By Audrey Niffenegger
416 pages; Scribner

Some spirits are blithe, others bored and a trifle bitchy—like Elspeth Noblin, whose body (if not her esprit) is entombed in the great London cemetery where her bereaved lover, Robert, works as a volunteer guide. Before her death, Elspeth created a flurry of complication involving her soon-to-be-vacant apartment and her psychically entwined twin nieces, 20-year-old Valentina and Julia, daughters of Elspeth's own estranged twin sister, Edie. Her Fearful Symmetry is Audrey Niffenegger's gravely buoyant new novel of phantom loves and all-too-tangible fears.

— Cathleen Medwick