There's a lot to chew on in this month's selection of top paperback releases. From the world of medicine to hidden family secrets, these titles make terrific book club fodder.

FAMILY IN CRISIS
A compelling drama that takes the unpredictable world of medicine as its backdrop, Carol Cassella's Healer has an authenticity that comes, in part, from the author's own experience. Cassella is an anesthesiologist, and in her intense, imaginative second novel she examines of-the-moment issues in health care and drug research. Claire Boehning is reaping the rewards of her husband Addison's flourishing career in biochemistry. But when Addison's effort to develop a new cancer drug derails, the Boehnings lose everything. Claire, once an aspiring doctor, is forced to take a job at a health clinic, where she befriends Miguela, a Nicaraguan who's in the United States searching for her family. The new friendship takes Claire down an unexpected—and ominous—road, one that could mean the undoing of her family. Cassella demonstrates great range when it comes to characterization, and her finely calibrated plot keeps the reader turning pages. This is a fascinating and rewarding novel.

A CASTLE'S SECRETS
Readers who like a little history with their fiction will be enthralled by Kate Morton's The Distant Hours. Drawing on the events of World War II, Morton mixes romance and suspense in an old-fashioned tale that spans five decades. Edie Burchill, a London book editor, is asked to pen the introduction to a children's story written by the late Raymond Blythe, a popular author and the former proprietor of Milderhurst Castle. After Edie's mother, Meredith, receives a disturbing letter posted decades ago from Milderhurst, Edie pays a visit to the now-dilapidated manse, which serves as home to Blythe's slightly daffy elderly daughters. Edie soon discovers that Milderhurst holds secrets for her mother, who was lodged there during the war. Mysteries, past and present, involving matters of the heart abound in this richly atmospheric novel. Moving smoothly through time, the story flashes back to earlier eras that Morton conjures up in vivid detail. Her inventive plot and cast of unforgettable characters make this an irresistible read

TOP PICK FOR BOOK CLUBS
The Widower's Tale, the fourth novel from National Book Award winner Julia Glass, is an intricately structured family saga with a gruff yet appealing protagonist. Percy Darling, a retired Harvard librarian, savors the solitude of his rural Massachusetts home. A longtime widower at 70, he has settled into a quiet life. But Percy's peaceful existence is shattered when a preschool moves into a barn that's on his property. The intrusion forces Percy to rethink the course his life is taking and to re-evaluate old relationships, including those with his daughters, Trudy, a successful doctor, and Clover, an unhappy wife and mother. Once Clover takes a job at the new preschool, Percy finds himself entangled in the institution's affairs—and falling for the mother of one of its students. This beautifully executed novel is full of twists and turns, as Percy comes to terms with his past and engages more fully with the present. It's an insightful work from a writer at the top of her game.

The Distant Hours is a multigenerational puzzle complete with a decaying castle, hidden manuscripts and not one but two families with secrets. Readers familiar with the novels of Kate Morton will recognize her distinctive way of weaving disparate elements together to create an intriguing tale, as well as the delicious way she tips her hat to previous novels that feature great English houses with something to hide, such as Rebecca, The Secret Garden and Jane Eyre.

The Distant Hours opens with a 50-year-old lost letter arriving in the mail addressed to Edie Burchill's mother, Meredith. The contents of the letter reveal that during WWII, Meredith had been billeted to Milderhurst Castle in Kent, a fact of which her husband and daughter knew nothing. Milderhurst was the home of the great writer Ronald Blythe, whose modern fairy tale brought the Blythes acclaim and fortune. Meredith was taken in by Ronald's twin daughters Persephone and Seraphina, and became friends with their younger sister, Juniper.

Though Edie and her mother have never been close, Edie is compelled to uncover this seminal event in her mother's life. She journeys to the decrepit Milderhurst, where the elderly Blythes still live, the twins caring for the mentally unstable Juniper. Edie is attracted and repelled by their circumstances and is soon drawn into the many mysteries that surround them. Why haven't the sisters ever left the castle? Was Ronald Blythe's masterpiece a plagiarism? Most intriguing is what happened on the night Juniper's fiancé jilted her. Did he really elope with another woman or did he just disappear? The further Edie delves, the more riddles arise and the more deeply readers are pulled into the story.

The Distant Hours contains rapid shifts of point of view and moves back and forth over a half century. This can be tricky to get right, and though in earlier books Morton has proved herself skilled at this kind of plotting, she stumbles a few times here, caught in the complex web she has spun.

