Haunted, by Chuck Palahniuk (Doubleday, May). Aspiring writers lock themselves up in a windowless theater, trying to write the ghost story that will make them famous.
Her Body Knows, by David Grossman (Farrar Straus Giroux, May). The great Israeli novelist gives us two novellas on infidelity.
The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova (Little, Brown, June). A young girl stumbles on a book that reveals her father's dark secret and sends her on a journey to the Middle Ages.
The Hot Kid, by Elmore Leonard (Morrow, May). The kid is only 21, but he's already the hottest, meanest Deputy U.S. Marshal in America.
The Icarus Girl, by Helen Oyeyemi (Nan Talese, June). An 8-year-old daughter of an Anglo-Nigerian marriage struggles between two cultures until an invisible girl shows up to help her out.
The Ice Queen, by Alice Hoffman (Little, Brown, April). A librarian is struck by lightning and finds love with a fellow survivor.
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies, by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon, April). More from the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.
Leeway Cottage, by Beth Gutcheon (Morrow, May). A family saga of a 20th-century marriage unfolds in an old Victorian cottage in Dundee, Maine.
Lighthousekeeping, by Jeanette Winterson (Harcourt, April). An orphan is taken in by a lighthouse keeper, whose stories help her navigate through life.
A Long Way Down, by Nick Hornby (Riverhead, June). Four people contemplating suicide meet on a rooftop to end it all . . . and a good romp ensues.
Lost in the Forest, by Sue Miller (Knopf, April). A teenage girl loses her stepfather to an accident and, in her bewilderment, embarks on a sexual odyssey with an older man.
Mr. Muo's Travelling Couch, by Dai Sijie (Knopf, June) . From the author of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, a tale of a psychoanalyst who intends to cure China.
My Name Is Legion, by A.N. Wilson (Farrar Straus Giroux, May). A newspaper finds itself embarrassingly compromised in this send-up of contemporary Britain .
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, by Umberto Eco (Harcourt, June). A rare-book dealer suffering memory loss can't recognize his wife and daughters, but he can remember every book he's ever read.
Never Call Retreat, by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen (St. Martin's, May). Lee and Grant go at it, in this finale of a Civil War series.
Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro (Knopf, April). Hailsham, an elite school in the English countryside, is cloning children for a heinous purpose.
No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy (Knopf, August). An antelope hunter chances upon a cluster of dead men, a load of heroin and a very large wad of cash.
No Place Like Home, by Mary Higgins Clark (Simon & Schuster, April). To Celia's surprise, her husband gives her a gift: the house where she accidentally killed her mother.
The Portrait, by Iain Pears (Riverhead, April). A celebrated artist with evil in mind lures a distinguished art critic to the remote island of Houat, presumably to paint his likeness.
The Practice of Deceit, by Elizabeth Benedict (Houghton, June). A family man finds himself up against an a rabidly ruthless lawyer -- his wife.
Pretty Birds, by Scott Simon (Random House, May). A teenage girl is caught up in the bloody siege of Sarajevo.
72 Hour Hold, by Bebe Moore Campbell (Knopf, July). The mother of a violent bi-polar daughter puts her in the hands of radical therapists whose method is modeled on the Underground Railroad's.
