THE WINTER SEEKING

This complex, interior coming-of-age story charts the spiritual awakening of a young woman, Jana Reese, who visits her ailing mother at Christmas and finds her own connection with Christian faith. As her mother struggles through radiation treatments, buoyed by a renewed prayer life, she longs to pass on a legacy of faith to her daughter, who is mired in a postcollegiate depression. Jana begins to interact with the story of Mary in the Gospel of Luke, pouring her own anxiety and suffering into a creative story about Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus. The novella recounts a quiet and touching transformation, and Wright's decision to keep the emotions restrained actually makes the story pack a more authentic and lasting wallop. (Oct. 21)