The Glass Asylum — Joann Bren Guernsey

Madelyn decides her life requires a rewrite. Another child has died. Madelyn witnessed (and failed to prevent) the ­accidental death of a neighbor's little girl, a trauma that revives the pain of losing her own child ten years earlier. At the same time, a long-term love affair is ­unraveling. She flees into the land of language, but she finds writing about her own experiences too difficult. Instead, she observes neighbors through her window and urges their stories to come inside. Hidden behind the glass, she can safely shuffle words, time, and truth, even spilling secrets that don't belong to her. After false starts and dead ends, a few stories find completion. She can't escape her own reality, however, because this new work pulls her toward ­something terrifying from her past. After giving birth to each story, a recurring and ever-expanding nightmare is the price she has to pay. Writing, watching and ­hiding threaten to turn her into a recluse, until she is forced out into the world by an unintentional act of heroism and by ­acceptance into a writing workshop. New love takes the form of a female mentor and a talented, enigmatic ex-con, both of them artistic in ways Madelyn longs to be but, ultimately, fears.