Even so, Morton is the master of the atmospheric old-fashioned novel packed with enough stories to fill all the worn satchels in the Milderhurst attic. The Distant Hours is saturated with the sights and sounds of country life during wartime, Blitz-torn London and the ghostly passageways of the decaying castle. Fans of Morton and new readers alike will be delighted to uncover the truth of what happened in the "distant hours" of the past.

 

A letter points the way to a castle in Kent, which harbors decades of grim secrets, in Morton's latest (The House at Riverton, 2008, etc.).

Edie, a young woman underemployed by a London small press, is puzzled when her normally placid mother Meredith receives a long-delayed letter and bursts into tears. The letter, it turns out, is from Juniper, one of the three Blythe sisters who inhabit Milderhurst Castle, where Meredith, as a child during World War II, was evacuated to escape the Blitz. From here the story ricochets between the war years and the early 1990s. The evacuation proves to be an unexpected blessing for Meredith, a shy, bookish girl who's misunderstood by her working-class family. Her teacher, Thomas Cavill, encourages her to excel in her studies. She finds true kinship with the three daughters of Raymond Blythe, famed author of a children's classic entitled The True History of the Mud Man. Raymond, demented and delusional, has secluded himself in his tower room. Much to the chagrin of his eldest daughter Percy, Raymond has evinced an intention to disinherit his daughters. Second sister Saffy schemes to escape the castle for London. Percy is alarmed when Lucy, Milderhurst's last remaining servant, deserts the family for marriage to their clock repairman—Percy's secret crush? Baby sister Juniper meets Thomas when he arrives to check on Meredith. After a whirlwind London love affair, Juniper defies Percy to announce wedding plans. Thrilled, Saffy makes Juniper a party dress and plans an engagement dinner. Juniper and Thomas are due from London by separate trains, but only Juniper shows up. Like Dickens' Miss Havisham, Juniper will grow old, still wearing the tatters of the dress she donned for the fiancé who got away. As Edie plumbs Milderhurst's many mysteries, she also struggles to learn what short-circuited her mother's dreams, so briefly kindled 50 years before.

After a lengthy buildup, which doggedly connects all the characters, however peripheral, there's a rewarding, bittersweet payoff in the author's most gothic tale yet.

Morton (The Forgotten Garden) has quickly established herself as a master of modern gothic, producing complicated and completely satisfying historical mysteries. Her third novel solidifies her dominion. As a wartime evacuee from London at the time of the Blitz, 13-year-old Meredith Baker is in awe both of the ancient Milderhurst castle where she is staying and of its inhabitants, the Blythes—sweet and maternal Saffy; her shrewd twin, Percy; and the wild and talented Juniper, who becomes Meredith's best friend. Fifty years later, a lost letter arrives to remind Meredith of her time at Milderhurst, even though she has long tried to bury the memory. It falls to her daughter, Edie, to begin to untangle her mother's secrets. The trail leads back to Milderhurst and the Blythes and into an even thicker nest of hidden mysteries that Edie is determined to uncover. VERDICT Featuring a fresh and thrilling gothic mystery, cinematic storytelling, and fully developed characters who possess layers of deliciously surprising secrets, this complex story is developed at a leisurely but compelling pace that keeps readers hooked. Recommended for a wide readership, including mystery lovers and historical fiction fans. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/10.]—Therese Oneill, Monmouth, OR

A letter posted in 1941 finally reaches its destination in 1992 with powerful repercussions for Edie Burchill, a London book editor, in this enthralling romantic thriller from Australian author Morton (The Forgotten Garden). At crumbling Milderhurst Castle live elderly twins Persephone and Seraphina and their younger half-sister, Juniper, the three eccentric spinster daughters of the late Raymond Blythe, author of The True History of the Mud Man, a children's classic Edie adores. Juniper addressed the letter to Meredith, Edie's mother, then a young teen evacuated to Milderhurst during the Blitz. Edie, who's later invited to write an introduction to a reprint of Raymond's masterpiece, visits the seedily alluring castle in search of answers. Why was her mother so shattered by the contents of a letter sent 51 years earlier? And what happened to soldier Thomas Cavill, Juniper's long-missing fiancé and Meredith's former teacher? Despite the many competing narratives, the answers will stun readers. 5-city author tour. (Nov.)