HOLIDAY BOOKS: Fiction

By Elizabeth Strout (Random House, $27)

The irascible title character of Strout's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Olive Kitteridge" makes a triumphant return. Olive delivers a baby, visits a former student battling cancer, and embarks on a new relationship — but finds her indomitable spirit dented by truths from a poet laureate and her son's family. Imbued with autumnal reflection, insight and wit, Strout take us into the heart of a community where we are enchanted again by an unforgettable heroine's "Olive-ness."

By Ann Patchett (Harper, $27.99)

Patchett's compelling eighth novel is narrated by Danny Conroy, who remembers his childhood years in the Dutch House, his grand family home in Pennsylvania — and the day he and his sister were banished from it by his wicked stepmother. A fairy-tale opening gives way to an emotionally engaging life journey made up of births, deaths, marriages, reunions, and, at the end of it all, Danny's return and rediscovery of his "lost and beloved country."

By Laila Lalami (Pantheon, $25.95)

Part family drama, part intriguing mystery, Lalami's timely and potent novel revolves around the death of a Moroccan immigrant: Was it a hit-and-run accident or a calculated killing? A cast of finely drawn and deeply sympathetic characters — the victim's wife and daughter, an Iraq war vet, a Mexican eyewitness, a dogged detective and the dead man himself — expose their flaws, share their viewpoints and bring us closer to the truth.

By Colson Whitehead (Doubleday, $24.95)

By Miriam Toews (Bloomsbury, $24)

A mesmerizing novel based on real events about eight Mennonite women who, after being repeatedly drugged and violated by men in their colony, meet in secret in a hayloft to share their ordeals and decide on a course of action that would protect their children and punish their attackers. "We are women without a voice," one of them says. But Toews makes sure they are heard. They speak out, movingly and decisively, and command our full attention.

By Sally Rooney (Hogarth, $26)

In a lesser writer's hands this could have been an insubstantial tale about an on-off millennial romance. Instead, Rooney, author of the accomplished "Conversations With Friends," delivers a sharp, smart and heartfelt study of young love. Throughout school and college, in Ireland and beyond, Connell and Marianne keep coming together and falling apart. Is their relationship strong enough to last? This quietly stunning novel brilliantly lays bare hearts and minds.

By Mark Haddon (Doubleday, $27.95)

By Zadie Smith (Penguin Press, $27)

A faded drag queen goes shopping for a corset and ends up having a showdown with a store-owning couple. An Antiguan immigrant contemplates marriage, unaware that this day will be his last. An artist notes the changes in society while on a tour with her aunts — "Jamaican ladies of a certain dimension." And a woman communes with the ghost of her mother. Smith's bravura first collection of stories showcases a dazzling range of styles, voices and perspectives.

By Elif Shafak (Bloomsbury, $27)

Tequila Leila has been murdered and dumped on the outskirts of Istanbul but her brain refuses to shut down. She reflects on events of her life, from her troubled childhood to her mistreatment in the Street of Brothels. A group of fellow castoffs keep her strong when she is alive and rally to give her a fitting send-off when she is gone. Leila's heart may have stopped beating but Shafak ensures her protagonist is vividly alive.

By Kevin Barry (Doubleday, $25.95)

By Olga Tokarczuk (Riverhead, $27)

Those who missed this magical Polish writer's English-language debut, "Flights," can experience her talent with an equally remarkable novel in which an eccentric woman turns from horoscopes and William Blake to the mysterious deaths of local men. This existential whodunit by a Nobel laureate asks big questions about animal rights and human kindness and keeps us in its grip until its shock denouement.

By Chigozie Obioma (Little, Brown, $28)

Narrated by a chi, or guardian spirit, and tapping into Igbo culture and traditions, Obioma's Booker Prize finalist shadows Nigerian poultry farmer Chinonso — both a hapless victim and an embattled underdog — on his arduous, perilous quest to get even with a false friend and win back the woman he loves. An ingenious modern spin on Homer's "Odyssey" and a captivating study of a man who refuses to be broken.

Malcolm Forbes is a frequent reviewer for the Star Tribune. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.