FICTION

IN A CERTAIN LIGHT by Karen Brownstein (Putnam’s: $17.95). Jenny is bright and beautiful, with a lovely daughter, a thriving career as a columnist and TV personality, and a circle of devoted friends. But seven years ago, she left a drunken wife-beating husband, and her fear of him still poisons her life. It is brought to crisis proportions when she is asked to believe that he has changed, when this man who, once, dangled their child out a window and threatened to drop her, wants back into their lives.

Nearly 6 million women will be abused this year. Some will have the courage to run, taking with them bruises and burns and welts, but also--just as damaging--a long legacy of fear, mistrust and degradation. In this absorbing novel, the author takes an unflinching look at those bruises on the soul that never go away. As Jenny observes her senile mother and her barren friend Nina, she expresses an indomitable spirit that could be applied to any problem: “If you hold each of us up in a certain light we’re all damaged goods in one way or another. The trick is to avoid that light. The trick is to make your own light.”