By Amy Shearn
320 pages; Shaye Areheart

The worst-case scenario: A sweet surrogate mother suddenly disappears right before giving birth to a couple's child. Amy Shearn's How Far Is the Ocean from Here (Shaye Areheart) tracks quirky, love-starved Susannah Prue to a motel in the desert, where she's found her own surrogate family (or so she thinks). Read it for the kamikaze adventure, for the bone-dry, liberating landscape, and for the stirrings of love in a barren life.

— Cathleen Medwick