Also of interest ... in memorable heroines

Baba Yaga Laid an Egg

by Dubravka Ugresic

(Canongate $23)

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Baba Yaga, the child-eating crone of Eastern European folklore, makes a major comeback in Dubravka Ugresic’s biting and profound new fairy tale, said Jessa Crispin in NPR.org. “The epitome of the nasty old hag” looms over all three sections of Ugresic’s new novel, each of which centers on a woman confronting old age. Ugresic restores for these women “what age has stripped away: sex, motherhood, visibility, and creativity.” As in the best folk tales, “every element has hidden meaning.”

The Poker Bride

by Christopher Corbett

(Atlantic Monthly Press, $24)

Journalist Christopher Corbett’s new book about a 19th-century immigrant bride “undoes generations of self-serving mythology” concerning the romance of the American West, said Dominique Browning in The New York Times. Polly Bemis was born in China and probably sold as a concubine before she was won in an Idaho poker game by a white farmer. Corbett at first struggles to connect her story to the dismal experience of other early Chinese immigrants. Ultimately, though, he turns a dark chapter in our history into compelling reading.

The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson

by Jerome Charyn

(Norton, $25)

Jerome Charyn’s clever novel attempts to add zest to the life of American poetry’s spinster queen, said Ron Charles in The Washington Post. Charyn “has a perfect ear for Dickinson’s ironic wit,” and he tosses his heroine into a series of invented but believable affairs of the heart, which help us see more clearly the real Dickinson’s playfulness and romantic allure. But profundity was one of Dickinson’s traits, too; Charyn has given us only the “flighty, unbalanced, and childish Emily.”

Mrs. Adams in Winter

by Michael O’Brien

(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27)

John Quincy Adams’ wife, Louisa, seems to have been unfairly overlooked, said Max Byrd in BarnesandNobleReview.com. Michael O’Brien’s exciting reconstruction of the future First Lady’s 1815 excursion from St. Petersburg, Russia, to war-torn Paris “ought to rescue her for good” from obscurity. Using his heroine’s unpublished memoirs, O’Brien creates a brilliant portrait of a complex woman. His Louisa Adams relishes autonomy, yet marshals all her talents simply to return to the side of an austere and indifferent husband.