17 Books to Watch for in April 2012

Throughout her powerful story collection, Other Heartbreaks (Engine), Patricia Henley lays bare the souls of women coping with the ache of losing love—whether the loss comes suddenly, through death or betrayal, or slowly, as intimacy fades. A devastated young widow briefly comforted by a male friend thinks, "Not now but someday. I'll want to speak a new man's name." Contemplating infidelity, a lonely middle-aged wife comes to realize that complaints about her husband "are little stories she tells herself to shore up her own desires." Such potent revelations, rendered with exquisite subtlety, pass quickly through the characters' minds—but will linger with the reader.