novel than an elegy on friendship, writing, and loss. Its narrator is a middle-aged intellectual—an aspiring and unnamed author who teaches creative writing classes. She is mourning the suicide of her former professor—the man who became her lifelong friend and mentor. Overcome with grief, she believes her own life has lost its purpose.