Ocean State

Set in a working-class town on the Rhode Island coast, this is a crushing, beautifully written, and profoundly compelling novel about sisters, mothers, and daughters, and the terrible things love makes us do. Told through the alternating perspectives of the four women at its heart: Angel, the murderer, Carol, her mother, and Birdy, the victim. Watching over it all is the retrospective testimony of Angel's younger sister Marie, who reflects on that doomed autumn of 2009 with all the wisdom of hindsight. Author of "Henry, Himself."