If you're not familiar with the extraordinary oeuvre of Mozambican writer Mia Couto, Woman of the Ashes (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) is a good introduction. Based on historical events (with layers of magic realism, Achebestyle allegory, and folklore ladled on top), Couto's ninth novel is the first in a trilogy. It tells the story of Imani, a 15-year-old girl who finds herself playing a pivotal role in a 19th-century culture clash between an African emperor and Portuguese colonialists. Couto treats his characters to a world of blazing specificity, and yet Imani is also a vessel for our more contemporary battles: "I wasn't bom to be a person. I'm a race, I'm a tribe, I'm a sex, I'm everything that stops me from being myself."

Imagine me and you: Curtis Sittenfeld has her finger on the pulse of our intimate relationships with You Think It, I'll Say It (Random House), her first story collection. Media maven Joanna Coles takes an explanatory swipe at dating and romance in Love Rules (Harper). In The Female Persuasion (Riverhead), Meg Wolitzer's latest epic of American life, she pursues the friendship and mentorship between two women: "Greer didn't really know why Faith took an interest. But what she knew for sure, eventually, was that meeting Faith Frank was the thrilling beginning of everything."