Nightwoods

Charles Frazier is a master at crafting beautiful prose and bringing to life flawed but sympathetic characters. With “Nightwoods,” he does it again. Here Frazier is at his most stripped down, a bit less poetic and grandiose with more attention paid to the page-turning plot.

It's a story that pits modernity against the desire to retreat into the Appalachians and live in solitude on a lake with no electricity. It's a story of redemption for a young girl who was ostracized due to a tragedy for which she took the blame. And it's a story about taking small steps of growth – don't try to get a close personal connection right away; for starters just try to keep the kids from setting things on fire.

A faster read than Frazier's other novels, you'll spend more time worrying about Luce's safety than marveling at the beautiful descriptions of the mountains. Okay, you'll actually be doing both.