One idyllic afternoon in a lake in upstate New York, 13-year-old Nico's golden older sister Margaret inexplicably drowns as they swim from their rowboat to their family's dock. As she struggles with her grief and with living in her new sister-less world, Nico is essentially ignored by parents too involved in their own mourning to be concerned with hers. Seeking solace, she falls into a strange and uneasy relationship with the artistic boyfriend her sister left behind, who is as mired in grief and guilt as Nico is. Booklist calls the story of Nico's rapid coming-of-age "a ravishing novel of the mystery of death and life’s assertion."

If you've got a hankering to be out in the rough terrain of the American West, this 3rd volume of Annie Proulx's Wyoming stories will instantly transport you to the land made famous by the movie Brokeback Mountain, which was based on a novella from the first collection. The stories in Fine Just the Way It Is showcase couples struggling to maintain their homesteads and hardscrabble livelihoods, dying cowboys, and an Iraq War veteran, but Proulx has included two featuring the Devil (who's remodeling). And be sure to read The Sagebrush Kid, which at least two reviewers have pointed to as the best of the bunch.

Until Ellie Sanders was about 11 years old, she and her father were close, bonding as they cared for her troubled mother, who is prone to outbursts (in their 1960s Virgina town, bipolar disorder is unknown, and she is medicated at home with the occasional horse tranquilizer). Then Ellie's father brings home Tess, the beautiful 18-year-old who keeps his general store stocked with tomatoes. Ellie is left increasingly to herself as her father falls under Tess' spell and her mother's grasp on reality weakens. This "absorbing, unsettling debut" (Publishers Weekly) features a bad situation made worse, but ends with hope.

In Matthew Quick's quirky debut, middle-aged Pat Peoples has lost his job, his home, and his wife, but he's determined to get it all back--after all, a couple months in a neural health facility is merely a setback. Unfortunately, he's actually spent several heavily medicated years there, and there's no way his wife's taking him back. But though his situation seems bleak, Pat maintains eternal optimism, convinced that success--for himself or his beloved Philadelphia Eagles--merely takes some strategic sacrifices and a good attitude. This book was optioned as a movie before it was even published--look for it on the big screen sometime soon.

When Marcus Messner turned 18, his father, a kosher butcher in Newark, New Jersey, became ridiculously overprotective (to be fair, it's 1951, the height of the Korean War, and Marcus' father is worried his son will be drafted). After attending college for a year while living at home, Marcus has had it with his father, so he flees to rural, conservative Winesburg College in Ohio. There, urban Marcus is a bit out of his depth, especially when confronted with obnoxious roommates, the college dean, and pretty girls who are rather more experienced than he. Readers of Philip Roth's other works will notice similar themes here, but Indignation has pleasures--and surprises--all its own.

Looking back over the events of the summer she was 17, elderly Hannah Grey shares a tale of love and loss--and of the ghost who haunted her and the boy she loved. That summer, Hannah accompanied her dour stepmother to a rented house on Maine's coast, where she saw a ghostly figure radiating hatred and fell in with a local boy who's had similar experiences. Her story is interwoven with that of Claris Osgood, who in 1858 married a taciturn man named Danial, bore two children, and eventually lost both her son (to drowning) and her husband (to, most likely, murder). If you're looking for an evocative "humdinger of a ghost tale" (Publishers Weekly), you're in the right place.

After her mother dies in childbirth, Eva McEwen is raised by her father and his practical sister, Lily. Eva's life is full of love, but that doesn't prevent her from being lonely, so when she's visited by invisible companions, she takes some comfort in them. However, keeping the secret of the existence of her invisible friends tends to shut her off from the world, and leads to the loss of some important relationships. Who these companions are and their roles in Eva's life form the center of this intriguing story, which likely will have you pondering unanswerable questions long after you've read the last page.

Brooklyn lawyer Liza Durbin has problems, but they're not insurmountable--and they come with the ability to play the piano like a master, which is exactly what Liza is after the spirit of 19th-century composer Franz Schubert possesses her. Having taken a leave of absence from her law firm to train for her debut at Carnegie Hall, Liza receives critical acclaim amidst a media frenzy. Liza's formerly staid life will never be the same again, and readers looking for a light-hearted read about an ordinary girl in an extraordinary situation will be glad they tried Sleeping with Schubert.

Much as he would like to reunite with his dead fiancée, nothing brings ghost hunter Ross Wakeman closer to her, no matter how much he puts his life at risk. His work as an investigator of paranormal phenomena doesn't do it either, but when he moves in with his sister in a small Vermont town, he's brought back to life, so to speak, by the discovery of a long-hidden murder that haunts the town. It probably doesn't hurt that he's met a beautiful young lady who's somehow connected to what happened; he's also been asked to investigate strange things that are happening around town. There's more to it, but all in all, Second Glance "makes for a memorable ghost tale" (Kirkus Reviews).

When she was four years old, Finch Nobles scalded herself so badly that the disfiguring scars she was left with resulted in Finch becoming an outcast in her tiny Southern town. Following the deaths of her parents, Finch takes over her father's job as gravekeeper, where she befriends not the living but those who haunt the graveyard and control the seasons (the dead are responsible for everything from directing the wind to pollinating flowers). With such an intriguing set-up in addition to the memorable, personable Finch, this lyrically written novel is sure to charm.

In a hotel in northern England, a 19-year-old chambermaid named Sara Wilby fell to her death after climbing into a dumbwaiter on a bet. Sara's ghost now haunts the hotel, among other places (including her coffin, where her corpse isn't interested in chatting). Four other women are given voice in this literary novel--Lise, a disgruntled receptionist; Else, a homeless woman; Clare, Sara's distraught sister; and Penny, a journalist--all of whom help Sara relearn who she was and what life was like. Since Hotel World is not written in a linear style, it may not appeal to everyone, but those looking for a challenge as well as an intriguing tale will find it worth checking out.