Little Night by Luanne Rice

A riveting story about women and the primal, tangled family ties that bind them together, "Little Night" marks a milestone--the 30th novel from the author with a talent for creating stories that are "exciting, emotional, terrific" ("The New York Times Book Review").

Nightwoods: a novel by Charles Frazier

A novel of suspense and love set in small-town North Carolina in the early 1960s. Charles Frazier paints a brilliant portrait of Luce, a young woman who inherits her murdered sister's troubled twins. Before the children, Luce was content with her life in the rich Appalachian landscape, choosing to live apart from the small community around her. But the coming of the children changes everything, shaking up her solitary life in difficult, hopeful, dangerous ways. Charles Frazier is known for his historical literary odysseys, and for making figures in the past come vividly to life. Set in the twentieth century, "Nightwoods" resonates with the timelessness of a great work of art.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern 

The circus arrives without warning. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is a unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. But behind the scenes a fierce competition is underway--a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Celia and Marco fall into love--a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands. But the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved  hang in the balance. This novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.

The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian

A poignant and powerful ghost story that tells the tale of Chip and Emily Linton and their twin ten-year-old daughters. The family moves into a rambling Victorian house in Northern New Hampshire hoping to put tragedy behind them. But beneath the town’s charming surface of gingerbread Victorians, maple sugarhouses, and fiery foliage lurks an evil conspiracy. Part domestic drama and part psychological thriller.

 The Great Night by Chris Adrian

On Midsummer Eve 2008 three people, each on the run from a failed relationship, become trapped in San Francisco’s Buena Vista Park, the secret home of Titania, Oberon, and their court. On this night, something awful is happening in the faerie kingdom: in a fit of sadness over the end of her marriage, which broke up in the wake of the death of her adopted son, Titania has set loose an ancient menace, and the chaos that ensues will threaten the lives of immortals and mortals alike.

Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan

Stewart O'Nan has crafted a funny and emotionally resonant tale set within a world seldom seen in contemporary fiction. Perched in the far corner of a run-down New England mall, The Red Lobster hasn't been making its numbers and headquarters has pulled the plug. But manager Manny DeLeon still needs to navigate a tricky last shift. With only four shopping days left until Christmas, Manny must convince his near-mutinous staff to hunker down and serve the final onslaught of hungry retirees, lunatics, and holiday office parties. All the while, he is wondering how to handle the waitress he's still in love with, his pregnant girlfriend at home, and the perfect present he still needs to buy. "Last Night at the Lobster" is a look at what a man does when he discovers that his best might not be good enough.

The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs

A charming and moving novel about female friendship and the experiences that knit us together. Walker and Daughter is Georgia Walker's little yarn shop, tucked into a quiet storefront on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The Friday Night Knitting Club was started by some of Georgia's regulars, who gather once a week to work on their latest projects and to chat-and occasionally clash-over their stories of love, life, and everything in between. Unexpected changes soon throw these women's lives into disarray, and the shop's comfortable world gets shaken up like a snow globe. And when the unthinkable happens, they realize what they've created: not just a knitting club, but a sisterhood.

Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers

When Harriet Vane attends her Oxford reunion, known as the "Gaudy," the prim academic setting is haunted by a rash of bizarre pranks: scrawled obscenities, burnt effigies and poison-pen letters including one that says, "Ask your boyfriend with the title if he likes arsenic in his soup." Some of the notes threaten murder; all are perfectly ghastly. Yet in spite of their scurrilous nature, all are perfectly worded. And Harriet finds herself ensnared in a nightmare of romance and terror, with only the tiniest shreds of clues to challenge her powers of detection, and those of her paramour, Lord Peter Wimsey.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Narrated by a 15-year-old autistic savant obsessed with Sherlock Holmes, this dazzling novel weaves together an old-fashioned mystery, a contemporary coming-of-age story, and a fascinating excursion into a mind incapable of processing emotions. When his neighbor's poodle is killed and Christopher is falsely accused of the crime, he decides that he will take a page from Sherlock Holmes and track down the killer. As the mystery leads him to the secrets of his parents' broken marriage and then into an odyssey to find his place in the world, he must fall back on deductive logic to navigate the emotional complexities of a social world that remains a closed book to him.

Night Watch by Terry Pratchett 

A clever blend of Monty Python-style humor and Big Questions about morality and the workings of the universe, "Night Watch" tells the tale of Sam Vimes, Commander of Ankh-Morpork's City Watch, who has been sent back in time. Vimes encounters a younger version of himself and gets mistaken for his former commander, a situation that prompts him to change the outcome of a rebellion. This is the 28th novel in the phenomenally bestselling Discworld series.

White Nights by Ann Cleeves

It's midsummer in the Shetland Islands, the time of the white nights, when birds sing at midnight and the sun never sets. Artist Bella Sinclair throws an elaborate party to launch an exhibition of her work at The Herring House, a gallery on the beach. The party ends in farce when one the guests, a mysterious Englishman, bursts into tears and claims not to know who he is or where he's come from. The following day the Englishman is found hanging from a rafter, and Detective Jimmy Perez is convinced that the man has been murdered. He is reinforced in this belief when Roddy, Bella's musician nephew, is murdered, too. But the detective's relationship with Fran Hunter may have clouded his judgment, for this is a crazy time of the year when night blurs into day and nothing is quite as it seems. A stunning second installment in the acclaimed Shetland Island Quartet.

Nights of Rain and Stars by Maeve Binchy

In a tiny Greek village, tourists enter a hilltop tavern, alone and in pairs, for a casual lunch. But a sudden tragedy in the harbor below causes these perfect strangers to become unlikely friends as their lives begin to entwine.

Fiona left her nursing career in Ireland to be with the man everyone thinks is wrong for her. Elsa fled Germany and her high-powered television job once she learned what the man she loved was hiding from her. Thomas mourns his failed marriage and misses his young son in California, while David yearns to reconcile with his family in England without having to go into the family business. Chance has brought them together, and together they will find new ways of looking at the lives they left behind.