Sisterland by Curtin Sittenfeld

I just love this author..... An American Wife was so engrossing.... and so is this book! It is the tale of two identical twins, Kate and Violet (Vi) who have "psychic abilities," although Kate is not really into it anymore. She has worked hard to mask her "sixth sense" by transforming herself into an ordinary wife to loving, even-keeled husband Jeremy and mother of two adorable kids, but she has enormous insecurities. Kate and Jeremy's neighbors are Courtney (who is also Jeremy's colleague) and her stay-at-home husband Hank, who is Kate's best friend. Vi is an exuberant, self-centered self-promoter who gives psychic readings for a living. When an earthquake rattles St. Louis in September 2009, Vi's prediction that a much bigger one is on the way gains national traction, setting off a media circus and geographic panic. As well, Kate's reluctant, growing involvement in Vi's life leads to a shocking, seismic disruption on her home front.

Help for the Haunted by John Searles

This book was recommended to me and I am glad that I took the plunge....it's not a book I would normally pick up.  It deals with demonology and has a "ghost story" aspect to it. But at its heart, it's a coming-of-age story of a sweet and precocious young girl, Sylvie, who is a member of a very interesting family. Here's the description on the Westchester Library site:

It begins with a call one snowy February night. Lying in her bed, young Sylvie Mason overhears her parents on the phone across the hall. This is not the first late-night call they have received, since her mother and father have an uncommon occupation: helping "haunted souls" find peace. And yet something in Sylvie senses that this call is different from the others, especially when they are lured to the old church on the outskirts of town. Once there, her parents disappear, one after the other, behind the church's red door, leaving Sylvie alone in the car. Not long after, she drifts off to sleep, only to wake to the sound of gunfire. As the story weaves back and forth through the years leading up to that night and the months following, the ever-inquisitive Sylvie searches for answers and uncovers secrets that have haunted her family for years. Capturing the vivid eeriness of Stephen King's works and the quirky tenderness of John Irving's novels, Help for the Haunted is told in the captivating voice of a young heroine who is determined to discover the truth about what happened on that winter night.

Searles has written a book that deals with strange people, but it's really quite a believable story.  It's great storytelling about human beings who are flawed and all too real.

Instructions for a Heat Wave by Maggie O'Farrell

I am cheating here and copying and pasting the summary of the book from the Westchester Library Sysetem's website. I can't say it better:

A sweeping family drama, in which the disappearance of a family patriarch forces three adult siblings to gather together to find him and to confront what they really know about their father and themselves. It's the summer of 1976 and London is in the grip of a record-breaking heat wave when Gretta Riordan discovers that her newly retired husband, Robert, has cleaned out his bank account and vanished. Now, Gretta's three children converge in their mother's home for the first time in years: Michael Francis, a history teacher whose marriage is failing; Monica, with two stepdaughters who despise her and an ugly secret that has driven a wedge between herself and the little sister she once adored; and Aoife, the youngest of the Riordans, now living in Manhattan, a smart, immensely resourceful young woman who has arranged her entire life to conceal her illiteracy. As the siblings tease out clues about their father's whereabouts, they navigate rocky pasts and long-held secrets, until at last their search brings them to their ancestral village in Ireland, where the truth of their parents' lives--and their own--is suddenly revealed. Wise, lyrical, instantly engrossing, Instructions for a Heat Wave is a richly satisfying page-turner from a writer of exceptional intelligence and grace.

I really liked this book and the writing.  The end was so satisfying to me and the passages of the various characters when they "find themselves" very moving.