4 Irresistible Reads to Pick Up This Month

The Light Between Oceans
By M.L. Stedman

There's something irresistible about a morally complex story that makes you root for all its flawed characters, even when they're at odds with one another. The Light Between Oceans (Scribner), M.L. Stedman's seductive debut, is just that sort of book. And it comes with a bonus: a high-concept plot that keeps you riveted from the first page. Tom Sherbourne is the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, a remote island off the western coast of Australia. Tom is a WWI vet whose battlefield experience has left him righteous; his bride, Isabel, is brave and modern, having forgone the comforts of the mainland to join her beloved. Life is good for the Sherbournes, except for one thing: Isabel has had two miscarriages and despairs at the thought of remaining childless. Suddenly, a boat washes onshore; in it are an infant and a dead man. Isabel is desperate to keep the child, and Tom, despite his misgivings, cannot bring himself to ruin his wife's dream by reporting what happened. That disaster will ensue is obvious, but Stedman layers her story with three-dimensional characters and twists that are at once surprising and inevitable. When all is finally revealed, and many good people's lives are destroyed, Tom ruminates on the nature of love, honor, and responsibility. "There are still more days to travel in this life," he thinks. And everyone "who makes the journey has been shaped by every day and every person along the way. Scars are just another kind of memory."
--Sara Nelson

RELATED: 10 Habits of Highly Organized People

Where'd You Go, Bernadette
By Maria Semple

You don't have to know Seattle to get Maria Semple's broadly satirical novel, Where'd You Go, Bernadette. The title character, a middle-aged Los Angeles transplant, lives in the Emerald City with her 15-year-old daughter, Bee, and her husband, Elgin, a big-deal executive at (where else?) Microsoft. Once a brilliant young architect, Bernadette now pours her energy into ranting about the flaws of her adopted city: slow drivers, ugly hair, too many Canadians. Eventually, Bernadette goes missing and her family uses e-mails and other documents to try to find her. Underlying the nontraditional narrative are insights into the cost of thwarted creativity and the power of mother-daughter bonds, although a reader may be having too much fun to notice.
--Karen Holt

RELATED: The Secret to Surviving Life's Low Points

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
By Rachel Joyce

When Harold Fry receives a letter from his long out-of-touch friend, Queenie Hennessy, saying she is dying of cancer, the kind but reserved retired British salesman responds exactly as one would expect: He writes a two-line sympathy note and walks to the postbox. But then, instead of mailing the letter, he decides to keep walking-all 627 miles to Queenie's bedside in Berwick-upon-Tweed. In a rare display of faith, he also calls her hospice nurse: "Tell her Harold Fry is on his way.... I am going to save her...." Thus begins Rachel Joyce's gorgeously poignant novel of hope and transformation, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Twenty years earlier, Queenie did Harold an extraordinary kindness, and promptly disappeared. Walking to her now with blistered feet, he tells strangers about his quest and is surprised to discover that they "believed in him." Harold's wife, Maureen, regrets the years she's been unfairly mean to her husband and fears he'll never return; he's sure he isn't welcome. While a touching portrait emerges of Harold's long-ago friendship with the plain but dignified Queenie, this is ultimately a story of a marriage in need of repair. The question isn't whether Harold will reach Queenie, but whether he'll find his way back home.

--Karen Holt

RELATED: Your Favorite Women Writers

Dare Me

By Megan Abbott

Count yourself lucky if you've never met (let alone parented!) teenagers like cheerleaders Addy Hanlon and Beth Cassidy; Megan Abbott, the author of the disturbing novel Dare Me, clearly has seen such creatures up close. How else would she be so familiar with their bored mean-girl patois-"I remember, sort of, being friends with her," Addy says about a rival on the squad. "Holding her hair back while she gagged herself peashoot thin." Competitive, insecure, and way less sophisticated than they'd like the world to think, the two girls find their long, complex relationship suddenly challenged when a charismatic new coach arrives at school and draws them into her world of deception and danger. Do they owe their loyalty to each other or to their new mentor, who, they imagine, is just like them, only older? "We're all the same under our skin, aren't we?" 16-year-old Addy muses. "We're all wanting things we don't understand. Things we can't even name." Make no mistake, this is no pulpy teenage tale: It's a very grown-up look at youth culture and how bad behavior can sometimes be redeemed by a couple of good decisions.
--Sara Nelson

RELATED: Beach Reads You'll Blaze Through


More from Oprah.com:

• 11 Ways to Make a Better Burger
• Quiz: How Much Stress Can You Take?
• 6 Beach Reads to Blaze Through
• Gorgeous Summer Clothing That Will Last Through Fall
• Subscribe to O, The Oprah Magazine and save up to 78%

Like O, The Oprah Magazine on Facebook