TWO LIVES ARE ENMESHED (by accident or fate?) in this evocative, genre-bending tale of quanta and hauntings. B PLUS

A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING
Penguin Books
2013

TWO PIONEERS OF PHOTOGRAPHY, England’s Henry Fox Talbot and France’s Louis Daguerre, profiled with verve. SOLID B

CAPTURING THE LIGHT
St. Martin’s Press
2013

TWO BENEVOLENT HITMEN and a best selling novelist hatch an elaborate plan to help a struggling writer. Funny! B PLUS

THE WAY OF ALL FISH : A NOVEL
Scribner
2014

FRANK, COMPASSIONATE MEMOIR by a woman whose goals and dreams grew increasingly at odds with her Mormon faith. B PLUS

CONFESSIONS OF A LATTER-DAY VIRGIN: A MEMOIR
Hyperion
2013

THOUGHT-PROVOKING SCIENCE FICTION: a doctor and a soldier make first contact with aliens in the midst of war. B PLUS

XENOPHOBIA
CreateSpace
2013

A NIGERIAN IN NEW YORK risks it all to make a fortune by stealing his village deity. Brilliant, bittersweet. A MINUS

FOREIGN GODS, INC.
Soho Press, Incorporated
2014

GORGEOUS, POETIC, SLIGHTLY surrealist novel of intersections between middle-class and poor in Buenos Aires. A MINUS

SHANTYTOWN
New Directions Publishing Corporation
2013

ENTERTAINING, ENLIGHTENING LOOK at how modern US medicine grew from a 19th century chaos of competing ideas. B PLUS

MARKETPLACE OF THE MARVELOUS
Beacon Press
2014

CANDID AND TOUCHING MEMOIR of a family fractured by depression as much as by alcohol and drugs. Insightful. B PLUS

IF ONLY YOU PEOPLE COULD FOLLOW DIRECTIONS
Counterpoint LLC
2013

SPOOKY, ATMOSPHERIC HORROR story links an indefinable terror across continents, through decades. Gory stuff! SOLID B

FOREST GHOST: A NOVEL OF HORROR AND SUICIDE IN AMERICA AND POLAND
Severn House Publishers
2014