Not Just YA -- EDGEWATER, Courtney Sheinmel, Long Island Mystery

The photo here is borrowed from a friend's Twitter feed, and I'm pretty sure it shows a countertop reminder at Vermont's noted general bookstore in Manchester Center, Northshire. The point is clear, and it's one that readers have known "forever": Books labeled "young adult" (YA) because of the ages of their protagonists are also often really good reading for adults.

Few titles prove this as powerfully as EDGEWATER, the newest from seasoned adventure author Courtney Sheinmel. Caught by a nasty, snooty friend's machinations at an expensive summer camp in North Carolina, "advanced" equestrian Lorrie Hollander bets her last twenty-dollar bill on a competition involving her horse -- and loses, followed immediately by the camp director calling her into the office and sending her home, for nonpayment of fees.

Lorrie's sure it's all a highly embarrassing mistake. There's no dad in her life, and her mother deserted her early on, but her quirky aunt Gigi administers the trust fund that keeps Lorrie living a high-end lifestyle that fits with any long-distance view of her family's mansion on Long Island, in the beachfront resort development of Idlewild. But behind the mansion's first view is a crumbling house infested with rescued cats, Lorrie's animal-loving sister's answer to needing something to love -- and Aunt Gigi and her "Blue Periods," serious depressions that make her useless as a guardian to the sisters.

This time, though, Lorrie's old enough -- having just finished her junior year of high school -- to drop the pretenses and go looking for her trust fund, to get it transferred to her own control and stop the cascade of humiliations. After all, her beloved horse is waiting for her in North Carolina.

But the more she investigates, the more Lorrie realizes things are way out of hand. A chance meeting with the handsome and wealthy son of a nationally active political family in the same resort offers her a potent new friendship that she's too embarrassed to accept. Charlie's the son of an esteemed senator, and his mother's about to launch her own campaign. How could Lorrie guess that important answers to the mysteries of her own family could be tangled up with Charlie's prestigious household?

Astute adult readers may recall that Idlewild was the earlier name of Kennedy Airport, and some may even know it as the vanished name of a high-end development on Long Island's Jamaica Bay. And almost all adult readers will leap ahead of Lorrie to guess at what's been hidden, as Sheinmel's novel reveals parallels to the Kennedy family history, especially the segment that took place at Chappaquiddick.

Enough said. I promise I haven't given a spoiler -- you would have seen the parallel in how Charlie and his family are introduced. And, as with the best YA fiction, EDGEWATER depends for its depth on Lorrie's struggles, insights, and conflicted choices. But there's a neatly twisted bit of crime fiction involved too, and Sheinmel's writing is smooth, taut, well-paced, and blessed with the simultaneous tensions that a gifted storyteller must manage to pull closer and closer to each other.

Blurbs for the book come from bestselling YA authors and, in an unusual twist, urban booksellers. Sure, go ahead an buy the book "for the young adult in your life." But don't give it away until you've read it yourself. In fact ... it might be better to just pick up two copies, so you won't have to feel deprived of this very good tale that author Lauren Oliver described with "past and present become mysteriously, and sometimes dangerously, intertwined. "

That could definitely describe a good work of crime fiction for adults -- and in EDGEWATER, that's exactly what it does. After all, you were a high school junior yourself once, weren't you?

The Law Versus Love, Life: Liz Rosenberg, THE LAWS OF GRAVITY

In a perfect world, the law of the land would echo what our hearts tell us: Love and peace, and friendship above all, would determine what's right to do and how to give.

But as Liz Rosenberg makes clear in THE LAWS OF GRAVITY, even the most caring and tender judge must wrestle with what's been written down. And for Nicole and her adored older cousin Ari Wiesenthal, the weight of the law may fracture the family bonds that have kept them close into adulthood, into the years when each is a parent.

Nicole, worrying about a lump in her neck as she talks with her best friend Mimi (very pregnant), is already having a tough time seeing her daughter Daisy enter kindergarten. She mentions to Mimi an overheard conversation about yet another woman who'd received a cancer diagnosis when her child entered school:

She knit faster, as if she could push the story away with the clicking speed of the needles. "That mother died before her daughter even reached third grade."

"There's nothing scarier than having kids," Mimi said, her dark eyes wide. "Halloween can't touch it."

"I know. But just think --," Nicole began.

"I can't," Mimi said. "I won't. And you shouldn't either. Everything to do with having children is terrifying. You can't afford to sweat the details."

But for Nicole, the details are suddenly front and center, as the lump turns out to be an aggressive cancer, and treatments don't work well. Luckily, her cousin Ari stored the cord blood -- that special blend of magically fertile stem cells that hesitates in the umbilical cord at birth -- of one of his children, deep frozen for emergencies, should that kind of crisis ever arrive. And the cord blood could help Mimi survive after all.

But Ari, at first glad to contribute, confronts an emergency for one of his own children and suddenly realizes he needs to keep that cord blood for them, just in case.

Mimi actually has a contract of sorts that Ari provided, saying he'd donate the blood. What will it cost her at the level of her soul, if she takes that document to court to sue for the cord blood?

Liz Rosenberg is known as a poet and a thoughtful reviewer of young-adult novels. Here she spins a lush novel of women's friendships that tackles the legal and medical issues usually found in the high-stakes thrillers written by, say, Jodi Picoult. But Rosenberg shifts the pace as well as the setting -- to Long Island, where she grew up, and to the cultural frame of modern Jewish life -- in order to deepen the issues and test their costs.

Readers with some experience in terms of Jewish thought will already have pricked up their ears at the surname Wiesenthal for Nicole's cousin Ari. Even more pressing is the name of the judge who accepts the case that Nicole brings: Judge Solomon Richter. "Richter" is German for judge, based on the word that means what is right; Solomon, of course, is often remembered for his wisdom in deciding which of two claimants was actually the mother of a baby being fought over. And Rosenberg is a poet -- not only the names, but each word in this powerful novel has been selected by eye and ear. To reach the eventual resolution, not only the characters but also the reader will test what justice means -- and also love.