The Girl Next Door by Ruth Rendell

From Westchester Libraries Website:

In her lengthy career, multiple-award-winning author Rendell has written about teenagers, the lonely, the lovelorn, the disturbed, the violated, and the just plain evil. This time she turns her keen eye on the elderly: how they manage the present, look toward the future, and, especially, remember the past. The story begins in the 1940s. After murdering his wife and her lover, a man buries their two joined hands in a tin box, deep in tunnels where his son and a group of other young children gather. There it stays for 60 years until a construction company unearths it. Such an old crime invites little interest from police until a link is discovered to an elderly man who lives in the area. As one of the children who played in the tunnels, the man volunteers to bring together the others, now mostly in their seventies, to see if anyone can help authorities. New information isn't forthcoming, but the reunion sparks old rivalries, loves, and disappointments that change the lives of everyone in the group. Using her customary spare yet decorous style and measured pace, Rendell, now in her 80s, beautifully and carefully individualizes each member of her ensemble cast, at the same time creating not a grim reminder of mortality but a picture of moribund lives renewed.

Did You Ever Have a Family? by Bill Clegg

This was a wonderful, yet, somewhat depressing, read.  Here is a review:

The stunning debut novel from bestselling author Bill Clegg is a magnificently powerful story about a circle of people who find solace in the least likely of places as they cope with a horrific tragedy. On the eve of her daughter's wedding, June Reid's life is completely devastated when a shocking disaster takes the lives of her daughter, her daughter's fiancé, her ex-husband, and her boyfriend, Luke--her entire family, all gone in a moment. And June is the only survivor. Alone and directionless, June drives across the country, away from her small Connecticut town. In her wake, a community emerges, weaving a beautiful and surprising web of connections through shared heartbreak. From the couple running a motel on the Pacific Ocean where June eventually settles into a quiet half-life, to the wedding's caterer whose bill has been forgotten, to Luke's mother, the shattered outcast of the town--everyone touched by the tragedy is changed as truths about their near and far histories finally come to light. Elegant and heartrending, and one of the most accomplished fiction debuts of the year, Did You Ever Have a Family is an absorbing, unforgettable tale that reveals humanity at its best through forgiveness and hope. At its core is a celebration of family--the ones we are born with and the ones we create.

A must read!

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

This book has gotten rave reviews (although I just read the one from the New Yorker and it's not a rave), and I have enjoyed Groff's other novels so I was psyched to pick it off the shelf of my local library.
I liked it in fits and starts....at first I was drawn in aggressively, but my interest would wane.  The novel tells the story of a marriage in two parts: first from the husband's (Lotto) point of view and then from Mathilde's.  They are both interesting characters, and I wish I had known from the start that the novel would progress as it did (two parts told from two different points of view).
None of the characters are particularly likable, so I sometimes lost interest.
I also lost interest when Lotto's plays were included as chapters.  I am notparticularly fond of that technique.
In any event, I am glad that I read it and would recommend it with  some conditionals.....