Take Me Home by Brian Leung (Harper Collins, 287 pages)
Set in 1927, the novel is built around the unusual circumstances leading “Addie” Maine to abruptly leave her husband and return to Dire, Wyo., a town where she once lived and, unfortunately, is true to its name. With luck, she hopes to track down the man she believes had tried to kill her back then.
Years earlier, she and her brother, Tommy, had come West to homestead, only to have Tommy end up working in the mines. There he met Wing Lee. But Addie now fears the prejudice against the Chinese may mean the men’s relationship could be deadly dangerous.
Author of an earlier novel, “Lost Men,” and the collection “World Famous Love Acts,” Leung uses the discord between whites and Asians in the West of the 1880s to give his novel depth and a compelling twist.
The Brave by Nicholas Evans (Little, Brown and Co., 357 pages)
Best known for his novel, “The Horse Whisperer,” Nicholas Evans now brings readers “The Brave,” another first-rate story but with a decidedly different twist.
The story opens with Tom Bedford is a lonely child whose nights are filled with terrifying nightmares about the Wild West, then it moves to his growing-up years. Though the terrors have waned by that point, they return with a vengeance when his son joins the Marines. And Tom is certain he has been given a sign that he must fight for his son’s life. It is a well-written, thought-provoking story.
