My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

To describe the main character in Pulitzer prize winner, Elizabeth Strout's novel, My Name is Lucy Barton, as being lonely is a huge understatement.  The narrator and protagonist is possessed by the deep, all encompassing desperation to be loved and to feel connected to the people who fill her life. Lucy wants, even as an adult, to feel that she is accepted and that she is safe.  She has managed to escape her pitiable childhood through sheer force of will and her understanding that education is her only ticket out of abject poverty.  Lucy finds, however, that she cannot escape her deep feeling of isolation brought on by the prejudice she lived with in her small hometown and her ingrained sense of worthlessness promoted by her emotionally stunted mother and emotionally damaged father.  Despite the fact that Lucy has managed to succeed in many ways, she has never been able to develop the emotional bonds she sees in other people.  This novel, though relatively short, opens the door to conversations about the isolation brought on by the shame of poverty, the struggles of post traumatic stress syndrome, the fight against prejudice and ridicule. Perhaps even more heartbreaking is the author's uncovering of the unbearable recognition of the mistakes we all make in our relationships with our children and parents, husbands and wives, even brothers and sisters.  Elizabeth Strout has been described as an author who writes fiction with the "condensed power of poetry."  Her mastery of story telling is clearly on display in her novel My Name is Lucy Barton.

The Crimson Shore by Lincoln Preston and Douglas Childs

Several years ago a wonderfully horrifying movie entitled "The Relic" was released. It was based on a novel by the writing duo of Preston and Childs.  The storyline was twisted and unique and invited a thorough reading of novels by these authors.  Through the years Preston and Child have written many delicious mysteries and a series centered around the character, Aloyius Pendergast.  A modern day Sherlock Holmes, Pendergast is a brilliant yet eccentric sleuth who works as an adjunct agent of the FBI.  The Crimson Shore begins as a seemingly simple theft of a valuable wine collection.  The tale spirals down as a 100 year old murder is discovered when a cript is found behind a fake wall in the wine cellar. The macabre connection to Poe's Cask of Amontillado cannot be missed.  The murder is then connected to a long lost coven of black witches who were said to have escaped from Salem and its witch trials.  Through twists and turns, Pendergast leads us on this mystery ride. If you are looking for a "scary" book, this might be the one for you.