Title: "The Mistress's Daughter"
Author: A.M. Homes
Publisher: Viking
Pages: 238
Price: $24.95
In a nutshell: Adopted novelist Homes writes a memoir about how she came to meet her birth parents, both of whom are weird, even scary. Her description is realistic and emotionally wrenching, yet the author manages to make it funny as well. The first half of the book is terrific, and the second half reads like a family-history worksheet.