Carla Jean Whitley

Richard Middlestein showed his future wife incredible compassion on their first date, a setup. Rather than take her out to a showy dinner, Richard sat beside Edie at her sick father’s bedside, laughing and entertaining the pair over pizza in the hospital.

But now Edie is the one who’s sick, facing debilitating diabetes and other problems that accompany her obesity. Richard can’t handle it. Edie has been nitpicking him for years, and quite frankly, he can’t bear the idea of living the rest of his life without sex. He leaves his wife and endures his children’s wrath as Edie’s downward health spiral continues.

Robin is the baby of the family, and though her father dotes on her, she is withdrawn, dark and moody. It’s been years since she has shared things with her mother—in fact, not since the death of one of Robin’s close friends at age 15. That separation endures 16 years later, but as Edie’s health deteriorates, Robin is by her mother’s side.?That’s due, in part, to encouragement from her sister-in-law, Rachelle.

Rachelle married Benny Middlestein after he knocked her up in college. Despite their somewhat rushed entrance into marriage, the couple appears to have everything together. But Edie’s weight problems become a wedge between Rachelle and Benny as she obsesses over how to help her mother-in-law.

The Middlesteins are a normal, dysfunctional American family. Through their story, author Jami Attenberg (The Melting Season, The Kept Man, Instant Love) examines how families relate, the ways in which they shoulder each other’s burdens and whether they share responsibility for each other’s struggles. The result is a vivid, compelling portrait of human interaction.

Rules of Imaginary Friends:
1. You are as your friend imagined you. If your friend imagined you as capable of passing through doors and walls, you are. (This is a bonus, as friends who aren’t often become stuck, then forgotten, and so cease to exist.)
2. With the exception of other imaginary friends, only the friend who first imagined you can hear or see you.
3. If your friend dies, you vanish.

Novelist and elementary school teacher Matthew Dicks quickly establishes the ground rules for an alternate—or perhaps unseen—reality where imaginary friends aren’t make believe after all. In Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend, these figments of childhood provide their creators with comfort that’s lacking in day-to-day life.

For 8-year-old Max, whose autism often leaves him frustrated and misunderstood at school, the comfort that comes from his friend Budo is especially important. Budo is often Max’s defense and guide, because Max imagines Budo as older.

But Budo’s comfort level is shaken as he sees his fellow imaginary beings disappearing as their creators grow older and find strength without imaginary friends. Surely that won’t happen to him, as Max so clearly needs a friend.

That’s even more obvious when Mrs. Patterson, Max’s Learning Center teacher, kidnaps him from school. It’s up to Budo to figure out where Max has gone and how to return Max to his parents. Budo teams up with other imaginary friends, relying on their knowledge, expertise and sometimes unique skills, to rescue Max. In the process, Budo realizes he would exist forever if Max had to rely solely on him. He faces a dilemma: How can he save Max and himself? The choices he makes in this imaginative novel remind the reader of the value of friendship and why we need others in our lives.

In Goodbye for Now, Seattle author Laurie Frankel (The Atlas of Love) tests the limits of social media with the story of Sam Elling, a software engineer at an online dating site. Single himself and fed up with being regularly reminded of the fact, Sam develops an algorithm that analyzes clients’ emails, financial records and more to see who they really are—not who they want to be. The formula works, and Sam meets his perfect match in Meredith—but is soon fired because the company no longer receives repeat business.

When Meredith’s grandmother suddenly dies, Sam adapts his program to ease her grief, allowing it to create responses to emails and video chats for the dead to hold with the living. It proves such a successful way to help Meredith that they, along with Meredith’s flamboyant cousin Dash, open a business: RePose. The service is meant to be a stop on the way to acceptance, not a way to cheat loss. But when they’re faced with negative publicity accusing them of exploiting the bereaved, the couple is forced to reckon with their mortality and the ramifications of simulating life after death.

Frankel is unafraid to take on big questions as she weaves together her entertaining and thought-provoking story. The result is an imaginative tale that explores life, love and what lasts.

Jess Hall will never forget what he saw while peering into the church that day. Sheriff Clem Barfield is determined to find out exactly what happened inside those walls. And when all is said and done, town midwife Adelaide Lyle finally feels like the church is again a place of sanctuary.

Strange goings-on at River Road Church of Christ in Signs Following have been taking place ever since mysterious Pastor Carson Chambliss arrived in rural Marshall, North Carolina. It was one thing when parishioners covered the church windows in newspaper, then began speaking in tongues and handling serpents. But Addie had had enough when a copperhead struck a 79-year-old church member. After the snake was put away, the service went on and church members dumped the body in the woman’s front yard to avoid drawing attention to the congregation. Addie declared the church no place for children and began leading the congregation’s youngest members in Sunday school lessons beside the river, where they were safe.

Or so it seems, until the day a church man comes for one of her charges. Perhaps it’s no surprise that Christopher “Stump” Hall is brought in for healing. The child has been mute since birth, and his mother is a loyal church member. But when the healing goes terribly wrong, the entire town is thrown into a tailspin.

In his debut novel, A Land More Kind Than Home, Wiley Cash ably blends the intertwining stories of Jess, Addie and Clem to gradually reveal what happened to Stump in the church that Sunday. In the process, Cash proves capable of handling dialect and multiple narrators while creating distinctive voices and fully developed characters.

Jess has always been fiercely protective of Stump, and Cash offers insight into a child made more adult by being responsible for his older brother. Addie has served as midwife for most of the town, and as a result can trace each character’s path to the present. Though Clem, as sheriff, plays the role of good guy, his struggles with right, wrong and anger make him a believable character. Cash, himself from western North Carolina, never stoops to typecasting his characters, instead exploring how their pasts have led them to the present. The result is a compelling, fast-paced story that draws the reader into the lives of Marshall’s residents.

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Read an interview with Wiley Cash for A Land More Kind Than Home.

Singer-songwriter Josh Ritter has built a following on the strength of his literary song lyrics, which tackle such subjects as the parallels between science and relationships, the difficulties of love in an apocalyptic age and the beauty of relying on people close to you. With his debut novel, Bright’s Passage, Ritter shows that his range extends well beyond the three-minute pop song. He takes full advantage of the near-limitless bounds of the novel in this post-World War I tale, drawing contrast between a stark landscape filled with people in war scenes and a lush countryside and the lonely man who roams it after the war. 

After veteran Henry Bright delivers his son and watches his wife die in childbirth, he begins a journey across the Appalachian terrain of West Virginia. An angel who followed Henry home from war and now speaks through his horse instructs him to burn his house and leave before his neighbor can follow his tracks.

The reader gains insight into Henry’s life as chapters cut between his past in West Virginia, the war and his race from the neighbor and the burning house, which instigates a wildfire. It quickly becomes evident that Henry isn’t only recovering from seeing friends die in the Great War; he’s also facing family battles and an internal struggle. Ritter allows readers to draw their own conclusions about Henry’s heavenly interaction, and this psychologically engaging tale will keep readers thinking for days after they close the book.

Read an interview with Josh Ritter about Bright's Passage.