By Maeve Binchy Knopf, $26.95, 336 pages Against the advice of her family, Chicky Ryan, at the ripe old age of twenty, followed a summer boyfriend to America. The relationship evaporated but Chicky was too proud to drag herself home to Ireland. …

By Karen Russell Knopf, $24.95, 256 pages What if that grubby kid relentlessly bouncing a basketball up and down the road in the dark is a sensitive poet? Could you imagine that the wizened, sun-dried codger dreaming his life away under the …

By Patrick Taylor Forge, $24.99, 414 pages Patrick Taylor, in his prefatory author’s note, tells it best. He says that, after a decade of writing about the Irish troubles, he finds himself more comfortable “working in my version of an …

By Marie Ndiaye Knopf, $25.95, 293 pages This novel could as easily be titled Three Desperate Women. NDiaye’s characters are so brutalized by life or fate that their mere survival is miraculous. The novel consists of three stories, tenuously connected by Senegal. . …

By Mohammed Hanif Knopf, $25.95, 239 pages Why does life treat Alice Bhatti so capriciously? Because she is Catholic in a Muslim world? Because she does not suffer fools gladly and may have a razor blade secreted on her person? Because …

By Lauren Fox Knopf, $24.95, 288 pages Jane Weston and Willa Jacobs, two tall women with masses of curly hair, are best friends and roommates. Willa reconnects with Ben at their tenth high school reunion and brings him home to Jane. Ben and …

By Jennifer DuBois Dial Press, $26.00, 369 pages This novel is about overwhelming loss, to an almost unbearable degree: the multitude of ways one can experience it, how to endure it, how to survive it and — fleetingly, elusively — how …

By Joshilyn Jackson Grand Central Publishing, $24.99, 322 pages Ginny Slocumb isn’t fond of God. In her unhumble opinion, no respectable deity would allow a 15-year-old to get pregnant the first time she had sex, not to mention letting the resulting …

By Alexander McCall Smith Knopf, $24.95, 261 pages Alexander McCall Smith is a prolific and delightful writer, whether he is musing on the color of dappled sunlight, appropriate courtesies or the slippery, shifting nature of the moral imperative. His character studies are …