Starling Lawrence’s “The Lightning Keeper” mixes historical fiction with romance. For nonfiction, scholar and best-selling author Garry Wills writes in “What Jesus Meant” that Jesus was too radical to fit into any of today’s political pigeonholes. Frieda Arkin’s second novel, “Hedwig and Berti,” is in paperback. Coming in May look for Laurie R. King’s newest novel, “The Art of Deception.”
FICTION
The Lightning Keeper, by Starling Lawrence, HarperCollins, 412 pages, $25.95|Lawrence offers a historical novel of America just before World War I. A sequel to “Montenegro,” the story is centered on Toma Pekocevic, an immigrant and self-taught inventor.
Dark Light, by Randy Wayne White, Putnam, 336 pages, $24.95|After a Category 4 hurricane reshapes the bottom of the ocean off Florida, a marine biologist make a life-altering discovery.
How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life, by Mameve Medwed, William Morrow, 258 pages, $24.95|Set in the world of antiques and the people who buy and sell them, Medwed has created a romantic comedy with spunk.
NONFICTION
What Jesus Meant, by Garry Wills, Viking, 142 pages, $24.95|In Wills’ view, Christianity has been changed to such an extent that even Jesus wouldn’t recognize it. The author has penned several best sellers, including “Why I Am a Catholic.
Kabul in Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan, by Ann Jones, Metropolitan, 321 pages, $24|The author, an authority on violence against women, goes to Afghanistan after the American victory over the Taliban to see the results.
A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveler, by Frances Mayes, Broadway, 420 pages, $26|Mayes, who jumped into the literary limelight with “Under the Tuscan Sun,” writes of her travels in non-Tuscany Italy and beyond.
PAPERBACKS
Hedwig and Berti, by Frieda Arkin, Thomas Dunne, 258 pages, $12.95|Arkin’s second novel in 35 years centers on two upper-class German Jews forced to flee Germany during the rise of the Nazis.
Courtroom 302: A Year Behind the Scenes in an American Criminal Courthouse, by Steve Bogira, Knopf, 416 pages, $14,95|The author takes us into the courtroom for a year, allowing us to see the American courts system through the eyes of the people within it.
Lewi’s Journey, by Per Olov Enquist, translated by Tiina Nunnally , Overlook, 464 pages, $15.95|The international best-selling author is back with the fictional story of two men who built the Swedish Pentacostal movement from a small congregation to the largest Christian religious community.
COMING UP
The Art of Deception, by Laurie R. King, Bantam, 352 pages, $24, May|King combines her continuing characters, Sherlock Holmes and police detective Kate Martinelli as Kate investigates the murderer of a collector of Holmes memorabilia.
Atlas: A Son’s Journey From the Streets to the Ring to a Life Worth Living, by Teddy Atlas with Peter Alson, HarperCollins, 288 pages, $24.95, May|The author, a boxing commentator and trainer, takes on the rougher edges as he tells his life story.
Beautiful Lies, by Lisa Unger, Crown, 344 pages, $23, April|A chick-lit debut about a young woman who garners instant fame in New York for an impulsive act of heroism.
