The Woman in the Sable Coat

English writer Brooks follows up The Whispering House with another seductive gothic novel. This time out, the focus is on a young woman’s illicit affair during WWII. In 1942 Lincolnshire, Nina Woodrow, a member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, is reacquainted with Royal Air Force officer Guy Nicholson, whom she first met eight years earlier at a dinner party hosted by her widowed father, Henry. Told by a friend that Guy is divorced from his wife, Kate, Nina begins an affair with him. Nina grew up believing her mother, Teodora, died in a car accident when she was two, but during a spooky séance with a makeshift spirit board, the letters suggest Teodora was murdered. Then Henry learns of Nina and Guy’s affair and disowns her (it turns out Guy is still married). Kate and Henry, joined together by their mutual feelings of betrayal, become friends until she discovers some disturbing information about Teodora’s death, leading her to rethink everything she thought she knew about Nina’s “soft-spoken” father. Brooks’s moody tale defies standard-issue WWII narratives of resilience, focusing instead on characters reexamining their relationships in the face of difficult truths. Readers will be rapt. Agent: Sarah Levitt, Aevitas Creative Management. (Mar.)