Details from the 40 interviews Helen Benedict conducted for her nonfiction book The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq (2009) provide the gritty verisimilitude in her new novel, Sand Queen. Along with the specifics of how female soldiers manage to change clothes in a tent full of men or make it to the shower and back unmolested, Benedict adds two memorable characters: an army reservist named Kate Brady, who has been called up halfway through her sophomore year in college to serve at Camp Bucca (based on the real-life desert prison of the same name founded in 2003 in Southern Iraq), and Naema Jassim, a medical student and refugee from Baghdad, who is trying to keep her mother and grandmother calm after her father and brother are imprisoned at Bucca.

Kate embarks upon her tour of duty at Camp Bucca buffed up and determined to blend in as a soldier, though she is one of only three women in a platoon of 39. She slings around crude military lingo, endures 14-hour shifts on a sun-blasted surveillance platform and sticks a condom over her rifle to protect it from the desert "moondust" just like the guys. The problem is that many of Kate's American comrades, and most of the Iraqi prisoners, are incapable of paying more attention to her uniform than to the body inside it. The resulting sexual harassment wears on Kate's psyche, and drives the plot of Sand Queen.

Sand Queen is replete with authentic detail and brutal incident, but the novel is not a screed as much as a sober depiction of the realities of war for both military and civilian women. If Kate's narrative feels more complete, Naema's chapters provide a balancing perspective from the other side of the razor wire. Sand Queen's deeper resonances are achieved via a deft pairing of timelines and the fateful intersection of the two women's stories.

In Sand Queen, Benedict has crafted a fictional explanation for some of the lurid real-world headlines from the Iraqi occupation. She also gives the reader a convincing and affecting portrait of two resilient young women caught up in war. --Holloway McCandless

Tom Violet has hit a bad patch. He's finished a novel that he has worked on secretly for years, but he's afraid to show it to anyone. He loathes his job as a corporate copywriter--the only bright spot there is his colleague Katie, a 23-year-old hottie. That has its downside, too, because Tom is married and the father of a five-year-old daughter. His wife, Anna, smart, fit and trim, is being flirted with by one of her gymmates, a married banker. To top it off, Tom and Anna have a problem in the bedroom; yes, the one that has given rise, pun intended, to all those TV commercials.

As the story opens, Curtis Violet, Tom's father, has arrived in his Porsche, hungover, smelling like pot and announcing that he will "just spend the night." Turns out that he has split from his fourth wife. On the very day that he arrives, his agent calls to announce that he has just won the Pulitzer Prize. Yes, Curtis Violet is a very famous author, cut out of the same cloth as a Saul Bellow or a Philip Roth. He has very good luck with his books, and very bad luck with his personal life. Tom hero-worships him, not as a father, because he was a lousy one, but as an author, so he is glad to see him. Also, he owns the house that Tom and his family live in.

Matthew Norman's debut novel is a tour de farce of grand proportion. He takes on academia, the literary life, the world economy, corporate bull, adultery--and has his way with all of them. His witticisms aren't just one-liners; they are carefully thought out takes on the human condition.

How Tom resolves all his problems is a story sweetly told with a snapper at the end that is absolutely original. --Valerie Ryan

Performance artist Caleb Fang knew two things: no sacrifice for art was too big if "the outcome was beautiful enough, strange enough, memorable enough" and "kids kill art." When Camille became pregnant, he found a way around the second fact. Annie and, later, Buster grew up as actors, taking on whatever persona was needed for their parents' current act and never breaking character, no matter what chaos ensued.

Beneath the surface of the fun and fast-paced The Family Fang, Kevin Wilson (author of the story collection Tunneling to the Center of the Earth) explores self-identity and families in the context of life lived as art. After years of sacrificing everything, even their names, to their parents' art, Annie and Buster struggle with recognizing reality. No family outing was ever what it seemed, and the siblings learned to react to every mishap as if it were orchestrated. Once, when Caleb fell, Buster immediately played a familiar role in a performance piece, showing no concern for his bleeding father until he was told it was an accident.

As young adults, Annie and Buster are determined to end the cycle of manipulation but can't quite grasp the idea that life isn't scripted. Only when the two are forced to question the truth of an extreme performance can they muster the strength to break from Caleb and Camille. The longer Annie and Buster are on their own, the more we wonder who's in charge: Did the artists force the split for their own purposes? Or did the children simply reject their parents' realities and thus their place within the family? --Candace B. Levy, freelance editor blogging at Beth Fish Reads

Chris Van Dusen (The Circus Ship) presents a humorous portrait of a monarch lacking in humility and the sorceress who cuts him down to size.

As the king's head grows, so will children's vocabulary. Van Dusen plants a delectable word, then slyly defines it in the next line: "Though this mini monarch/ stood no higher than an elf,/ his ego was enormous--/ he thought highly of himself." Gardeners shape topiaries in the king's likeness, and his loyal pug sports a crown and an ermine collar that matches the trimmings on the king's royal robe. His human citizens all bow before him, as do peacocks, sparrows and sheep. Everyone, it seems, except for "a maiden with a heavy load," who's blocking the way of the king's coach. The coachmen bump her off the road and offends the wrong girl: she's a sorceress named Tessa, who casts a spell ("A pox on you, O cocky king/ in robes of ruby red./ Let's see if all your arrogance/ can fit inside your head").

Tessa is a likable witch with a black cat that never leaves her side. The king, however, whose head was already large, grows with each self-inflating pronouncement. (The pug looks increasingly alarmed.) Finally, his head becomes so large that he topples over his castle wall in a sudden squall and and tumbles to Tessa's feet. Discovering that the king has not yet learned his lesson, she teaches him one more, and they both benefit. Van Dusen's tall tale blends just the right amount of laughter and substance. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness